April 25, 2023 (2 Trades) (-$25.00)

Overall Grade: D+

Day Summary: Today I missed the market open because I had to go extend my Visa here in Recife. I came back to watch the morning session with no urgency to trade which is a good thing as I am generally addicted to trading. I also did not trade yesterday. I did, however, take 2 trades in the afternoon. Trade 1 was stupid and should not have been taken, and Trade 2 was also sketchy because I FOMO'd into an entry. Overall, I probably shouldn't have traded at all today. The only real good takeaway from today's trades are that I took a trade from my Intraday Trendbreak Scalp Strategy and even though that trade was a loser, it helped me add criteria to my strategy on when to not trade that strategy.

DAILY - ES Futures (screenshot taken at 4:30pm)

5 Min - ES Futures (screenshot taken at 4:30pm - after hours pop was from Google and Microsoft earnings)

                                                   Trades

Trade 1 - Long 2 Contracts at 2nd Attempt of Intraday Trendbreak (IDTB Strategy)

Grade: D-

  • It's funny because before I took this trade, I told myself that I was likely going to lose on this trade considering it was a grinding red trend at this point
  • I have seen these fake reversals fail many times, so there wasn't really a point to take this trade with a real account, especially with 2 contracts instead of 1
  • This goes to show the difference between this set up today vs when it showed it's self yesterday (biggest difference being the grinding red, consistant LOD breaks)
  • I did enter at 15min demand with a fake breakdown candle (bottom wick) which are both criteria for entry on this strategy, however, the overall set up was worse because of the grinding down move today

(Photo below of the same strategy working yesterday in a better set up - although now that i look at it the 2min charts looked quite similar, except for the consistent LOD breaks)

*So I guess the differnce is Monday we were above PM Low, whereas today we were grinding down to LOD over and over again*

It is a bit weird though because intuition told me this trade was going to work yesterday (which i didn't take) whereas today i expected it to fail (and I took it lol). I guess this shows where trader intuition does play a role in a trade strategy

 

Trade 2 - Long 1 Contract at 5min Treand Break (IDTB Strategy)

Grade: C-

  • After taking this trade and losing on it in Trade 1 I decided to take it again on the 5min, being that it might be easier to judge a reversal with because of the grinding red move down
  • This was also after a 20pt flush out, so i could expect a bit more that we could have some type of relief bounce/reversal
  • I had the right idea here but the problem was I entered on the 2nd Attempt of the 5min trendbreak without letting a candle close above it (2min fakeout candle enticed me)
  • Considering the 2 previous 5min wicks before I entered (grey circle on 5min), I should have looked for a 5min candle close above that trendline, or at least a green candle close near the top of the candle
  • Because i didn't do that, we immediately sold back off to the LOD where I considered stopping out. But I decided that since I only had 1 contract, i would stop out if we had a 5min candle close below LOD
  • We did break LOD, but i didn't stop because we didn't close below it, and that ended up saving this trade (However, I think if I had been in this with 2 contracts I would have stopped out bc I was already red from Trade 1)
  • This trade is an example of why candle closures are important

 

Takeaways: Overall, I added some entry criteria to my strategy today, and that is to avoid taking the IDTB Strategy on days where we are trending (grinding) in either direction. In the end of the day, i need to remember that this is a Trend Reversal Strategy, and they are especailly difficult to time especially on these HOD/LOD grinding days. This strategy would most likely work better in a ranging market or a day that is trending less significantly

 

EASY MONEY: Intraday Channel Strategy (5min) - I need to add today's example to the strategy i drew up the other day to better understand how I can capture some of this trending move. (Potentially the LH's in the middle of the intraday channel?)