How did I trade today? 20210304

Sum­ma­ry: Sus­tained Auc­tion into Sup­ply = Low/Medium Ini­tia­tive Activ­i­ty Day

#fin­twit #order­flow #day­trad­ing #dai­lyre­port­card #day­trad­ing #trad­inglifestyle #day­trader­life #grasshop­per­sanony­mous #trad­ing­forex #trad­ing­com­modi­ties #NEXT

Every trad­ing day I recap my trades, includ­ing more than entries and exits. Why did I take the trade? How did I man­age the trade, my emo­tions and cog­ni­tive func­tion? All the good stuff as well as all the ugly of being a day trad­er. As always, feel free to reach out to me. 

My week­ly goal: 

• Only trade the main fund

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Good Trade selection

Good Trade siz­ing or SL placement

Good Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt.

Good Risk Adjust­ed Returns

Yes Dai­ly review

Mup­pet meter (1 being best — 5 being worst): 1

Summary

• GBPNZD
  • IB: IB trad­ed low­er slight­ly accept­ing val­ue but not too con­fi­dent. Even if it was con­fi­dent with H4 c‑dem right at VAL the prof­it tar­get isn’t great. 
  • C: Closed as a Bull Engulf at VAH although I am reluc­tant to go long. Going with my gut has proven me right most times so going with that. Too much LTF con­ges­tion over­head and trad­ing right into H4/D1 QHi, D1 C‑sup and D1 200MA. Plus H4 trad­ed down from con­sol­i­da­tion. Although this could be that break out I was wait­ing for. 
  • D: Trad­ed high­er with 1 TPO exten­sion over IB
  • E: Closed mak­ing HHs in what looks like a sus­tained auction
  • F: Closed mak­ing HHs — entry off M30 Bull Engulf at VAH would have yield­ed max 1.4R so far. Sell­ing tail uncon­firmed yet. 
  • G: Test­ed IB edge high (as price does in a sus­tained auc­tion with con­ges­tion in near-prox­im­i­ty). M14 show­ing pos­si­ble redis­tri­b­u­tion even though a bear engulf was formed it has a long buy­ing wick
    • Closed high­er with­out mak­ing HHs with long buy­ing wick
    • Was think­ing that I could still go in as a sus­tained auc­tion entry how­ev­er this would just be out of FOMO as I did not visu­al­ize a price devel­op­ment at a pre­de­ter­mined lev­el. This would just be buy­ing the high which is always a bad idea. Instead I decid­ed to doc­u­ment­ed what a good late-sus­tained entry would be: M5 Bull Engulf at VWAP in DT at IB high for exam­ple. I will doc­u­ment more into my playbook. 
  • H: Made a slight HHM I expect over­lap noise to take it high­er though. Which is anoth­er mar­ket con­di­tion I need to con­sid­er in my reviews.

• GOLD
  • IB: Trad­ed lower
  • C: Extend­ed below IB trad­ing into LTF demand. Closed below IB. I should have giv­en more empha­sis to D1 nar­ra­tive coin­cid­ing with open sen­ti­ment. Will review lat­er. Don’t feel like trad­ing this due to new­ly formed H4 C‑dem right below.
  • D: Good thing I didn’t trade as price shot up after mak­ing a M15 bull­ish inside bar and con­tin­u­a­tion high­er. When Price and VWAP is in R it is less like­ly we can see a con­tin­u­a­tion to either side. Just like now we saw a rub­ber band snap back to M15 VWAP. 
    • Closed after retrac­ing almost all the way to IB high and closed as a M30 Bull Engulf. Failed Auc­tion. Although due to larg­er time­frame nar­ra­tive and IB exten­sion down we could see a con­tin­u­a­tion to the move down. 
  • E: Closed as a Bear­ish Inside Bar just below IB
  • F: Bull Engulf consolidation
  • G: Closed as an Inside Bar
  • H: Closed as a slight bull engulf

Hypos

GBPNZD

• Which hypo played out and how did I hypoth­e­size it play­ing out? How did it actu­al­ly play out? What did the pro­file and price action show?
• Hypo 1 — Return to Value
  • Nar­ra­tive: Open sen­ti­ment and larg­er time­frame bull­ish sen­ti­ment togeth­er with D1 narrative. 
  • Pre­ferred: Strong bull­ish price action near VAH, IB exten­sion up with sus­tained auc­tion tak­ing out LTF sup­plies and then clear­ing the H4 sup­ply.  Pos­si­ble test of val­ue with­out accept­ing and then revers­ing pos­si­bly through a failed auc­tion if not with­in IB.
  • Con: Trad­ing right into sup­ply could mean low/medium ini­tia­tive activity.
  • 100% cor­rect
  • Exact­ly as hypoth­e­sized. There was a slight val­ue accep­tance that wasn’t con­fi­dent at all. Fol­lowed by a Bull Engulf and sus­tained climb high­er extend­ing over IB. Due to over­head sup­plies it was a low/medium ini­tia­tive activ­i­ty day. 

GOLD

• Which hypo played out and how did I hypoth­e­size it play­ing out? How did it actu­al­ly play out? What did the pro­file and price action show?
• Hypo 1 — Return to Value
  • Nar­ra­tive: D1 C‑sup with­in val­ue, open sen­ti­ment, larg­er time­frame bull­ish sentiment
  • Pre­ferred: Bear­ish Price action, pos­si­bly test­ing val­ue and extend­ing IB down with a sus­tained auction. 
  • Con: H4 Bull Engulf premarket
  • 80% cor­rect
  • There was indeed an exten­sion down but with no fol­low-through. Con­sol­i­da­tion instead above new­ly formed H4 c‑dem.

Process

How well did I fol­low my process?

• How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? Was I aligned with mar­ket narrative?
  • GBPNZD: I did well to align myself with the mar­ket. Visu­al­ized what I want­ed to see but was hes­i­tant to trade into over­head sup­ply even though I visu­al­ized that that was the most prob­a­ble devel­op­ment at hand. I like pre­serv­ing men­tal cap­i­tal for “eas­i­er” trades. Got anoth­er good chance to doc­u­ment a low/medium ini­tia­tive sus­tained auc­tion into sup­ply for my playbook. 
  • Gold: Did well to not trade right into new­ly formed H4 c‑dem even though the nar­ra­tive looked to pos­si­bly break that lev­el. I didn’t feel com­fort­able so sat on my hands. 
• Was it a good trade (if any)
  • No trades taken
• What could I have done better?
  • Did all well. 
• How did I feel before, dur­ing, and after the trade?
  • No trades tak­en. Although I did feel like per­haps get­ting in on a late-sus­tained auc­tion entry but not by buy­ing the high. I decid­ed I need­ed a con­flu­ence of price devel­op­ment to hap­pen that I was stalk­ing to enter. Since this was not the case I can’t jus­ti­fy get­ting in any oth­er way and con­sid­er if I had that to be out of FOMO. Noth­ing else. 

How well did I man­age my phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive states?

• I did real­ly well here. I don’t mind not trad­ing. It used to both­er me a bit before. But I fol­low my rules and if there is one rule that jumps out above any oth­er it is this: The trade should be bla­tant­ly obvi­ous and jump­ing out to you grab­bing you by the throat and demand­ing to know why you are not tak­ing the trade. That’s when you have a good trade on your hand. Any­thing else is more of a gam­ble. I pre­fer to save men­tal cap­i­tal and take notes for mar­ket con­di­tions and when I encounter them (after suf­fi­cient enough data col­lect­ed) I know I will act. 

What did I learn today?

• That I don’t mind not trading. 
• That in a sus­tained auc­tion, if and when the ‘big move’ hasn’t hap­pened, we can see over­lap noise take it fur­ther on its way

What’s one thing I need to do more often?

• Take notes and be the stu­dent. It’s just a thing of beau­ty to see how price devel­ops between the time­frames and trad­ing locations. 

What’s one thing I need to do less often?

• Wor­ry about get­ting trades in. I did well today though.

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

• Yes I did. 

For my trade plan(s) on this par­tic­u­lar day, go here:

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210304

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210304

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