thoughts: 4th trade I bought the dip expecting a short return to near highs. 5th trade I expected a strong selloff (mostly intuition) was also probably not the best trade (not really sure why I shorted, but I did and I will accept that something in my brain told me to). Both were losing trades and since I haven't traded in a while it still affects my mental but I will keep note of the feeling. With a lot lower risk it is easier to manage the aspect of losses. Before I had serious mental strain from having too much size. I always have the urge to be in control. It is interesting because I do think the market has some randomness, but at the same time it cannot fully be. The execution algorithms or buyers/sellers however you want to name them are also controlled by humans. In a sense we must front run to make money. If you bet directionally that is. So wanting to lock-in profits or not is really about control(will the selloff or buyup end? etc. etc.). Today I just set my trades and left the room. I accepted the fate of the trade which helped me deal with my random bouts of doubt I had yesterday. But that is not to say I did not have them. I started to wonder what is it that makes me see a setup intraday and makes me go place a trade. Honestly I must be trading on mostly discretion with a few rules in place but I will probably work on developing a few set-ups/plays that I can always play towards. For now I know a few but a lot of it is still really intuition. Gotta get back to doing stats to have more confidence in myself and my setups.
New plan, will stick to this one (let's see if I do ) looked at a lot of charts yesterday (did some stats will do more overtime). The plan aligns with how I have traded recently as well. So it isn't so different I just tried to improve my play opportunities to something more observable instead of discretion. Might increases trade per day amount a bit but will adapt as I get more info.
[#6, SHORT, ENTRY: 5457.5 @ 10:00:03, STOP: 10pts, TARGET: DISCRETION, EXIT: 5425 @ 11:03:46] [#7, LONG, ENTRY: 5425 @ 11:03:46, STOP: 10pts, TARGET: DISCRETION, EXIT: @]
The brain is a wild thing. Yesterday I had hella doubts, now I feel like I am gunna become a billionaire. Good thing to keep note of, might make more mistakes like back then when I was winning. Probably will be in the green today after these two trades. Have some things to do later on so might end this trade early if it takes too long(although it is breaking my plan, but I think life is more important than a Topstep account). With these two trades I will still have 40 shots in my account, since the max loss rides along until 50k. 48k->50k, then it stagnates.
[#9, LONG, ENTRY: 5481.25 @ 12:29:03, STOP: 10pts, TARGET: DISCRETION, EXIT: 5,500.50 @ 13:14:04] This is either a blessing or a curse, I was watching 1second time frame for some reason and sold, not part of the plan....