Well, stop was hit. Turns out had I used a closer profit target, I would have made money. This is the part that makes it hard to trade part time at least in my view. For a short term trade, I need to watch the market in order to adjust my position when needed. At 330 AM this morning, a bullish price pattern appeared at at bull trend line. I should have exited the short, and went long at around 1311. I saw this trend line last night, but of course I wanted to maximize my profit potential. Next time I should go for the shorter target since I must sleep and forget about the market. For tonight, we are at a level that is being rejected.... I'm not getting bullish here. I'm waiting for a bull TL break, then a bearish price pattern.
I was home to day trade yesterday. I had a very good day until my last trade. I went +$400 to -$500. I did a very good job playing the range. I focused on the long side because of what I observed from the COT... However, there was no price action suggesting a good buy. I averaged down into a position where I expected support and exited as the market fell farther. I was stuck in the range trading mode with calls for some anticipation. The proper side to me was short. I for some reason ignored all what price was telling me in larger time frames. The best trade according to proper analysis was at 4 AM on Friday morning.
Shorts around 1322 were very solid trades as well, especially after the range developed (selling the tops of ranges is a logical trade). The larger time frame made it clear the failure of this level was likely. Get out of the short when a close occurs above the bear trendline.
I wanted to do a quick scalp overnight, however, I was way too early. I had the direction right. My buy stop ended up being at the exact top of price action. Typical.
This week, I am going to trade an edge I have defined over the past few weeks. I followed the plan 100% today. I avoided chop mid day, as the trend consolidated. My first trade was around 9 am, the second was around 2 pm. I traded the ESM this AM and switched to ESU around 1400 central. Looking over the ESU contract, there were 12 trades I could have taken between the hours of 830 and 1515. 10 of those would have hit their profit target. The losers were 2 pts and 3 pts. The winners were all 2 pts.