FirstDegree and Crude Oil

[FirstDegree]

No trades today. Not in the game mentally. This week turned out to be a disappointment for me because I basically didn't follow through with my intentions. I'm always making excuses for everything. I need to just stop making excuses. There is no reason why I shouldn't be taking advantage of my edge. Right now, trading is 99% psychological. I'm trying to stay positive about what I'm doing and I am going to continue working on this problem.

Trade A: This was on the news so it's not a trade as I stay out of the market during or right before news. However, the setup looked great if you were able to go with it. The big green bar was very strong. It stopped at a double top area, more like a triple top, but the bar was solid green and closed right at its high so there was some good bull strength. The news came out, which started the next bar off going down, but it then turned around and went higher. It went +19 ticks so I would have gotten out at +11 when it came back down.

Trade B: This one kind of threw me off because at the time the bar was going up as a big green bar and it seemed like it was out of nowhere. It eventually came back and closed below the EMA with an internal double bottom. It's not exactly the way I like to see it, but it was a really good short signal. The drop was very hard and fast. At most you could have gotten something like 50 ticks out of it if you were able to hold on.

Trade C: You are kind of getting a higher low here, few bars prior so this C bar is a second confirmation of a failure to go higher. Out at breakeven.

Trade D: Shooting star into a Hammer. Not going down so it's probably going up. Starting to have a micro uptrend in a channel. You're looking for it to at least break the highs of that bar before the C bar. Might have been able to get +11 if you were able to play it right, or you just get +1.

Trade E: Looking at a double bottom from the previous action. Then the bar before E is a very weak looking shooting star-ish pattern that closes right at its low. Enter a break of the double bottom. It went down quickly, but then hung around the +10ish area so you could get out there if you can't hold on to see if it's going lower. That would be the more conservative way.

Total: 0
Monthly Total: -53.5

hTotal: +61.5 (5 trades, 5W/0L)
Monthly hTotal: +191 (40trades, 30W/10L)

Still being conservative on my hTotal. Most likely when I start taking trades my hindsight trades will offer a different total. I am staying positive that I can really do this, but I'm not letting my expectations get the best of me. I think my expectations in the past were what really hurt me because I thought I could just come firing out of the gate and become an instant success. The market has a way of humbling you quickly.

So like I said, I wasn't mentally focused today. Seems like I subconsciously try to distract myself so that I can just later see what I would have done and trick myself into thinking I really would have done well. I don't know. I'm a psychological experiment waiting to be probed and prodded.

My goal for next week is to get away from the internet and watch the charts, no excuses. No reason why I need to be doing other things while I should be focusing. If this is going to be my primary source of income, my job, my business, then I need to stop treating it as an option. Also, I need to get to bed earlier like I had been in the past.

So that is all, I think. Have a great weekend!

 

[FirstDegree]

Today I traded in sim. It was recommended to me last Friday and decided that I just need to do it to prove to myself that I can do this. It's a different ball game since you see every tick against you as something wrong with the trade and it takes much more patience to let the good trades work themselves out.

At least for today I am testing to see if a 10 tick stop would work out on signals that I like to trade.

Trade 1: This was a short of the break of the opening bar. It didn't have much of a follow through so I got out at +1.

Trade 2: A lot of resistance up there and there were a bunch of failed breakouts. It had the look of the Trade B from Friday, although not quite the same. I shorted the break of that big doji bar, but again, it just kind of stalled there so I got out at +1 again. The doji seemed to be a confirmation of a failure to go higher. I really wanted to see it close near its low, but instead it was a doji. If I wouldn't have gotten out when I did it would have taken me out for a -10 tick loss. My stop loss wouldn't have been survivable.

Trade A: I saw this and I thought about shorting, but I wasn't sure if it was a valid signal. It looked valid after looking at the 1min chart, but here I wasn't sure. After the fact, it's a good trade and could have given you +11 or if you held on for it to go to the lower channel line you could have gotten +20.

Trade 3: Support at 85.27, you can see that triple bottom. My entry was at 85.26, and I actually put the order in as soon as that red bar closed. It then went back up, but you can see there is still a lot of resistance at those tops and it was bumping its head off of a downtrend line. I eventually got entered in and it was a nice break, but then I got out at +1 when it wiggled right there. Just as I took my trade off it popped down some more. It showed me +15 ticks so maybe I could have gotten as least +11. Before I got into the trade I tried to plan what it was I wanted to see and eventually it went just past where I was seeing a target.

Trade 4: This was more or less taken off of the 1min chart. There was a double bottom on the 5min (the low of the previous bar to 4), but on the 1min it was a quintuple bottom. The short worked immediately, went down towards Friday's close, showed me something like +14 and then started to bounce back. I didn't wait for it to take me out at breakeven, I closed the position when I saw it bouncing like that, and got +6 out of it.

Total: 0
Monthly Total: -53.5

Sim: +7
Monthly Sim: +7 (4 trades, 4W/0L)

hTotal: +19.5 (5 trades, 3W/2L)
Monthly hTotal: +210.5 (45 trades, 33W/12L)

It's pretty obvious that taking trades in hindsight really isn't a good strategy. For me, however, it's just about seeing the possibilities. I didn't calculate the hTotal the same as what I took in sim. For Trades 1 and 2 I gave myself losses, which were made back by taking Trade A and being able to hold onto it.

Also, the market sometimes moves too fast. You never want to take your profits off too early, but trailing a stop to a profit target usually isn't a good strategy unless the price has moved far enough away that if it comes back it is ok to get out. For example, if it goes +14 ticks, you really don't want to trail the stop to +11 because then any wiggle will take you out. The problem also is that it could go +14 and back to +9 and further back to +1 before you even decide that it could be a weak breakout and should take your profits. It's a trade-off that you have to be willing to accept, I guess. I'm still not sure how to correctly manage my profitable trades since it's a fine line between letting the winners ride, and taking profits when there is a weak break. It always feels good to take a trade off at a profit before having it move against you, but it's never a good feeling to take it off too soon and then watch it go on without you, only to have you question yourself that you shouldn't have moved your stop too soon or that you shouldn't have taken yourself out of the trade on the first sign of a negative tick against you.

I think I am going to sim again tomorrow with a 10 tick stop rule to give this some more time to see if it will actually work for me. Then, maybe on Wednesday and Thursday I will try a 15 tick stop, and judge if there is anything different. I first and foremost need to just let my trades do their thing and manage the trades properly. Trades A, 3, and 4 were actually good looking signals, in my opinion, while 1 and 2 were kind of subpar. That also brings into the equation that we never know what is going to happen next, but after the fact, the best trades always look the best. The trades that don't end up working out always look sloppy. That is also why I need to give myself some more sim time so that I'm not basing my decisions on one trading day, which after all was said and done really wasn't that great of a day with how range bound it was. By Friday I will decide what I want to do, either do another sim day or go back to live trading.

Nonetheless, I am happy with my +7 ticks. I'd have to say that today was truly the first time where I treated sim trading as close to live trading. In the past I would take trades just to see what would happen.

Lastly, I am very proud of myself today for achieving my goal of staying off of the internet and completely staying focused on the charts. I kept active with looking at channels and support and resistance, kept my eye on the 6E, and just generally kept talking to myself about what was going on with the charts. There were a few times that I was tempted to go check out something on the internet, but I stopped myself and told myself it would be there later.

I found this video over the weekend. It's more of a motivational pep talk. I'm not sure where it came from, but it's titled "Secrets to Success."

http://www.dump.com/2010/11/09/secrets-to-success-video/

 

[NoDoji]

Look at the trail on the 85.06 short. Lock it in @ 84.66? I would've!

 

[FirstDegree]

Quote from NoDoji:

Look at the trail on the 85.06 short. Lock it in @ 84.66? I would've!

Dang, that would have turned out to be a nice trade! So many nice trades after the close.

 

[FirstDegree]

Strong trend today. You would think there would be profits galore, but I couldn't find a way to get in. I took 1 sim trade, but only saw one other entry and they were both off the 1min chart.

Trade A: You have to see it on the 1min chart. There was a small low towards the left of the smaller chart, and then the stronger red bar closed right at that low. You would have gotten entered in on the next bar at 83.18, took some heat on the trade, it went down around 8-9 ticks in your favor, but came back, but then turned around again and would have been a +20 tick trade. It's hard to say if I would have held through it coming back because I would want to see it have follow through to the previous pivot low. Probably just get out at +1 here because I'm weak.

Trade 1: This was also a trade off the 1min chart. As you can see there was a pivot high and then it made a mini-micro higher low. The big green bar stopped right at the pivot high, so you go long at 82.84. I really felt good about it, but I moved my stop quickly and only got +1. It then turned around and eventually went back down to new lows.

Total: 0
Monthly Total: -53.5

Sim: +.5 (1 trade, 1W/0L)
Monthly Sim: +7.5 (5 trades, 5W/0L)

hTotal: +.5 (1 trade, 1W/0L)
Monthly hTotal: +211 (46 trades, 34W/12L)

Other than trading the lows of the major pivots, I can't find any other trades on the 5 min chart. The morning started out with very shallow breaks and then I started feeling like it was "too low to short." I'm just completely confused on how to trade today. Even when I'd see some kind of signal, there was always that look like support was just below, resistance was just above, conflicting EMAs on the 5min and 1min chart. Also, any signal brought some heat with it. Days like these look so beautiful like you could just jump in and come back later. I don't know. I'm lost really.

Tomorrow is always another trading day. I'm thinking I'm going to give my 10 tick stops some more sim time.

It seems like I'm going into a trading phase, which I really should have been doing from the beginning. Phase 1 was learning how to trade CL and looking to see what it was that I like to trade. Phase 2 is sim trading it and gaining the confidence that you can actually do it. Phase 3 is going to live trading without any fears. Unfortunately, I went from Phase 1 to Phase 3 to Phase 1 and now I'm at Phase 2 after realizing that I'm not taking these trades live so I should at least be doing this in sim so I'm at least doing something to prove it to myself! The game is harder than it looks, but I do feel like I'm getting somewhere.

So I suppose I'll leave you with this, from Napoleon Hill. You can also find other good videos on random subjects:

http://wimp.com/napoleonhill/

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from FirstDegree:

I'm just completely confused on how to trade today. Even when I'd see some kind of signal, there was always that look like support was just below, resistance was just above

To enter with a trend, look for a pullback in the trend that finds support or resistance at a lower high (downtrend) or higher low (uptrend). The way you know price has established S/R on a pullback is when a previous bar's high/low in your time frame is broken. If price bars in your time frame are too wide or whippy to place comfortable stops, drill down to a smaller time frame for earlier entries in the direction of the trend.

Today NYMEX opens with a well-established down trend that looks like it may finally reverse back up. The opening bars are wide, too wide to play a previous bar break as an entry with a 10-or 15-tick stop, but there's a smaller bar break that could survive (9:40am ET bar low), as well as a breakout opportunity through the 83.30 low.

The 10:05am ET bar starts a confirmed pullback. You can trail a stop as each pullback bar closes, and be taken into the trend on a pivot. This finally occurs with the 10:25am bar.

Watch for channels during trends, too, and look to enter in the direction of the trend when price pulls to the far end of the channel.

Quote from FirstDegree:

conflicting EMAs on the 5min and 1min chart.

The 20 EMA today on a 5-min chart was down, reflecting the trend. The EMA on a 1-min chart is a good place to enter a strong trend when no decent pullback takes place. The pullbacks today were decent, so the EMA on the 1-min chart was not of much use one way or the other.

Quote from FirstDegree:

Also, any signal brought some heat with it.

I've been specifically analyzing and documenting the heat taken on all my valid setups for many weeks now. Only a small percentage of them are no heat trades (usually breakouts and with-trend entries during a strong move). The majority of excellent setups show heat on the trade even after a profit shows first. Some trades can show 10 or more ticks profit, pull back into the red, then resume the move before reaching target. If you move your stop to b/e after, say, 10 or 15 ticks in your favor, you need to be ready to re-enter if stopped out, because those b/e levels are retested most of the time.

This is one of the more difficult parts of trading, trusting your setups and leaving the initial stop alone until a couple bars close in your favor or your target comes into view.

 

[FirstDegree]

Today has been a different day. I was trying something new. I backtested a few days last night and now I'm going to forward test it.

I'm trying out 15 tick stops and taking 20 tick targets. The real strategy behind it all is an "all-or-nothing" mentality. I am actually quite excited about this. I don't recommend anyone try to follow this if you don't completely trust it, or at least do it in sim. I'm going to continue trying this in sim.

I'm not going to go into too much analysis because honestly, these trades weren't taken the same way that I would have done it yesterday or the other days in this journal.

Trade 1: Big reversal, lower high, break of the opening bar. +20

Trade 2: Bounce reversal from the big move down, looking for a pullback. -15

Trade 3: I got stopped out on the last trade so I'm thinking it's probably going lower. This was really more of a guess than anything. I was in this trade for 14 minutes, which is eternity for me. It never hit my stop, but it came close a few times. +20

Trade 4: Getting some consolidation, figuring that people are just hanging out before the crude inventories. I probably shouldn't have been trading anything here, but I just need to swing away and hold on. I eventually got out at +1, which was probably not a good idea since it still looked like it was going up...or at least not going down.

Trade 5: Price formed a double top and I had a long bias here. I got entered and stopped out for -15. If I didn't get out of Trade 4 I would still be in the trade and holding, and wouldn't have taken this trade.

If I would have stayed in Trade 4 my target would have been hit just as the Crude numbers came out and price spiked up instantly.

Trade 6: Price topped, went back up and retested the resistance, along with yesterday's close. My initial order was at 82.10, but it never got triggered. Then Bar 6 closed and I moved my sell stop up. I got entered in and it was a no heat trade. A very nice and quick +20.

Trade A: I hesitated here. I saw it. I should have taken the short. I didn't. I left another 20 ticks out there.

Trade 7: The bar before 7 bounced off a channel line, but I didn't take the trade. I started to get into the mentality of trying to protect my sim profits. I should just be taking all of these signals. That was countertrend so I can make excuses. I eventually shorted this Bar 7, but I started getting weak and I moved my stop early and took myself out at +1.

Trade 8: Getting so close to the lows. Since I was out of Trade 7 I had another shot to get in here. Had the same look as Bar A. I was in protection mode and took myself out again at +1. If I would have stayed in Trade 7 I would still be in and would have gotten a full profit. Or just hold here and get 20. OR move my target another 20 from this second short signal and eventually get something like 32 ticks.

Trade B: Expecting a pullback continuation short. The big strong green bar and then the small doji-like bar after had me confused whether to go long as a bottom reversal, or trail a stop under the lows. I had a short, but it continued higher so I effectively missed the long. I then didn't consider a short after that and got up to take a break. I came back to see it was a nice steep drop after that and missed another 20 tick profit.

Sim: +29 (8 trades, 6W/2L)
Monthly Sim: +36.5 (13 trades, 11W/2L)

hTotal: +95 (8 trades, 6W/2L)
Monthly hTotal: +306 (54 trades, 40W/14L)

Not posting my live trading results since it hasn't changed. I'm almost hesitant to really post that hTotal, but honestly, if I would have just stuck by my rules today and not have taken those first two breakeven trades off early, I wouldn't have taken that second loss and would have gotten a full profit on Trade 7, and not taken Trade 8. I also should have taken Trade A. I wanted to do some kind of conservative approach to this, but really it should be either a 15 tick loss or a 20 tick gain or a small loss to reverse.

I'm still wondering how to manage a trade where I get into a trade and then get a signal in the opposite direction. Stop and reverse or just hang on and take the loss, but miss the signal in the other direction? I don't have enough testing on this to see the variance, but I don't want to end up getting chopped around. I guess we'll see what happens as I'm going to continue to sim this strategy. I'm really excited about it.

I got up at 6:30am today because I had trouble sleeping, but if I would have ultimately traded right from there taking all valid signals I would have been up over 150 ticks today. Now, I probably wouldn't take the premarket signals as I have about .01% experience taking a premarket signals, but I think it could still be a valid strategy. At least taking the first 3 hours of the RTH it was almost 100 ticks by itself.

We'll see what happens over the next several trading days, at least all next week. I don't want to have a good day today and think this is the best thing ever. Today had some great moves. I need to play this through different market days, with different or no news, different variables, and see how it all works out.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from FirstDegree:

Today has been a different day. I was trying something new. I backtested a few days last night and now I'm going to forward test it.

I'm trying out 15 tick stops and taking 20 tick targets. The real strategy behind it all is an "all-or-nothing" mentality. I am actually quite excited about this. I don't recommend anyone try to follow this if you don't completely trust it, or at least do it in sim.

My friend Geez turned me on a long time ago to the value of fixed stops and targets with a positive R:R ratio. It's all about trust and taking as many trades as you can that present themselves. Over time, you should find this to be a net profitable strategy, especially if you trade with the trend or channel.

My minimum profit target is 20 ticks, but I use mental targets because over time you will learn to see price action that indicates a lot more than 20 ticks might be coming your way and you want to let those trades run.

Quote from FirstDegree:

I'm still wondering how to manage a trade where I get into a trade and then get a signal in the opposite direction. Stop and reverse or just hang on and take the loss, but miss the signal in the other direction? I don't have enough testing on this to see the variance, but I don't want to end up getting chopped around.

There's no fixed rule about when a stop-and-reverse (SAR) makes more sense than holding your position with the full stop loss in place. Normally, if you're trading with the trend, it's best to hang in there. Another time when it makes sense to hang in there with the initial stop is on a pure counter-trend trade off an extreme, because the HOD/LOD is likely to be revisited and often holds up nicely for a decent move in your favor.

Not that you'd be doing pure counter-trend trades at this point. But I'm sure you'll be tempted to at some point, as you get a lot of screen time behind you.

 

[FirstDegree]

Still sim trading today. I did a lot of thinking, and when I say a lot of thinking, what I mean is I overthought everything to the point where I missed a bunch of nice trades.

Trade A: I can't remember if this was a channel line bounce or if it was just a second entry failed breakout bottom reversal. I didn't take this. I thought I had more time before the bar closed as I was searching for something on Google, and then I missed it. Taking the all-or-nothing, I would have been in this trade for a good 35-ish minutes holding onto the back and forth of the range. It went up to 19 ticks and then came all the way back. I probably would have gotten out at +1. That is tough to see it one tick from your target and come all the way back.

Trade 1: And since I didn't take A and hold on, I shorted here against my better judgment. I didn't feel great about this trade, but it was more of a "I missed the first one so I have to start taking every trade." This came all the way back and stopped me out at -15.

Trade B: I waited until after the news as the ranginess of the price wasn't worth trading and getting chopped up. I had a short bias because of the downtrending channel, but the micro-uptrending channel started fighting with my short bias and the uptrender won. The B bar went up and tested the breakout of the premarket/open. I recognized it, but failed to act on my "taking all signals" mentality. It was also a lower high.

Trade 2: Big move prior into a pullback, failed to go higher, kind of sloppy looking. The doji was stuck underneath the EMA. I actually didn't get in on the bar break. It went like 1 or 2 ticks down, I put in a sell limit back above the price, it came back and got me in and then started going back down. This was a good exercise in holding on. It hung around the +14 tick area for quite awhile. Any other day I would have moved my stop to +11 or maybe just took the trade off, but I held on giving it time to move and eventually got +20.

Trade C: This was like a big rangy failed continuation breakdown, second entry long. The bars were so big and it just looked so sloppy that I didn't take it. I recognized it and thought about taking it, but then I looked at where my profit target would have been and I was thinking it would have to fight through the EMA to get up there and was thinking, "No way it'll go back up there!" Overthinking!!!

Trade D: This was a deep pullback, confirmation going higher, second pullback into the EMA. It's really hard to see if you're looking at it from the short side, but if you stay objective you might see this as a long entry. I didn't take this one either, but my brain said it was a signal to go long, but again I looked at where the profit target would be and said, "No way it'll break that previous pivot high (B bar)."

Trade E: If you didn't take D then you could see this E as a bear trap. You get the looks of a short signal, but then it 1 ticks the bears in and reverses back up with some fuel.

My brain is so tired from thinking too much. If I would have taken Trade A, I wouldn't have taken Trade 1 and would have avoided the loss.

Sim: +4 (2 trades, 1W/1L)
Monthly Sim: +40.5 (15 trades, 12W/3L)

hTotal: +78.5 (5 trades, 5W/0L)
Monthly hTotal: 384.5 (59 trades, 45W/14L)

It's so hard to look back and come up with that hTotal, today and yesterday, and think that that is the way it should be without being conservative, more realistic. Some people are probably thinking I'm a delusional crock of ****, and that is exactly how I feel, but I've almost taken all of the decision making out of my trading. The only decision making that should really be in my trading is where I take trades. This isn't like "I'd go long here and it went +14 so I'd probably take +11" or "I'd short here and it kept going so if I was able to hold on I'd take +30 ticks." This is more like "I went long here, I held on through all of that range because it never hit my stop and eventually hit my profit target at +20." There is no after-the-fact decision making that could really alter the outcome of the trading results. Before there would have been more variance, but now it's either take 20 or lose 15, there is nothing else to decide on. I think I'm going to filter it down that if it goes 18 or 19 ticks in my favor I'll get out at +1, but there is no inflating my end totals taking 30 in hindsight when I might only get 1 because I struggled with managing my trades. So it's hard to wrap my head around this because of how well these totals are showing in the end, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I try to be conservative, but yet realistic with this new strategy.

So yeah, that's a lot of talking. Today was overthinking. If I'm really going to forward test this strategy I need to be taking signals and not be thinking about avoiding losses, protecting profits, etc. I can't be making decisions in a reduced decision making strategy.

The last week or so and mostly this week I've had little bits and pieces of advice given to me and my stubbornness always said, "yeah I know all of that," but last night it finally hit me as far as, "Yeah that finally makes sense, I see what you mean." The funny part is that it didn't come when I was sitting in front of my charts looking at the day's price action and doing a bar-by-bar. It came when I was trying to get to sleep and had charts streaming through my mind, and then all of a sudden it just sparked a thought in my head that really made me think, "Ahhh ok, now I get it!" And then I got all excited about it and couldn't wait for today and then I had trouble sleeping until I finally got it out of my head.

I think I had a lot more to say, but I got into watching my charts closely and forgot about what else I wanted to say. Tomorrow I'm going to take more trades. I need to remember that I have treat this sim trading as a live account, but it's just sim. Don't get wreckless, but do it right. I'll probably surprise myself by taking a lot more signals and actually seeing how much of a profit I could really get out of this. Although I think it's starting to settle in that I could very much take a loss by doing this and subconsciously I'm starting to try to avoid that. At least this is conditioning myself to sit through more back and forth and hold on. One step at a time.

 

[FirstDegree]

Frustrating today. I didn't take every signal, but then when I did, I ended up being on the wrong side of the market every time or I didn't get back in.

Trade A: Had a good short signal just prior to the market open, failure to go down. Take a long.

Trade 1: Stalling near the EMA, overall downtrend, expecting a lower high. I ended up getting out at breakeven because I didn't follow my own strategy. It would have eventually been a 20 tick profit. My sim gave me +3 on sim-slippage.

Trade 2: Strong bounce from the lows after a strong move down. Expecting a pullback. I went long, but took myself out at breakeven because I wasn't following my own strategy. I should have waited for a second entry because we went to a new low of the day.

Trade 3: Looked like the pullback was stalling. Went long. Didn't have follow through. I held on now seeing that I was missing trades and getting out early. I thought it would hold, but I eventually got stopped out.

Trade B: I saw this, was something like a second entry base. A failed failed failure? I failed to get back in is all I can really make out of that tongue twister. I had the right idea trying to go long, but I didn't.

At this point I was starting to get frustrated.

Trade C: Strong move up, should be expecting a pullback after this strong move up. Had a long signal just prior to the C bar, but then the C bar double topped. It was like a second entry double top short. If you hold on through the back and forth you'd get 20 ticks.

Trade 4: After I didn't take C because I was more or less looking for a pullback into a continuation long, I saw this signal and took it. It looked good, but just didn't work out with any follow through. Stopped out at -13 with sim slippage.

Trade D: Failed to go higher on the pullback continuation so I should have just looked short. It was sitting on the EMA so I hesitated. If I would have taken C I wouldn't have taken Trade 4 and I would be holding for Trade D to materialize.

Trade 5: Looked like a rejection of the EMA, shooting star. CL kind of looked like it was going down even though I'm seeing higher lows. Basically, I fought the market here. I put the order on, pulled it off, and put it back on because I was thinking about how I need to take all of the signals regardless and that I don't want to miss a move. I'm still having hope that I can salvage the day. Stopped at -14 with some more sim slippage. I don't know why my sim platform does that.

Trade 6: Got stopped out of Trade 5 and now I'm starting to look at the higher lows because I should have just watched that the first time. I jumped in because I remembered missing out on the move of Trade B when I didn't jump back in right away. I watched price make a double top and I thought maybe it could break it, but when it didn't I should have just scrapped the trade, but I told myself to follow my rules and held on for another -15 tick loss. Ultimately I shouldn't have taken this trade because it was sitting right on the EMA.

Trade E: If I would have been doing the right thing I would have been in the position to be able to take this trade, but I was too busy getting myself whipped around that I lost confidence in my decisions. By the time I got stopped out of Trade 6 I didn't have a chance to get into E.

Sim: -56 (6 trades, 2W/4L)
Monthly Sim: -15.5 (21 trades, 14W/7L)

hTotal: +51 (8 trades, 5W/3L)
Monthly hTotal: +435.5 (67 trades, 50W/17L)

Frustrating today finding myself on the wrong side of every trade and not taking every trade that included a bunch of winners. As you can see from my hTotal, I would have had a pretty good day if I would have taken every signal, or at least held onto the trades I did take (Trade 1). Picking and choosing left money on the table and gave a bunch back. Taking Trade C would have kept me out of Trades 4 and D and would have given me +20. Not jumping into Trade 6 when it was sitting on the EMA would have caused me to avoid taking the loss and maybe I would have taken Trade E.

I really felt out of control today. It was mainly frustrating because I wasn't taking all of my signals so I was really seeing how much I was leaving out there. If I would have taken a couple trades that would have given me a profit I might have a different mindset. Maybe my patience would have been a little better, maybe I wouldn't feel like I was missing out on any moves, etc. Today was just a big case of, "What the hell is wrong with me!?"

Even missing the B bar, I had a second chance to go long at the bar after the B bar after it confirmed that it was now going higher, but I just watched it like a big dummy. Even if I wasn't sure about the B bar because the bar after B initially went down and broke that low, I should have been able to recognize the "trap" and/or the acceleration out of the range.

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Maybe this is a good thing that this happened in sim rather than having all great trading days and then going live and having it happen live and knocking me back on my ass. Yesterday I said that it was starting to settle in that I could very much take a loss by doing this, and now I did. It's a learning experience:

1. Follow your rules.
2. Take all of your signals.
3. Trust yourself.
4. Swing away.
5. Don't give up.
6. Stay patient.
7. Remain objective.

I was in a great flow the last two days and today I just felt out of the loop, against the flow.

I'm going to continue trading in sim and work on these issues. I believe in the strategy, I just have to get the numbers in my favor. Maybe today just wasn't a good trading day being Friday and no news. It's just frustrating to see the potential, but yet you end up with the exact opposite of what you should have made. Just taking my signals, holding on, following my rules, everything would have worked out just fine and I'd still feel on top of the world. Like I said before, the market has a way of humbling you quickly. Next week is another week. Losses are unavoidable. I believe the potential profits greatly exceeds the potential losses.

Have a nice weekend!