you clearly suffer from some sort of chronic depression at the core, and it manifests in all the ways described: compulsive behavior, fits of anger, lack of attention, lack of focus, addiction to the adrenaline - cortisol cycle of emotional chemicals, etc. you definitely know what to do or at least what needs to be done next in your trading. whether you can control yourself thru the long-term trading process is your only question left to be answered for yourself
Simulated Trading Number of trades - 1 ES points +5 I missed the decline this morning from 1695 area, as I was waiting for a decent pullback to jump on the downtrend. The pullback never materialized and the price continued down. As I could not find a good risk / reward entry for a short, I passed on a trade. Next opportunity came when price broke 1685 level that I was watching since yesterday and pulled back to prior support. I shorted 1685, and covered at 1680 in the late afternoon choppy market for a profit of 5 ES points. This was the only trade for today. Despite of the profitable day, trade execution was poor today - good entry was at ~ 1691 with a stop around 1695. There was plenty of warning - trendline break, lower high and a break of two minor support levels. The reason I missed the trade was that I was waiting for a pullback. In other words, I was mentally predicting what was going to happen, and was ready to execute on that prediction. Clear mistake of not trading price action developing in the moment, but trying to forecast. One more thing to work on.
your analysis about your trade is pretty objective. the real problem here is: you already saw the downside, but wait for pullback to short. when you see the pullback, your mind may think it is uptrend, you may wait for downside pullback. you are stuck. for day trading. that is definitely no no. day trading is hard, you must act on what is going on, not what you want. I was trading STX, in the morning it was dropping, I wait until it hits 40.8 (last time low), I bought STX 43 call around 0.1 to 0.2, sold it at 1+, made almost10 fold gains. someone like you may wait for bounce to short, you will make a huge mistake: you are counter-trend trading the intra-day timeframe, the worst trading strategy. the best one is: follow intra-day trend and the long-term daily trend. but to a day trader, you must first follow the intra-day trend, and you donot need follow the long-term trend. take advantage of what is happening in1'2''3'5' timeframe is hard. the market's mini-direction/turn/trend is almost unpredicatble. when you see up, nextminute it is dropping and is irregular. but from a little bit long-term, the picture is more predictable. that is why I do not day trade most time. casually I do,but justfor those strongdays. othertime, just play the big picture. I shorted ES at 1672, 1685, 1695. just hold so far. I donot day trade. Ishorted Crude when it 108+ (buy puts and uso puts), already produced great profit. sell high and buy low. we know that is roughly the top, but sepcially we are not accurate. I am top picker. buy some trending well stocks, stay there, let it grow. forget about getting rich quick, happily enjoy free time. predict short-term market direction proves hard. trading does need prediction, it is not wrong.but need far vision. not miscro-vision. most people has the far vision!
Simulated Trading Number of trades - 1 ES points +0.25 I made one trade today, which was a break-even. I moved a stop to break-even + tick when the trade was in the money for ~ 6 pts. The reason I did not take the profit was that I was trading with the trend in both intermediate-term and sort-term (4tick) chart timeframes. As such, statistically speaking, the trade had more room to run than 6 pts. I didn't happen, and I walked out with no loss.
The methodology that I trade is simple: I look at three different charts for each instrument that I trade All charts have time element removed and are either range or P&F charts Removing time is my personal preference because it represents pure price action and also it self-adjusts for volatility. For example, in highly volatile market 15 min chart provides me with no useful information as a lot granularity is hidden within a bar As I mentioned above, I use three charts - fast (2tick range for ES), trend definition (4tick range) and long-term trend (P&F) Trend definition (4tick range) defines the trend that I trade. Trends exist on multiple levels, but this is the one I like the best - it keeps the number of trades and profit potential per trade that are comfortable for me. I look at support / resistance, threndlines, waves (higher highs / lower lows, ranges). Looking at 4tick chart, my trade plan is to either enter into a new trend right after reversal or on pullbacks in the direction of the trend Fast chart (2tick) is used on two occasions - to time a pullback entry and when 4tick chart becomes unreadable (normally in climax type price action) When markets get too fast even for 4tick chart, I have a set of rules when I switch from trading 4 tick chart to 2 tick chart to have a better read of price action. I also have a set of rules when I must switch back to 4tick The only purpose of the P&F chart is to give me a clue about potential exit. Example: P&F shows uptrend, and I took a short based on 4tick price action - I will be looking to book a profit as soon as possible. If P&F is in downtrend, and I took a short, I am willing to sit tight and let the trade run, but only after I have my stop at break-even. The biggest dilemma that I am facing is determining when pullback is not a pullback, but a new trend (example: today's trade). Not sure I will ever find an answer to this one.
Simulated Trading Number of trades - 1 ES points +6.75 Trade setup today was a to short a pullback in the downtrend. Both 4tick charts and P&F charts were in downtrend, so it looked like an easy short. It was not. First mistake for today was jumping too early at 1678 - I tried to beat my own method in an attempt to a better price. I did not win anything as waiting for a proper signal would have put me in the trade at approximately the same price. I exited the trade for 6.75 pts profit at P&F resistance. Then things went bad. I passed on two long signals. Both would have been the best trades of the week. I was extremely biased towards continuation of decline and ignored price action screaming to buy in the late afternoon.
Simulated Trading Weekly Update Since this is the first full week, I am showing results since inception. Mistakes are as follows: - I missed 4 valid (3 long / 1 short) setups this week due to either fear of loss and/or short bias. The table above shows that all trades were short, so I was clearly trading with predisposition that the market is due for a significant multi-day correction. Because of this I had two fears - entering any longs, because the market is about to crash, and fear of missing on a 20-30 pts trade on a short side - I missed a good entry on Thursday because I had a mental picture of what the market is supposed to do. This fantasy prevented me from reading price action correctly, and I missed a good entry. - I jumped into the trade before the valid signal today On a positive side, emotions were all under control by the end of the week. Sim trading is therapeutical.
I agree. I use EMA to gauge and bar color change to determine a pullback. of course that is just a guess. only late on you know it is a pullback or trend change. it is fruitless to judge whether it is a pullback or not. always there is some trap pullbacks. what I did is enter a trade if that meets my fading stragety. then I am well prepared beforehand if something is wrong. prepare to cut loss at some early onsigns of trend reversal. I normally short a bounce when it prints big thrust green bar then quick red bar(I think bottom pickers and early buyers panic to sell), normally the odd of success is very high around 80~90%. but still 5~10%may step into a strong trend's dip, I may just short a very exact bottom.then forced to cut loss immediately. my point is: you will never judge a pullback/bounce top correctly each time. with experience accumulated, maybe improved a little bit. but will not get 100% right. what you need foucus on is: if wrong, how to cut loss/minimize loss.