August 2, 2024 (1 trade) (-$85.50)
Overall Grade: D
Day Summary: Man trading is all about emotional control. After not taking any trades on Wednesday or Thursday I wanted to take a trade today. Ovbiously that is already a recipe for disaster lol. I need to remember it is not worth it to throw away money to the market simply because I feel like I missed opportunity in the markets and now I just want to create my own. I saw a few good opportunities to get short and didn't take them, and actually was in a good mindset of not needing to take a trade. However, as I stared at the chart well past 11am seeing all the missed opportunities I begain to lose that emotional control and ended up forcing a short with no set up at the bottom of a 2 day 200pt drop. Not smart. The good thing is this is an easy correction of simply walking away from the charts when there is no opportunity present for me. I just need to remain disciplined and remember it's only worth putting on risk if there is a set up where I feel like I have edge, even if that opportunity only comes a few times a week. Otherwise I am just gambling and throwing my money to the market. I do feel I am getting better at that again but it just goes to show that one weak moment can ruin your day/week or worse.
DAILY - ES
5 MIN - ES
TRADES
Trade 1 - Short 1 Contract @ No Set Up
- What was I thinking on this trade? SSimply that I was sick of watching it go short without me and that buyer would probably get trapped again
- What happened ? I shorted the bottom lol
- Entry bad - especially after starting to create higher lows finally
- held past stop bc frustration - bad
- all around this trade was a gamble - no edge
- avoid trades like these. they aren't worth it
Emotion: The trade I took was an F trade but I gave myself an overall grade of D on the day because for most of the day I was content with not taking a trade. It was just the last 20mins or so when I started to get annoyed and I thought about closing the charts and walking away which turned out to be what I should have done. I know better than this and it was a well deserved loss.
It's like I know exactly what I need to do but I just can't get myself to do it or at least maintain it. I am going to playbook some set ups and try to trade those and only those. That will include entry criteria that should be met prior to entering the trade to increase my chance of winning. I also need to continue to build and practice good habits, emotionally and trading related.
- Only trade playbooked set ups
- Always stick to planned stop loss
- Hold winning trades
- Add to winning trades if there is continuation likely
- Go against the crowd and look for traps (I was in the retail trap on my trade today)
