September 5, 2024 (4 trades) (-$35.00)

Overall Grade: D-

Summary: Mannnn, what a bad week of trading for me. I was completely out of control and it cost me. The simple fact alone that I took 7 trades in 2 days shows that I was not being patient and waiting for my set ups (look at the Patterns section in Table above). I'm not sure exactly what happened to my mental state, because for over 2 weeks I was displaying all the good habits that a consistently profitable trader has, and over the course of one long weekend, it's almost like that all went out the window. Although it damaged my account P/L and brought me back to new lows, I know what I need to do. We're going to look at the trades I took over Wed and Thur, and out of the 7 I really only took 1 good trade. Unfortunately, because of my mental state and the fact that I was trading from the red, I wasn't able to hold that trade, and that was a trade that could've made up for a lot of the mistakes I made. I am actually very lucky to be where I'm at so from here I just need to get back to those good habits. Stop worrying about the account balance and simply focus on taking good trades that I have playbooked and know I trade well. The money will take care of itself and will come to me easily and abundently.

 

DAILY - ES

5 MIN - ES (Thursday)

                                                                                                TRADES

Trade 1 - Long 2 Contracts @ No Setup / FOMO

Grade: D

  • No setup so no reason to expose myself to risk on this trade - bad
  • We weren't trending really so buying a pullback is not smart although coming off 15min demand at least was me trying to trade in the current direction
  • Really only good thing about this trade is that I took the opportunity to stop out quickly and good thing I did because I could've lost a lot more than I did just 2 mins later
  • Not waiting for a set up shows that I was only thinking about the money and making back what I had lost on Tuesday and Wednesday - bad and life will always push me back if that is my mentality when trading

FIX: Focus on taking good trades that I have playbooked

 

Trade 2 - Long 2 Contracts @ "Box Trade" / FOMO / No Setup

Grade: D

  • To be fair, in the moment I did consider this a Box Trade set up, but looking back it was not, I was just looking to take a playbooked set up so I basically just made one up
  • We had just made a LH at a key level so this is not the spot where I should be taking a Box Trade especially when we had just rejected hard off of the 15min supply which I did see in the moment
  • Planned STOP was a close outside of the Box and I didn't stick to that because I was thinking about the money
  • Had I stuck to my stop, I would have limited damage on this trade and likely have been more emotionally controlled to hold this next trade, which was the only good trade I took this whole week (see below)

FIX: Don't invent set ups that I want to happen. Trade what is happening. Be mindfull of where we are on the HTFs (15min and up). Respect STOP!!!!

 

Trade 3 - Long 2 Contracts @ First HL + Key Level + Retail Trap

Grade: B+

  • This was the trade I should have been patient enough to wait for all morning
  • Great entry in a spot where I felt like retail would get trapped - I know that it intuition based but my intuition is generally good for finding Trap areas
  • This is the trade I need to hold and the trade that could've made back a lot of what I lost on the day if not all of it, even after breaking STOP on Trade 2
  • I thought to myself to put STOP at BE and take this back to highs and I should have done that, but it is so hard to trade from the red, especially after multiple days of red so I emotionally exited a good trade
  • I didn't really have a very defined setup for this trade but it was one of those trades that I knew felt good as soon as I entered it, so sometimes intuition can play a role in trading

FIX: Be disciplined to wait for a trade like this instead of forcing trades that aren't there and putting myself in a spot where it is harder to trade without emotions being involved.

 

Trade 4 - Short 2 Contracts @ No Setup / FOMO

Grade: D

  • This was purely a FOMO trade and needs to be avoided
  • Took this trade out of frustration over my perforemance throughout the week and missing a good short at 10:45 that I felt good about
  • went with the trend at least but everything about this trade was forced
  • dangerous entry but at least I was going with the trend in a spot where I did think retail was likely longing for a reversal
  • still not a good trade and I'm lucky I got out green to limit some damage, but it wasn't deserved
  • I need to be better

FIX: Walk away from the charts when I feel like forcing a trade. I knew I felt like doing it, and I did it anyways. That is not what a CPT does. They know when they are emotional and when they need to walk away.

 

Emotions: My emotion were all over the place last week and I need to be mindful of that and come into this coming week clear headed and focused on one thing and one thing only, taking good trades. Wait for those A quality set ups that I have playbooked, put on the trade, accept the risk, hold the winner and let the market do whatever it is going to do. I got this!