It's only fair after that awesome pre-market trade I had to show how easily I can then screw up my trade management royally once I'm wide awake and my brain is capable of thinking, and I assure you that thinking while trading is very bad.
(My trade blotter is 3 hours before eastern time)
After the large pre-market downtrend, I formed a short bias and was looking to short rallies. My second trade was based on a lower high and a break through the flat 20 EMA. I was targeting a retest of 75.29 with a possible breakout there. No luck, stopped out b/e.
Having a short bias kept me from playing the breakout to the long side. The breakouts were very shallow, but I didn't consider how powerful a breakout might me once price started to approach that high and my bias kept me out of a great move up.
11:05am ET bar was a strong counter-trend short signal, but the R:R was in favor of risk rather than reward so I waited.
Fourth trade was based on a pullback from a lower high, and my target was the 20- EMA because it was still counter-trend, though now a confirmed counter-trend trade. Instead of taking my 20 tick counter-trend profit I greedily held on until it evaporated into lunch money at McDonalds.
Fifth trade was off an internal double top at a lower high, which was a high probability trade no doubt. When price move 16 ticks in my favor I moved my stop 1 tick below the b/e point, and was stopped out to the EXACT tick and price pulled back. My first mistake was moving my stop on a confirmed reversal signal; my second mistake was not re-entering via a breakout of the 75.91 pivot low! The price action had seemed so tedious and mid-day doldrums-like that I sort of gave up for a while. By the time it broke down, it had moved "too far". Basically this trade went right through my initial target of 75.65! (Without me.)
Final trade was a confirmed with-trend short signal off the 1:00pm ET bar. I actually entered 30 seconds before the bar closed because it was looking weak. I targeted 75.10, but took profits sooner because it was later in the day when expected moves tend to disappoint and I was so frustrated by what I left on the table that I wanted to take the money and run.
One of these days I'll have a completely well-managed day!
Gotta run, have a great weekend all!