September 7th, 2022
Today I am really happy about my discipline and my execution of my trades. Although they were not the cleanest setups they were perfect for the scalps that I wanted
1st Trade: Short (2 minute v 5 minute)
-I really like how aggressive I was on this first trade of the day. I know that it doesnt really fit my setup criteria but this was a really nice scalp short when I saw that we hit the trendline from the 4 hour chart and we had a really nice bearish engulfing candle on the 5 minute that took out a nice stair stepping green all in 1 candle. When we popped back up I entered my short with predetermined stop and target on the bracket orders. I had a stop above the high and a target of 50 cents. I took 2 contracts and it worked out well with a nice $46 profit fast and early on in the day. The thing I like more than this trade though is the fact that I was ready to continue trading. I get this fear sometimes when I get a nice green trade that I need to just hold off and keep my profits but that is totally wrong. I am good enough at trading at this point to be able to take this trade and continue to take many more that are just like it. So that is exactly what i did.
2nd Trade: Short
-Again we had a perfect bearish engulfing candle that tested the 8 before holding up at the highs. I was a little less risk heavy on this trade but still took 2 contracts but instead of a 50 cent target it was about a 35-40 cent target. Since we had the first grinding green day in a while I thought its much smarter to just scalp these tops than hold for something that is unreasonable. I took the retest after we had a big bearish engulfing candle. Stops were placed in the same spots as my previous trade and it all worked out very well. Although I do think this is a more advanced type of trade and I dont think its above my expertise but I am 100% shorting the frontside on these moves and although its nice that I made money this time I need to be aware that in general these trades will lose me money over time. I am happy 2 of them worked today but in the future they are not trades that I should be looking for on a daily basis.
Potential Trade 3 (Missed Opportunity)
-I saw this trade showing itself and I hesitated on taking it simply because I thought that since I got my first 2 shorts to work on a nice frontside scalp setup I was nervous that this one would not work and I was thinking to risk about 20 dollars to make 36. I hesitated on pulling the trigger and I wouldve made another nice move on this which (i know it doesnt matter but) would have put my over 100$ on the day. I know that may seem small to some but my entire goal for the end of december is to average 100 dollars on my green days. I have definitely some work to do to get to that point but I think its surely doable. I really dont like how i hesitated on thsi trade and missed it when it was a clear engulfing setup like the last trade. Luckily again this thing was still in the frontside and it spiked up above the highs shortly after which made me a little happy that I didnt take it even though if I did respect my target it wouldve been a green trade.
How could I have improved today?
1. Dont hesitate on clear setups, if its scary just size down and risk less but dont just skip something because you lack confidence. You have been doing this long enough to know when there is easy money on the table. TAKE IT, its yours
2. Dont be so terrified to go long. I know that today was the first day where we broke the downtrend but this thing rode the 20 all damn day. You couldve taken a super low risk call option on these multiple pullbacks but instead you just watched. Its always smarter to act on a thesis than to let a thesis never be fulfilled. Again this is all about learning and failing over and over so that the iteration can continue. There is no way to know how to fix things if you dont know how you failed. Like they say "You miss 100% of the shots you dont take."
