NQ Beginner - Trading With Discipline

I am typing this as I review friday's trading session.

Overall, the biggest things that I didn't do on Friday were to determine that we were rangebound earlier on (and thus breakout plays were inevitable in failing), following my plan, and taking all my signals.

If I had followed my plan completely and didn't recognize we were rangebound, I still would have done much better. But, I took a bunch of plays that WEREN'T in my playback and then missed a bunch of plays that WERE in my playbook. Might have been breakeven ---> positive today if all I did was trade the plan. But, that's part of the game - discipline is my biggest problem. I have enough setups, I just get bored using them and I know that sounds stupid, but it's true. It will not be happening again.

Here's another note mentioned in my charts. Triangles work great, but only when you take them with the trend or as part of a trend reversal. In order to have a trend reversal you must have the resumption of a prior trend via the break of a trendline which constitutes the current trend. This will make sense in context to my charts...

I took many trades that were not 1:2 risk:reward. Lack of discipline once again, but also just inexperience. From now on, to make me take less triangles I am revising my triangle rules to: there must be at least 3 pts of potential profit to the first resistance/support area and we must have at least 1:2 risk to reward on these setups as well to the first resistance area.

After being stuck for three days in a trading range... another alternative to what I did would have been to just sit out until we get to either extremes and I get a nice setup or just wait for the range to be taken out altogether. At the very least, knowing full well that we were in a range, I should have been MUCH more choosy with my setups.

As it stands now, friday was -175 including commissions (if I could trade for free I might have broke even haha).
 

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Quote from kidPWRtrader:

Last one...


PnL to date is $-115.
More...

PNL for monday including commissions was -200 dollars. Running PnL for journal is -$315.

Monday violated many of my rules... was in a bad mood and shouldn't have even traded. What's worse was that I took all of my setups, but after one would fail would not take it again.

In other words, I violated my rules mostly not because I wasn't disciplined in sticking to my setups, but because I didn't take all my signals!

Every day is a learning experience though - the day did not go to waste.

You will see I have began to use some pitchforks in my charts. I am still price action only, but I am watching these levels because I have noticed that the market does indeed turn on certain points when the pitchforks form an X and fibs or another level provides confluence.

Take it for what you will... I see potential in it so I will continue to experiment

I did not trade today because I got all my wisdom teeth out.

Just an FYI, I am being selective with my postings because there are certain setups where I just completely broke my rules or it was another erroneous error. I make a note to myself not to do this type of thing, but there is little point to posting it as there is little advice that may be given on it.
 

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Also... nothing magical about it, but wanted to show what I had on my 60 minute charts going into that day. This was drawn, realtime, not in hindsight.

I had a limit to go short and missed by just 1 tick.

Note to self... keep track of energy points when it happens in conjunction with fib levels and in the context of a trend.
 

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Don't think I posted the charts from yesterday, but it doesn't really matter. I have been messing around with so much stuff, throwing out the bad, taking in the good. I think I am finally getting there.

I am finally falling into the groove - even though today sucked.

I need to start taking only the bigger swings, minimum 5-10 pts. Also, if I am using median lines I need to use more confluence.

After today I am reducing my charts to only 3. 10 k, 1 k, 1 min, and t and s. This is to simplify the process and to have me be more in sync with my moves and not get confused by time frames.

I will only "stand in the way of the market" if it is reinforced by multiple confluence levels and my stops will reflect the greater r/w of these scenarios.

As of today I am not sure what my balance is because I took many test trades, but I ended up no worse than break even today (gross). I'm going to put myself at a disadvantage and say that I'm down 600 since the start of this journal and I'm going to attempt to work my way back.

The nq is still new for me, but as long as everyday im learning something, I am progressing in the right direction. I most certainly learned a lot today and fixed a lot of my time frame problems of my charts.
 

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Kid,
Saw your post in AHG... not sure what top said... but I concur, to keep it simple and focus... if I may make a suggestion, which I apply to myself... limit yourself to X-trades per day for 1-week, 1-instrument and X-trade "set-ups", set a goal for accuracy and R/R - if you achieve your goal the next week you can increase 1-parameter - if not reduce your trades by X- amount. Increasing only upon completion of your goal.

i.e. NQ / 10-trades / 3-patterns / 55% accuracy / 3.1 RR

This will force you to focus on finding the highest probability set-ups, entry and exit points.... you shoot off ten trades in the opening minutes your done for the day...

You mentally evaluate all opportunities, but only execute on those that you deem "high confidence"

It also allows you to analyze your trades in greater detail when you are looking at fewer round trips...

Again, just a thought, good luck and Happy Holidays...
HK
 
Thanks for the suggestions Hawk. Yes... there are some setups that for me are higher probability than others, although I am still determining this.

Starting tomorrow I will be a lot more limiting in my setups. I figure I should take every signal, but of course, it has to be a good one and not something I make up on the spot like I have been. In defense to this, I am still trying to find methods I can fully feel confident in when I'm trading it and not just watching others trade it.

I have changed my outlook a great deal in just one day, but tomorrow will be the test to see if I can stick with it.

Will post end of day ...
 
Kid, glad to see your progress... the theory behind my suggestion comes from a trouble shooting standpoint... yes very important to determine which works best for you, however, multiple variables changed at one time and you will not be able to determine precisely what worked and what didn't work...

Which ever way you proceed, only change one variable at a time...

Good luck and get some sleep... 2:00 AM ;o)
 
Hawk...you were more than correct.

Even though I simplified lots of stuff on my charts, I still had lots of problems because I was making so many changes.

I think with commissions I came out to be -$280.

I went back through Anek's thread and thought about what I was doing when I started off that made me initially so successful.

I did not trade Tuesday last week because I was getting my wisdom teeth removed.

After going over what made me successful initially, I tried trading again with Anek's methods and a little bit of a new flavor from the things I have been working on.

Broke my rules twice during the session but came out a +$200.

I think I may be onto something here, but obviously the journal does not reflect this.

Running total on the journal is -$680.

I will review my trades on Friday with the frame of mind that I am applying Anek's method as I did when I traded today AND some of the new stuff.

I have been disregarding trend too often and it shows in my PnL.

Time to go back to the basics.

Another thing that I noticed I have been doing that I never did before, was not have limit targets. This has caused me to lose out on many trades that should come out > breakeven. But, I also managed to fix that my last session.

We'll see how monday goes.
 
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