Iâm happy with my trades today even if some didnât work out the way I wanted it to. Trade#1 â I waited the chop out and decided to get short after we breached my pivot at 1126. I remained short although price showed small signs of reversing but didnât breakout above the opening low of 1126.25. *Short 1125.50 - 10:18 EST Stop: 1126.75 Target: 1123.75 *Cover 1123.75 - 10:58 EST [ P/L: + 1.75 ] Trade#2 â Tough pattern to add a short position but I covered my trade with minimal loss. *Short 1118.00 - 12:29 EST Stop: 1120.25 Target: 1116 *Cover 1119.25 - 12:46 EST [ P/L: - 1.25 ] Trade#3 â Small divergence signal with a break in trendline but just no follow through to the upside. Covered position out of nervousness and I wanted to regroup. *Long 1118.50 - 13:55 EST Stop: 1116.50 Target: 1122 area (breakout) *Exit 1117.75 - 14:18 EST [ P/L: - .75 ] Trade#4 â Took small divergence signal on 1 minute chart but price ran down tagged my stop and reversed off the low of the day all in 5 minutes to continue up to my target of 1118.75. What a bummer!!! I was hoping we would recover from the early sell-off but I was early with my LONG positions prior to more change of trend indication. *Long 1116.00 - 14:43 EST Stop: 1114.00 Target: 1118.75 *Stop 1114.00 - 14:48 EST [ P/L: - 2 ] Stopped trading at 14:49 EST!!!!
Wasnât as disciplined as the prior two days but Iâm still working on being successful with certain aspects of my trading. I realize I need to work a bit more on my chart analysis and always stay abreast of what the market is doing throughout the session. Trade#1 â Price slowly creeped higher from its open of 1123.50 and stopped at 1126.25, since we didnât turn off that price strongly I decided to get long with the direction price was moving and to test the strength of the current high. Price just moved sideways and I decided to exit my position. *Long 1125.00 - 10:29 EST Stop: 1123.50 Target: undetermined early on *Cover 1125.00 - 10:43 EST [ P/L: 0 ] Trade#2 â Had a small divergence signal develop during the chop but it turned out price was still creeping higher and wanted to continue up. I decided to cover after seeing some positive divergence. This type of price action is always confusing but Iâll get better at reading and analyzing the strength of the move (or if itâs exhaustive, etc), coupled with several other things. *Short 1125.00 - 10:45 EST Stop: 1126.50 Target: 1123 *Cover 1125.50 - 11:09 EST [ P/L: - 0.50 ] Trade#3 â Completely awful trade because I didnât stick with my plan and tried a setup I should be avoiding. The small uptrend from the open definitely showed signs of ending when we stalled for almost an hour. I tried a stupid move by getting long on the pullback but price broke my trendline and continued down. This is an example of poor discipline and I got what I deserved. Boy was this trade stupid because I failed to trade what I saw on my charts and because I shouldnât be trading this pattern per my rules. *Long 1126.25 - 11:52 EST Stop: 1124.25 Target: above 1127.50 *Stop 1124.25 - 12:26 EST [ P/L: - 2 ] Trade#4 â After we played around the open from 12:30-13:30 I realized we werenât going much lower and the small downtrend was ending. We started to push higher but I didnât enter off that pivot because I wanted to see if the upside strength would continue. I wanted to get long but price started to stall around 14:00, and a sell signal generated on my indicators. When we didnât set a new low I realized the momentum wasnât to the downside. Got long and set reasonable profit target around the current HOD. Much better trade than all others! *Long 1125.25 - 14:15 EST Stop: 1124.00 Target: 1127.25 *Exit 1127.25 - 14:32 EST [ P/L: + 2 ]
Missed sell-off early on do to some tech problems. I was able to quickly resolve the issue and catch the change of trend at the low of the day. Overall, my day was great and Iâm extremely happy with my trading today. I was able to pull some nice points from the market today. Trade#1 â Took divergence signal around my S1 level after price broke my trend line. I caught this reversal right on time and managed this trade properly. Set my target around my pivot and reached it easily. *Long 1125.00 - 10:48 EST Stop: 1122.50 Target: 1128 *Exit 1128.00 - 11:41 EST [ P/L: + 3 ] Trade#2 â Took divergence signal off a double top pattern but I failed to gauge the strength of the trend from the LOD. We moved almost 12 index points from the low and stalled around the 1134-1135 area. I set a tight stop as to not waste money on this trade. In hindsight I should have covered this trade because after I entered, ES price action traded sideways without moving to the downside (price actually traded higher). Next time I will approach strong moves of 12 points or more with strict caution and may enter off a lower high pattern (as this will be more confirmation to the downside). *Short 1134.00 - 13:17 EST Stop: 1135.50 Target: below the open *Stop 1135.50 - 13:48 EST [ P/L: - 1.50 ] Trade#3 â Entered short on the lower high pattern as this was more confirmation of a reversal, coupled with small divergence on indicators. After we broke my up trend line I figured it was all over but a lot of aggressive buyers came back briefly to push the price higher. My initial profit target was around my pivot but I adjusted it too quickly out of nervousness. It pays to be patient as this would have been a big gain. *Short 1133.75 - 14:34 EST Stop: 1136.75 Target: 1128.50 *Cover 1131.75 - 14:57 EST [ P/L: + 2 ]
I learned a lot from todayâs trading! I will learn to adjust my targets according to current market conditions and avoid being over zealous on wanting to profit big on each trade. For some reason I wanted 4 points on each of my last 3 long positions and consequently didnât make much at all. Overall, Iâm happy with my patience and entries!!!! Trade#1 â Decided to get short after we opened because price traded down off my R1 level of 1141.60, I entered relatively on time and price continued down to my target of 1138 but I never got a fill there. Price returned back to the open tagging my stop I reset. *Short 1140.00 - 9:36 EST Stop: 1142.00 Target: 1138 *Stop 1139.75 - 9:53 EST [ P/L: + 0.25 ] Trade#2 â At the time I wanted the opening low of 1138.00 to hold. I decided to get long at that level but we didnât get higher. My stop took me out! This was a high risk trade without confirmation. *Long 1137.75 - 10:28 EST Stop: 1136.75 Target: around the open *Stop 1136.75 - 10:31 EST [ P/L: - 1 ] Trade#3 â Got long off a divergence setup on my 1 minute chart (used in conjunction with my 3 minute chart). However price didnât trade considerably higher, decided to cover as a result. *Long 1136.50 - 10:47 EST Stop: 1135.25 Target: 1139.50 *Exit 1136.75 - 10:55 EST [ P/L: + 0.25 ] Trade#4 â After price bounced off my S1 level of 1134.50, I decided to enter on the first higher low to confirm potential change of direction. Entered on time but didnât set attainable profit target and I ended up making nothing on this trade. I reset my stop like usual when price runs in my favor but it eventually got tagged. *Long 1136.50 - 12:06 EST Stop: 1133.50 Target: 1140.50 *Stop 1136.50 - 12:37 EST [ P/L: 0 ] Trade#5 â I decided to reenter my long position on the second higher low pattern to see if price would eventually push higher. Was patient on this one but my target was again unattainable do to the current conditions. I ended up watching price trade higher throughout the lunch hour but I didnât make the best of this trade. Decided to cover for a quick profit, ran out of patience because my target was unattainable. *Long 1136.00 - 12:52 EST Stop: 1133.50 Target: 1140.50 *Stop 1137.00 - 14:03 EST [ P/L: + 1 ]
Last November, I discontinued my live trading and went back to the drawing board to fix some of the issues that plagued my trading. Since then, I was able to focus on my errors, add new signals and learn new strategies for trading my system. Currently, I feel Iâm ready to trade live capital and I will be starting tomorrow with real trades. My goal is to practice strict discipline and control! As of now, I probably wonât trade the open for the first hour, as this will give me time to analyze price action and paper trade. Nevertheless, I will execute trades later in the session. I will appropriately distinguish paper from real trades on my charts.