Morning preparation: Here is the relevant news for today for Econoday with the USA filter on. https://global-premium.econoday.com/byweek.asp?cust=global-premium&cty=US&lid=0 Here are the pivots for the day, which I get for free with a free account from the Swing Trader page on ShadowTrader.net. https://www.shadowtrader.net/newsletter-category/swing-trader/
Morning prep continued: Pivots put on ES chart. I just watch the ES chart during the day. It is too much work for my lazy butt to put them on the NQ chart too. Even though they don't move in tandem, they do "rhyme," and the ES has 4x or more of the volume of the NQ, so it is the king of the indices. ONH/Purple = Overnight High/High of Day (HOD) from yesterday and Low of the Day (LOD) Gold = Value Area High (VAH) and Value Area Low (VAL) Green = Pivot/Point of Control (POC) Squigly line is the VWAP line.
Morning Prep continued The teal line is the Cumulative Delta graph. This tells me that the more aggressive traders are NOT aggressively buying, but are selling. And they like the 3360 ES area. The "aggression" is determined by the trader hitting the buy market (ask) or the sell market (bid). (The On Balance Volume (OBV) is an indicator that is very similar to CDelta. But I prefer CDelta.) Just because the "Big Boys" are not pushing higher here, but the move is mainly by retail traders, doesn't mean that the retail traders are wrong. The big boys are wrong about 30% of the time in my opinion in my review of the CDelta success rate.
Morning Prep continued. This is my daily volume delta ES chart. A volume delta chart may be green even if the close was lower than the high (or red even if the close was higher than the low). It shows the buying or selling pressure just like the cumulative delta. The yellow hash tag is the Point of Control (POC) for the day. I have marked all of the significant levels which act as support or resistance: Open, Close, High, Low, POC. The 1, 2, 3 are the Taylor 3-day cycle numbers. I will discuss these later. The bands are a 7 day Keltner channel.
First trade of the day update. Total bust. -$20. I got in at the low end of a range expecting a breakdown. I should have waited for a penetration and retest of the low of the range at 3368. We were still in an uptrend, as determined by the larger GREEN 250 sma We were still in an uptrend, as evidenced by being above the up-sloping trend line. We are still in a very bullish market being at All Time Highs (ATH). I should have been more patient on the short or gone long with the trend. I often get out right away when a trade goes against me, but this one played with my mind. Being in a range, I was hoping that at the top of the range I would find some sellers. I journal very few of my trades, because I take so many (up to 20 per day). But you have now seen some of my thought processes. Maybe next time I will journal about a winner...
With your initial risk capital of $2,000 for 4 micro contracts ($500/contract),and your your $20 (40 Tick) initial stop loss per contract on MNQ,MYM,and M2K,don't you think you're risking at least 4% per trade (if not even per contract)? But if your initial stop loss is 10 ticks ($5) per contract then you're risking less than 4% for those 4 contracts.Please confirm if you're not risking more per trade than you think.