Key Takeaways from Today's Trading Notes:

1. Improved Mindset and Process:

   • You felt that your trading approach has leveled up, emphasizing the value of journaling and preparation. This shift from impulsive execution to a data-driven strategy, along with the influence of Lance’s quote about work outside of trading, has led to more focused and patient trading.
   • Focusing on Expected Value Dynamics and waiting for full reactions off key levels has sharpened your decision-making, boosting your confidence.

2. Strong Execution During FOMC:

   • You executed with a bullish bias based on solid technical reasons, including a weekly trend shift and untapped liquidity. This analysis led to your best trading day on the evaluation, earning over $600 with just 2 micros, indicating improved performance and risk management.

3. Adaptability and Use of VWAP:

   • You adjusted your strategy by utilizing a longer-term VWAP on the 5-minute chart to confirm entries. This led to a better, more accurate entry from the lower band, reinforcing the importance of using higher timeframe VWAPs in volatile markets.
   • Although you fought for price on the 1-minute chart and faced two stopouts, you recognized that sticking to the 5-minute VWAP would have provided a more optimal, no-drawdown entry.

4. Awareness of Weekly Bearish Orderblock:

   • Despite the bullish bias, you noted the importance of the weekly bearish orderblock that triggered towards the session's end. You plan to monitor closely how the weekly trend interacts with this key resistance level in the next trading session.

5. Contract Rollover Anomaly:

   • You observed an interesting discrepancy between /MNQU24 and /NQ regarding the quarterly draw on liquidity, suggesting that different contracts are giving you different reads on price action. You plan to track this during future rollovers to better understand which contracts hold more weight.

6. Patience and Decision-Making:

   • You demonstrated patience in waiting for your bullish setup to develop, but you also reflected on the importance of simplifying your entry approach by relying more on the higher timeframe charts, which would have prevented multiple stopouts.

Key Learnings and Adjustments:

• Journaling and Preparation: Continue to prioritize reviewing and refining your system outside of market hours, as this has significantly improved your trading approach.
• Stay Focused on Higher Timeframes: Rely more on the 5-minute chart for entry confirmation instead of fighting for price on the 1-minute, which can lead to unnecessary stopouts.
• Monitor Weekly Bearish Orderblock: Pay close attention to how the weekly bearish orderblock and the new trend shift interact in the next session, as this could signal an important turning point for future trades.
• Track Contract Rollover Discrepancies: Stay vigilant regarding discrepancies in liquidity levels between contracts during rollovers to avoid confusion or misreading price action.

This session highlights your growth as a trader and how detailed analysis, patience, and preparation have led to improved results.

Woke up a bit late, around 10:00AM because my alarm clock didnt go off.

Noticed price action was basically untradable on the open, and luckily I fell asleep yesterday while monitoring price action, because the overnight long theory didnt play out, It played out during todays trading session. 

I traded this FOMC like a true elite trader, and I really feel like im stepping into the next level up in my trading career, and I definitely believe that journaling is part of the reason why. As soon as I decided to take a data backed approach to trading, rather than an executional and high pressure decision based trading, it feels like that has put me into the next level. And a quote from Lance hit me hard, and that is, his workday actually starts when the trading day ends. Its all about what you do when the markets not trading, and how you are fine tuning your trading system, and identifying what works well and what doesnt. He compared his quote to a basketball game, where if a professional, only got hours in when they were in game, but never practiced or fine tuned the small things off of the court, then they would fall short during the game, and thats exactly how trading is. Your simply waiting for your setup.

Those quotes, coupled with the concepts of 'Expected Value Dynamics' and trading the "Right Side of The V" has dramatically changed my trading, Because now, I am waiting for full reactions off of the levels im interested in, and my risk is defined, and my edge is high. 

With that being said, I came into this trading session (FOMC interest rate decision) with a bullish outlook, specifically because, we shifted trend on the weekly timeframe, and had untapped liquidity and an unfinished auction to the upside, and also, broke the 4 day bearish orderblock weekly trend. So i seen this setup quietly approaching under the radar, while everyone was bearish for the most part. 

I like how consistent I have been as well for this evaluation, it has taken alot of pressure off of me not having to worry about trailing drawdown, breakeven trades, and letting them just work. I also had my biggest trading day so far on this evaluation, with only 2 micros. Making over $600 on the day. 

When I was in my trade, it was for sure the trade of the day setup at that time, but one thing I have to take note of is how the market closed today, and it closed with a trade of the day setup, favoring bears with a short from the weekly bearish orderblock. This is something that im going to have to monitor closely going into tomorrow. And that is, how I should approach the trading day with the right bias, when the weekly bullish trend shift has occured, at the same time that the weekly bearish orderblock bas been triggered, withoutn tapping into the weekly buyside liquidity to the upside. 

So we have a new weekly high, weekly trend shift, weekly orderblock all around the same vicinity. with the draw on liquidity, shifting way to the upside on the next deviation timeframe, (Monthly) at 20262.25.

Im noticing something extremely interesting, and that is, on the new contract roll over for the nasdaq, its displaying that the quarterly draw on liquidity has been breached, which is the first time im seeing this, because on all of the other contracts, it doesnt display that. Im looking at /NQ now, and it is giving me a completely different read of price action, so this is something we are going to have to get to the bottom of. /MNQU24 (prior contract) is also displaying the same thing, that the quarterly draw on liquidity hasent been breached. So we will have to track this closely by the time the next contract rollover comes around. and see is the newer contracts/or older contracts hold more weight. 

Now, when I was analyzing an entry for the day, I noticed that, the 1 day VWAP might not have been the best choice, because I felt that price would go higher, but there were so many support levels below in which price could have bounced off of, that I couldnt gauge what would be the best one, so I simply decided to throw on a longer term VWAP on my 5 minute chart, for double the confirmation, and I am very glad I did, because it gave me a great entry from the lowerband, with a bearish to bullish variation for an upside trade. 

I decided to start fighting for price on the 1 minute chart, as it was trend below the 1 Day VWAP lowerband, because I was anticipating a squeeze, and it was also trading my demand area of interest which was yesterdays manipulation stop hunt area, and bullish line in the sand, 1 minute demand. So I figured that if I fought for price on the 1 minute, I could get a great price for the turn of the 5 minute variation.

Due to this, I was stopped out 2 times, and had I just traded off of the 5 minute chart instead, I could have got a no drawdown entry. Which likely would have been favorable. 

I just have such a hard time not executing on the 1 minute because it provides a very deep edge and risk to reward. Had i traded specifically off of the 5 minute chart, I would have gotten a no drawdown entry, but I also would have gotten filled at 19610, and because I fought for price, I had an average price of 19602 with 2 contracts.