September 15th, 2022

360d:4h

1d:5m

1d:2m

1st Trade: Trend Reversal Short

1d:2m (left) 1d:5m (right)

Pretty depressed that I fucked this trade up. I correctly avoided the first fakeout that spiked through the high then I failed to realize that a lower high was actualy a cleaner setup than my normal Trend Reversal setup where I wait for a 5 minute trend break then take the retest of that zone. Sadly, I took the short when it seemed like the trend broke and I stopped out near the highs. I think in this scenario it wouldve been much smarter to take the top with a very low delta contract just so I could get my feet wet. Let me explain. 

See this massive range that we are in? It wouldve been way smarter to just take the top here and risk 396.23 and risk about 30 dollars on a 30 delta contract and have about a 1 dollar stop with a price target of about opening price. That wouldve been the much better way to approach this setup. I think that I really need to start looking at the daily anytime I am looking for any trade. Yes, I already do this somewhat heavily but I think it should be much more emphasized than I do. It needs to be known that when these trades line up on the daily or hourly or 15 minute or whatever then that is a much better setup than I thought it would be.

2nd Trade: Trend Reversal Long

This was just a bozo trade where I was looking at the demand zone that was here from yesterday and I just thought we would fakeout and go back to the frontside. There was no indication of this happening and I really should not have taken this out of just a pure "oh maybe this will happen" trade. I need to take clean and clear setups NOT just "oh this will bounce." Absolutely unacceptable and if I want to be as successful as I want to I cannot be doing stupid shit like this. I only lost like 12 dollars haha but still its the principle that matter much more than the P/L. Setups should only be taken and when they align with the daily or 15m chart it should be seen as much cleaner and I should be using exponential sizing. 

3rd Trade: Trend Continuation Short

This was actually a very nice move lower and I just want to point out that I ONLY took this trade because of all of the studying I have been doing and I noticed that this high (exactly where the "3" is on the chart) made a lower high from where the previous lower low was. In my studying I found that when these things happen we get clean continuation to the downside and actually taking a trade like this whereas before (a month ago) I wouldve never taken something like this, is FUCKING AWESOME. I am so proud of myself hahaha yeah i might be alittle insufferable here but I HAVE CRIED OVER HOW HARD TRADING IS. This shit is so difficult and I have been putting in bare minimum 40 hours a week for the last 2 years and I love seeing progress like this. Makes me very happy. 

4th trade: Trend Continuation Short

FUCK YES. Again I only took this trade because of what happened 2 days ago. Look.

So in this setup the other day we have a higher high that was below the previous low of the day. See on the top left of the screen we have a lower low then a huge selloff. We moved sideways for a little making some higher highs and then on that last push we failed exactly where that low was. So back to the trade I took today we have a high that was right below that previous low of the morning. A PERFECT time to go for a continuation bet to the downside. I took this trade with about a 35 delta contract and made about 1.30 points on it. Just a perfect entry and a pretty damn good exit. I think the better exit is the attempt at a lower low but that is really not a marginal difference and I think selling before the attempted spike where the SPY spiked earlier in the session is a much safer place to get out. 

Takeaways:

I really do like the 2nd and 3rd trades today and the 1st was a decent idea but just a little too early and also a little too passive. I shouldve seen the range from yesterday and used that as a really nice play to get in. Oh well, I really like how I was mostly calm after the first loss besides that second trade where I really just took a shit setup and really was just an overall shit trade with no basis of reasoning. I really need to start avoiding that shit but clearly I still have some emotional things to deal with to be able to take a loss and completely relax and wait for a good setup to show itself. I realize now that I can really trade the SPY all day and find really nice setups so THERE IS NO RUSH. Come from an abundance mindset instead of a "I NEED TO MAKE MONEY" mindset. There will always be moves to take and there will always be a cleaner setup ahead. I need to keep reminding myself of this. If I couldve nailed that first trade and taken a clean point then I probably wouldve been slightly annoyed from my sizing being too small anyway. I know I am capable of taking clean intraday and daily setups that align and sizing very well into them so its time to start noticing that more. Altogether though super clean and super nice consistency in the last 3 weeks. I really like where I am headed. 

1 red day in the past 3 weeks