August 31st, 2022

    Today I broke one of my major rules of basically Never go Long. I thought that since we had 2 bigger red days and we gapped up overnight that we could possibly see a decent green move on the day that could push back up over 400. Even though I broke my rule I still traded very well considering the circumstances. 

1st Trade Long (hidden green arrow in middle of frame): This was a decent entry because I waited for the 8 to break and then retest. Although I was just a moment too early. I lost about 20 dollars and stopped out at the perfect low before it started moving upwards. Sadly I completely missed the move and kinda got pissed but then i thought to myself "What would a professional do?" and the answer is easy: Never let a Loss Personally Hurt You. I really wanted to use this loss to short the next move and just hope it would move down cuz I fucked up the first trade by only 1 minute. Instead I waited for a confirmation of the continuation of the uptrend (so i thought) and then took another trade.

Mistakes: I dont think I made any mistakes on the execution of this trade because I respected my risk and held for my targets. I waited for some confirmation but I need to remember that no matter what kind of confirmation you get on long moves, they will be extremely difficult. It is best to completely stay away from any long moves in this market. The opportunity is massively skewed to the short side and using these moving average strategies must be done in the prevaililng macro trending direction. It does not work in both directions, this (8ema break) strategy is meant only for shorting and that is it. If you want to take these trades that is fine but you must use very tiny size.

Solutions: Never go long

2nd Trade Long (middle green arrow): When we broke the downtrend and started moving up above the 8ema, we also crossed the 20. This gave my an indication that if we can hold this frontisde move (even though it isnt a frontside) then I could get a possible continuation long play. Sadly I was extremely wrong. I took the break of the 8 for a long because I thought it would use it to fakeout. I lost another 30 on this one and it really put me on tilt. 

Mistakes: Dont use the 8ma strategy for long position plays. That is an entirely different type of strategy that if I want to execute properly I need to create a new system for. For now I am not changing my focus from the 8ma short to the reversal long pattern. Ill stick to the thing that is proven to make me money for now.

Solutions: Never go Long

3rd Trade Long  (middle of frame): I took again the rebound off the lows for the 8 break and retest. This time it actuallly worked and I held through a pretty nice bottoming fakeout where I was down a little over $70 unrealized at the peak. This trade brought me back to only -$15. To say that this was a bad trade is just stupid because I really kept my composure from the previous 2 losses and waited for an even better confirmation. Once we broke the 8 and the 20 was overlapping (showing consolidaion) I was more eager to take the trade because I love when the stock and the moving averages catch up to eachother since that means we are getting a balance between supply and demand which shows that sellers are weakening. I caught almost this entire move to the upside and sold pretty perfectly at the top for a near 1.5 point gain (3x my target). Today is the perfect example of my previous life as a trader. I took 3 long plays. 1 worked 2 didnt. on the 2 i lost I lost 20 dollars and 25 dollars. On the win I made 35 dollars. that is a 33% win rate with a 1.5 R. THAT IS NOT PROFITABLE. The only world where you make money going for long reversals that fight the macro trend is when you are so disciplined and perfect at trading that you finally wait for the perfect confirmation and nail it. Sadly, that is extremely stupid and will never fucking happen so please just stop doing this. Until we have a weekly uptrend this is absolutely pointless and a waste of time and more importantly a waste of money. 

Mistakes: none, perfect trade. Just a long trade which i should not be doing.

Solutions: Never go Long

4th Trade Short: It is just hilarious and makes perfect sense that I make money on the short trade very easily and quick and hit my target within 15 minutes. This day is a fucking perfect example of exactly what I need to do to completely change my trading and take it to the next level. STOP GOING FOR REVERSALS ON THE MACRO TIMEFRAME. I need to just follow the big money and go with them when they decide they need to dump trillions of dollars. The long moves will exist again one day but while we are holding this extremely strong weekly downtrend just fucking avoid them. I know that tomorrow you will see a ridiculous move to the upside and get pissed as fuck that you made this your rule but just let it go. Take the lesson and move on. YOU HAVE TO WORK 10 TIMES AS HARD TO MAKE MONEY GOING LONG IN A BEAR MARKET.  Repeat that 15 times tomorrow in your head and if you see a day where the only posiiton that makes sense is going long then congratulations you just discovered a way to guarnatee you can give yourself a free vacation from work. If the best moves of the day are going to be long STOP TRADING AND GO OUTSIDE. I need to do something other than trading when these types of days appear. It will save me loads of money if I can just avoid these shit days altogether or I could just go short lol. 

Mistakes: none, perfect trend trade. We broke teh previous day close and we retested the 20 that was in line with the 8 and I assumed we would get continuation to the downside and that is exactly what happened. Again another example of why shorting is just so much easier. This trade is not even clean or good technically but it was the easiest money of the day by a fucking long shot. 

Solutions: N/A

POTENTIAL TRADES MISSED:

1st Potential Trade Short: I couldve just shorted once we broke the 8 and 20 to the upside then we crashed right back down through them to the downside. This was a great example of a trend trade where you get a break of the moving averages to the opposite of the prevailing trend then you get the false push and fakeout move back to the downside and below the moving averages, followed by a retest entry then a strong move down. This wouldve been 2x my target and was a great trend trade to the downside. Although this is pretty on this timeframe it is not so pretty on the daily. We were holding higher lows from yesterday after about 6% of selling on the SPY in 2 days. I think that this is still a C+ or B- trade at best but only because of the micro timeframe being extrended to the downside. Again though, It is always smarter to just stick to the prevailing macro and micro trend so long as they are the same. Remember it is always easier to continue to make lower lows than it is to hold higher lows in a weekly (micro) timeframe.