September 17, 2025 ( 3 Trades) (+$47.50)
Overall Grade: B-
Day Summary: As soon as I woke up today I had that feeling that I shouldn't trade today and although I ended up green (which is something in the past I probably couldn't have acheived with that mindset) I did force two of my three trades. The final trade was one of the toughest holds I have ever experienced, especially with the mindset I was in, and it left me completely mentally exhausted by the time I finally got out. The trade took almost two hours by the time I covered my last contract, which is crazy considering my average hold time is probably between 2-10mins. Also, even though I was in the green pretty much the whole time, it was extra painful to watch it range for so long. The last point I want to make about today, and I unfortunately don't have screenshots of it, but Nas was relatively weak today comparfed to ES and it really was the instraument I should have been shorting. It was continuouslt making LH's and LL's while ES was wedging against a strong support. Maybe I should start charting MNQ and MES to give myself more options in terms of trading instrauments.
DAILY - ES
TRADES
Trade 1 - Short 2 MRS @ 21 EMA Trap + Subpar Set Up + FOMO / Thinking About The Money + Bias
Grade: C
- is this my set up - technically yes
- however, momentum on this candle gave me the intuition that this was a subpar set up before I even got in and I decided to do it anyways
- I didn't really have a planned stop on this trade in terms of a level but I did a good job if keeping the loss small
- I knew after the HL set just after my entry that i was cooked on this
- Had a 4 Targets set up on this trade (targeting 4am low liquidity) but that caused me to be biased
Trade 2 - Short 2 MES @ FOMO + No Set Up + Revenge Trading
*Note* This trade was the 5 min trade before the long hold*
Grade: D
- FOMO - bad
- Entry - bad
- no set up - bad
- going with momentum and price action - good
- overall this was a risky trade and was just taken out of revenge trading
- remember to let the market bring the opportunities to you, don't invent opportunities
Trade 3 - Short 3 MES @ Trend Continuation + Momentum + Key Level + 4 Targets
Grade: A-
- this trade was a nice winner but horribly painful for what i got out of it (+$70 and mental exhaustion lol)
- entry was great and just after the FOMO of Trade 2 - amazing how a good set up can show minutes after forcing an opportunity that really isn't there
- I was pretty confident in this trade initially and was targeting 4am low liquidty
- I was pretty much not in drawdown at all during the whole 2 hours of this trade but because I was trading in the red this was a tough one to hold
- I suspected when we couldn't break down that we might retest my entry and we did by a tick - good job not moving stop to BE because I ultimately did think I was right on this trade
- good adding to the winner after break even retest
- holding back into the red with 3 contracts was tough but I accepted the risk of a close above VWAP so I was willing to let it ride
- however, I did think I was minutes away from having to close out this trade for a loss when it finally started moving back in my favor
- I gave it another chance to break lows with full size but I had to start taking partials at this point incase we bounced again (and considering by this point FOMC was in about 2 hours, 1HR away from intraday margin shutoff) happy I took that first partial
- as you can see, even holding the partials was difficult and by this point I was spent, put the last contract with a stop and just let it hit and was glad to be done with it