Slam-A-Rama Day

Another quick post... Well I'll actually try to make this one quick for a change as the last ones seemed to go on fairly long still.

How Today Went

I'd have to say today was a hard day for me to trade. I'm still struggling to terminate some bad habits that have resurfaced and hurt my trading the last couple of days. Combine that with the choppy back and forth price action and it was easy to find yourself on the wrong side of the "micro" trends in the day.

Volume started out lighter than the 15 minute average. So the choppy price action was not a surprise, I just did not compensate for it in my trading. I had a good start catching an early short that started working right away. That is until I tried to let the trade run, it did not. That sets the mold for my trading today: Trades I let run did not and trades where I protected profits stopped out for little to no profits before offering additional profits.

Trade Narrative Summary

My trade setups take some price action in the current session before an entry can be defined. Some days a setup can form sooner than others. What I need to do more is look to my 5 minute chart for clues to the "micro" trend direction. This is the direction that I should be placing my trades in until I have some profits to risk for a counter trend trade entry.


So to attempt to make this talk through faster, I'm just going through my 5 minute chart for trend changes. You can see these trends as the light blue lines draw on my chart. By 8:50 CT the initial trend was defined as leaning down. It started real slow, but ran for a couple of points of potential profits. Then there was an up trend after 9:00 CT. Or should I say the reaction off of the Leading Indicators report that was released then.

Coming up on 9:30 the third "micro trend" was turning back down and then right back up again around 10:00 CT. Price spiked up over 1519 and quickly reversed. The one minute chart was warning about the trend change first and the 5 minute confirmed about 10 minutes later.

A little after 12:30 C T the sixth micro trend of the day was back up and held to the high of the day. The volume from 12:55 CT through 1:15 CT was very light, but building. The direction "Tell" was muddied because both the declining and the rising volume was increasing.

Our final trend was back down. There were some early warning signals that the high may not hold, but the trend was finally confirmed down by 2:30. I took a good short entry as a counter trend trade, but did not manage to hold long enough and was knocked out for a small profit that could have been 4 to close to 6 points if held late.

Lessons Learned or Still Needing to Reinforce

Quick list for today.

1. Maintain Focus Better - Today was not a day to lose focus as the market would turn as soon as you looked the other way.


2. Don't Force or Chase Trades - In a choppy market there are often multiple chances to get into a trade. Don't rush into a trade at a less favorable entry price.


3. Watch ALL the Clues - I need to train myself to keep "cycling" through a review of my charts to help make sure I'm seeing all the continuation and warning signs. For a choppy day like today, the warning signs of a potential turn are critical times to protect unrealized profits and tighten stops if appropriate.


4. Have a list of Report Times - As a pre-market ritual, I'll review when major reports are coming out for the day. I do need to be better at watching the clock for these times. Maybe I need to set an alarm as a reminder. When the Leading Indicators came out I should have protected my profits in my short trade and possibly tried a scalp entry long to see if it would hold.

Trade Wise, Trade Well
John