August 20, 2025 (2 Trades) (+$86.25)
Overall Grade: B+
Day Summary: Today was a day where I took two good trades, but significantly undercapitilized (not the right word) on the opportunity present. As a trend continuation trader, days like today are where you can make up for tons of small losses, and I failed to do that. I chalk that up to not havind a good grasp on the current market sentiment. In May, I was catching a lot of good short opportunities that were to my set up, but the market was lacking continuation of those movements, and many times, I allowed a good trade to reverse on me. However, now that the market has recently been showing short continuation, I have been taking the winners off at support instead of holding for the breakdown (in theory this is the same as a long concept but I have been short biased this year - not good - be an observer).
To sum it up, considering that short continuation trades have been working over the last month, and with fear over the upcoming Jackson Hole event, I should have known the current market sentiment better and held these trades (see below)
DAILY - ES
5 MIN - ES
TRADES
Trade 1 - Short 2 MES @ 21 EMA Reject + Price Action + Closed Early
Grade: A-
- entry was great
- reading price action was great
- minimal risk - good
- playbook set up - good
- target was 6416.50 - should have held considering recent market sentiment (wait until you see Trade 2 and look where Trade 1 actually was)
Trade 2 - Short 2 MES @ Trend Continuation + Aggressive Entry + Closed Early
Grade: B+
- This was an aggressive entry going for trend continuation but intuition was strong on this trade
- risk was higher due to the aggressive entry
- good job holding through the small drawdown
- but then I took the trade off early again because I was trading my p/l - bad
- Again, the pop up was failing (what your intuition had strong conviction of) and then I took it off once it started working even with the current market sentiment - bad
- stop trading your p/l - the chart does not care about your p/l
