Today was not a bad day. I made almost $100 which is cool but wow I left so many opportunities on the table yet again. This seems to be the theme of the year so far. I have been trading somewhat well besides yesterday and I have had some bigger green days but they are still quite small in comparison to what I know is possible.
1d:2m Futures
1st Trade: Trend Continuation Short
2nd Trade: Trend Continuation Short
3rd Trade: Trend Continuation Short
- The first trade I thought we were going to breakdown through the LOD quickly and I was immediately proven wrong as we spiked back up through the 13ema. I am glad that I stopped out this trade immedaitely and only lost $10 on it. Dont think this was a good or a bad trade. In terms of execution of thesis it was definitely as good as it can get for a loss.
- The second trade Is a breakdown through the wedge. As you can see the wedge was first broken to the downside and we spiked higher immediately going back into the wedge. Then right after we broke to the upside and AGAIN we flushed back down into the wedge. This is when I knew that we were most likely going to continue lower. When you get a Double Reversal on a pattern, usually the second one is the direction of the trend. So first we broke to downside then reversed up. Then we broke to upside and reversed down. That was my signal to get short. I took the pop off the bottom of the wedge (similar to first trade) but this one actually worked. I held to my risk which was the 13 ema and we never went back above my entry and quickly after we flushed about 16 points lower in the first red move. I got a full 10 points on this trade. I like the short but the cover is a little too early. I cant be perfect but i shouldve sold when we extended 10 points from the 13ema. This wouldve made me another 10 dollars only but I should stick to my rules when trading these styles.
- This third trade was not terrible but also not great. I took the short trend continuation when we hit the 13ema again. It was a large spike off the bottom so I was a little weary of the move since we had been choppy for a few days. I took the short really only looking for 2-3 points and I got that pretty much perfectly. I held for my risk which was about 2 points for my reward which was about 2 points. This put me up $50 on the day in this account. To go from -$10 to +$50 means I made about 12 points on the SPY Micros. Considering my entire target was only 5 points per day for a large chunk of january, thats pretty damn good for one day.
1d:30m Options
- I shorted this move yesterday as we came back up because I thought that the information that JP said changed absolutely nothing and somewhat made things worse because he reiterated the fact that they have to keep rates higher for longer. That has the potential to crush the dreams of bulls who are basically pumping this market higher on the sole hope that we are cutting rates and the end of 23'. I think that is very optimistic and slightly absurd so I shorted. I ended up making around $50 on this trade which is cool but I was down probably around that same amount near the market close yesterday. Thankfull it flushed 2 points right before close yesterday and in the premarket today we were trending lower but this trade is still just sketchy and very unclean. I dont like it at all and I think it really was just me getting lucky again and basically fomo entering in a separate account because I felt like I was cheated in all my shorts I took in futures yesterday. I dont really wanna do this again. I can see how this one made a "little" bit more sense than the other ones but still not likely to win.
Where did I go wrong today?
I really should have kept trading in my futures account. I get so PnL focused when I start to get around the $50 profit mark and that is just not good. Once I hit that number I just end up pussying out of a lot of trades and being very conservative which we know does not work in trend continuation trading. You have to trust the trend and take that trade no matter how extended the move is. There were so many amazing trading opportunities where I couldve made back to back 10 point trades and somewhat easily. Shit I couldve had 4 or 5 5 point trades in there as well. I am not angry about missing the afternoon action which was a little bit more of my style because I was exercising and taking care of myself but once we broke down I really shouldve just taken every lower high for a move back through the lows.
1d:2m Missed Trades
I know this is somewhat ridiculous and I wouldve surely taken a couple losses in there but If I was watching the tap and bookmap while paying attention to the lower highs and potential moves lower i couldve taken at least 2 or 3 more 10 point winners on the day. I probably wouldve also lost around 5-7 points going for these trades back to back to back but that still is around 15 more points I shouldve made today. That wouldve put me at $125 in profit just in my futures account then another $50 in my TOS swing options accound. I really couldve cleaned up and capitalized on a trending day since they seem to not happen very often anymore. I can trade like this I just need to fight that urge to stop once I am ahead. I need to keep pushing sometimes.
