January 13, 2026 (-$97.50) - Tick Too The Plan

Lesson/Review

January 13, 2026 (2 Trades) (-$97.50)

Overall Grade: C+

Day Summary: Even though today was a red day, I wouldn't say my performance was horrible. I made some mistakes, especially on Trade 2, but I was very close from having a nice one and done green day today so a small change in execution could have changed the outcome. My first trade would have been a solid win had I just stuck to the plan, but I allowed my emotions to get in the way of that. That being said, I really didn't feel comfortable in Trade 1 and closing it to minimize risk early on in the session wasn't an aweful idea. Trade 2 was definitely a subpar set up and was mostly taken out of FOMO so I need to recognize and work on that.


DAILY - ES


5 MIN - ES

TRADES

Trade 1 - Short 2 MES @ 21 EMA Trap

Grade: B-

  • playbook set up - good
  • entry - good
  • didn't feel good about this trade because I thought it wasn't ready to move yet which was really just my imagination, which is why I decided to close this trade manually for a small loss - it was also early in the session so I didn't want to start the day off with a normal size loss
  • preset stop [close above yesterday's high (7025.25)] never hit, should have stuck to the plan because it went pretty much straight to target - 7012.50
  • mismanaged this trade but overall this is not a bad trade


Trade 2 - Short 2 MES @ 21 EMA Trap

Grade: C-

  • entry - FOMO bad - half size at least though
  • playbook set up? yes but subpar
  • second entry was really worse and validated the trade as a subpar set up due to the PA going into where I entered the 2nd contract (HLs)
  • after such a sell off, we were do for a pop and this was not a quick enough pop to bait in longs looking for a reversal
  • FOMO from Trade 1 and a short I took on the funded around 10:15am
  • I knew before the stopout that I was going to take a loss on this trade (shows how important PA is)


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