Quote from Matcha:
.....
Today YM has the tendency to run stopsâ¦
I did learn something important by taking todayâs losses and I will try very hard not to repeat the insanity over and over.
1. When price spiked up at the EMA and develop a horizontal tight trading range. Wait and look for a D/B pattern or a D/B PB pattern to go long. Not the best the setup since you would be mostly buy in the middle of the TR/BW, but odds is still slightly in the favor for long. Do not reverse, short at the bottom of the range,
2. Always, always look to take the 20Pts profit⦠Or tight up the stop. Each trade is individual. Donât mix up the decisions with emotions. No need to leave a wide stop hope for a bigger move.
OK. Move on tomorrow!
PnL: -$187, 7 trades, 14%winrate
Quote from PatientOperator:
Hi Matcha,
Agreed with you. Move on tomorrow!
Today was a choppy day for me too.![]()
3 strikes for me. Got chopped and stopped out in all 3 for -4.5 ES pts max. loss.
--po
Quote from Matcha:
Okie, I am very embarrassed to post my chart and result for today. I made all the mistakes. My chart looks very messy. I stopped trading after 10:47. Maxed out the daily # of trades and down 3 digits.
My first trade was a limit order short. When I see no FT, I took the trade off. But I shorted again in the Support level.-5tk
Trade 2: H1 long on the spiky bull move. Took out when seeing no FT and bars started overlapping. +2tk
Trade 3: Short. Big mistake of the day- reversing the trade. Trapped in Barb wire pattern developed at EMA and near support area. I found I made the same mistake on 2/4 9:25am, I went short on the bottom of the barb wire pattern that resting at EMA(slightly down). It was just part of the pullback from the strong leg up. If anything I should always be looking for long side since trend has been reversed. -11Tck
Trade 4: long again. Sets up a 2 leg pullback at EMA long. Stop was taken by 1 tick. -12pt
Trade 5: Re-enter. A D/B PB buy sets up. The mistake of this trade is I did not take my ideal 20Pts+ stop, Turned 25pt profit to 6pt. When I see the run up is fairly strong I decided to hold the trade longer. Subconsciously, I really want to cover my early loss and turned the day to green. But market always punishes me when I started to âwishâ for more⦠Besides, my stop was too wide which is unnecessary. +6tk
Trade 6: H2 long. This trade is just simply not working. -7tk
Trade 7: Long. Thought to try a fade bear B/O and a D/B pattern long. Market took my stop and then worked itâs way upâ¦Just great! :-( -7tk
Today YM has the tendency to run stopsâ¦
I did learn something important by taking todayâs losses and I will try very hard not to repeat the insanity over and over.
1. When price spiked up at the EMA and develop a horizontal tight trading range. Wait and look for a D/B pattern or a D/B PB pattern to go long. Not the best the setup since you would be mostly buy in the middle of the TR/BW, but odds is still slightly in the favor for long. Do not reverse, short at the bottom of the range,
2. Always, always look to take the 20Pts profit⦠Or tight up the stop. Each trade is individual. Donât mix up the decisions with emotions. No need to leave a wide stop hope for a bigger move.
OK. Move on tomorrow!
PnL: -$187, 7 trades, 14%winrate
Quote from Matcha:
.... Donât feel like my emotion has been adjusted from YTDâs crappy performance.
But I did try the limit order strategy to get in long at 7:20 but due to my lack of experience I couldnât get the order in. I kept switching my ideal âlimit priceâ then I ended up missed the move.
..... I will only stick to âstopâ order for now and still try to get most of my trades in at the AM session. Then stick to only one setup. I am just a new trader and I need to stop being âsmartâ and creative.
... 2 leg pullback. This will be my major focus in the next few weeks. Got to lay down the rules on when and where to take or pass on the trades.
....... So I tried to âlimit the riskâ by entering âlimit orderâ, then I missed the move since it just happen so fast. I just couldnât react on it. It was not the excuse of âmissing the moveâ. Itâs the lack of experience. I will keep doing more back testing and forward testing to be more proactive on it.
Here are the stats for this week.
PnL: $86
Pts: 23pts
Avg Trades per day: 3
Winrate: 58%
Profit factor: 1.39
Largest losing position: $62
Largest winning postion: $122
Had 3 days no losing trades, then only gave back all the gains on the 4th day.
Have a great weekend!

Yeh, I am going to forget "limit order" for a while.Quote from PatientOperator:
Hi Matcha,
First of all , congrats to another winning week! Especially the very nice profit on your LIVE trading day.
As for using stop orders or limit orders, I find it easier (for me) to get into a trade using STOP orders when I am doing with-trend setups. I use LIMIT order sometimes when I am doing trading-range setups or if the market is slower moving. Majority of my orders are now stop orders because I focus on with trend trading lately. By using stop orders, I tend to anticipate the price moving in my direction and "sweep" me in (just like Al said). This way, I will not miss any orders. But whether the order is going to be profitable is another story.
....
--po
Quote from PatientOperator:
Hi Matcha,
First of all , congrats to another winning week! Especially the very nice profit on your LIVE trading day.
As for using stop orders or limit orders, I find it easier (for me) to get into a trade using STOP orders when I am doing with-trend setups. I use LIMIT order sometimes when I am doing trading-range setups or if the market is slower moving. Majority of my orders are now stop orders because I focus on with trend trading lately. By using stop orders, I tend to anticipate the price moving in my direction and "sweep" me in (just like Al said). This way, I will not miss any orders. But whether the order is going to be profitable is another story.
My trading today:
- I feel really bad about myself by allowing yesterday's "3 strikes" max loss performance impacted me today.
- I was very cautious all day, hesitated a lot both in entries and exits.
- Took 2 LONG trades today including the one at 7:20am p.t. But, I was so determined not to lose (due to the max loss yesterday) I took a small profit too too too early with a +0.75 pts gain. The other trade at around 10:40am, a M2B Long setup. I did the same, hesitated and scratched the trade with a +.25 pt minute small gain.
- Day's net +1.00 ES pts! Both trades had the potential to make significant pts. The only thing I did right today was to trade only in the LONG direction.
Lesson learned- I don't even know if I am ever going to learn - I need to let go of the previous day's loss and not allow it to impact me. Discipline, discipline, discipline, follow my plan, follow my plan, follow my plan!!!!!! You know I am pretty frustrated with myself.![]()
Have a nice weekend!
--po
Quote from Matcha:
Yeh, I am going to forget "limit order" for a while.
Consider yourself did well to day. But it's not a very good habit.
I think for me, to not let ytd's losses impact today's trades seem so impossible. I have to admit that. Subconciesly, I was "scared of losing more". I just think the experience will finally let us totally single past month, past weeks, past days, past trades out and make objective decision on current trade.
So best way to do that now is to SOH and only watch the market and learn if I feel little "off". But this again will require dicipline.... I had to always tell myself to look at bigger picture. I want to be CP in the long run. I don't want to take emotional trades just to get something back or take scared trades when past losses impact my decision making....
We will learn.... I just don't hope its coming from hard lesson...
