Today I wasn't expecting much and rightly so. LOL. Wait! Actually it was ok. I did only 2 trades and given the day and mostly ranging price action with lots of back and fill, this type of day is easy to get choppen for sticks.

I traded live on T4 today for the first time. I am glad that slippage wasn't dramatic despite a fast move, it is definitely tradeable. I only feel sorry I got in 12 ticks, I originally set a target for 20 but somehow I pulled all orders when got flat on my first trade that came at break even and when I resent order I did not change the default 12 ticks.

Still the risk-reward was very good.

Trades today (practice)




This is a day's overview. Lots of move on chart, but swings are not large and inside there is a lot of back and forward moves, barbwire price action.


I had my chart set up during the trade to 6 sec and it did look like a better setup. But it could work, I got slipped 3 ticks right to the bottom, the was hard to salvage, but I close the trade after I dealt with its live copy, which I closed at BE (it slipped 2 ticks), so I lost bit more. This trade was purely about damage limitation.


I waited for this trade since the beginning of the day. It lined up today's high and yesterday's high, all stars! I should have taken 20 ticks if I would edit a new order, but it is what it is.


This was a potential setup but market got very slow readying for FOMC. Would have worked though but likely to stop me out around BE.

Market wasn't good for my trading method, yesterday was better but I barely had setups, I had one good and all others were mediocre, and it shows. I have my live account with Patak already but yet to make any trades in it, as I can't see good opportunities.

My trade log


I was giving much thought about how to better keep my trading journal, made an attempt to add setup screen shots into a spreadsheet but it's not convenient and useless when printed as it is not possible to see anything. So I will resume keeping my trading journal here in blog format. I will make an effort to comment on every trade with accompanying screenshot.


The only real good trade day before yesterday, good level proximity (magnetism) and quick buildup with lots of pressure on DOM. There was another potentially good trade when pushed HOD, but I bailed too quickly and then made an attempt to jump in again, only to lose twice. This is an important lesson to learn - you can enter the same river only once! I was stalking a good setup for the whole afternoon but it never came to play. Only after market reopened late into O/N session it did play for 100 ticks. It happens.


Trades overview from yesterday. Again, just one good trade, and multiple of break evens and few fails.


First trade went my way but reversed very quickly. The entry pattern was there but no strong level or favorable volume profile shape, I just relied on downward direction. I got hit by trailing 6 ticks stop , had I have manual trailing with my concept of moving stop after retests/moves, I would be likely safe. I reverted to manual trailing after that.
Second trade went very well, I did not anticipate such a big move so had my default target, it could yield much more that 12 ticks. There we had a combination of LVN, VWAP and previous swing high with s tiny consolidation and considerable pressure on DOM.


Here it was a decent attempt, no strong levels but very nice consolidation, it was just that market has died after triggering my entry. I moved to BE+1 but it slipped me back to BE.


I have missed this excellent setup by mere sub-second, I was waiting for a formation of mini-range with a mouse hovering over the price note and hit it only as price raced up so my entry was invalid. But there was no strong premise to enter earlier as formation only built up as it moved. 


Here I was worried about next mini swing high in just 5 ticks from my entry and was right about it. Closed trade manually as it made few ticks into black and reversed quickly. In hindsight it gave a chance to close at BE later but that would be a pure gamble. Right call to close. Should not enter it at all.


This setup was ok, no strong level but there were good signs of reversal and it could make a good trade. Unfortunately market became very sketchy by this time so I had to do some damage limitation once it turned to be a fake out.

Overall conclusion - strategy is good, risk and targets are good, it just I have to be much more selective in this holiday market. No big damage this week, but I am not in a business of bleeding accounts slowly either. Will focus on taking only the best trades.

Week's trading plan

Here is my trading plan for this week, I will try to adhere to it for the whole week no matter what. I will have any NFT interview tomorrow, but doubt any live account will be available this week, maybe by the end of it, so I better gain some confidence again by trading practice week this week and not touching live, either PTP or my own.

So the trading plan:
1. Trade only break out setups out of mini-consolidation or tight pullbacks, during large momentum candle run in a prevailing market direction, i.e. sentiment. Don't trade reversal early, until one rotation is done in a new direction and a pull back failed to continue in old direction. Basically my old setup #1, but not going with entry 2 ticks past candle high or low, but rather using break out technique inside the candle. Use 10 ticks stop. Use just 15 ticks profit target initially, subject to review. I expect the average stop to be around 7-8 ticks, so it should be more less fine. If market is really moving and we are approaching a key level that if broken can generate a lot of movement, I will manually change my take profit to 20-30 ticks, but I won't change my OCO setting in the DOM. Default will be 15-10.
2. For this week I will pass on fading any levels as it tends to generate too many little failures in the row. I will need to work with 3 consecutive failures in a row as max (same as live), so I need to focus on more probable setups even if they might have lesser R:R due to larger stops. I will still be watching VWAP fading setups and mark my trade ideas on chart real-time (anyone can find a good trade in a hindsight and reason it as a real pro) for later evaluation during the weekend.

This is a super simple plan, but everything genius is simple, but not too simple. (c)
Even if it looks like a mechanical system, it is not. I look for sentiment, traded volume, liquidity, spreads, compare sizes of rotation, promitity of key level that act like magnets and when broken can propel trade to profits fast.

Journaling

I have reviewed the first week of my Combine journal today. It's amazing how memory can be misleading when you smoothly drifting along the way and it seems that it was all the same always. Journal can help you to reveal what memory hides from you. I could see I traded differently during the first week, and later started to go onto loss minimization route, taking only stop run trades for lesser amount of ticks. It worked well of course because I had enough firepower to exploit it. But I doubt this is the best strategy for the real life trading. Fighting with slippage, for every tick, and by adding more contracts making the problem and struggle worse.

I like some conclusions I have drawn from last week trading with these mini-consolidations, but I also this I had a very good idea in the beginning that waned away after volatility in gold subdued, by trading with momentum bars. Now it seems we are having decent volatility again, so I will look to re-introduce momentum setups back, maybe I could combine they with breakouts, by treating a large momentum candle high/low as a key level and trading it as such, finding a mini-consolidation or a compressed pullback and trading its break in a direction of momentum. This week I will try to trade all setups with 10 ticks initial stop to avoid rogue tick stop outs, but will reduce it after initial movement and put to break even or around when one entry retest is done. In reality putting to break even is a bad thing, as rarely a level where your break even is bears any technical significance in the market, so you are trying to impose you view on the market and it never works. In reality you should apply some trailing technique right from the start, so at some point the stop will be past your breakeven and lock in some profit. I know that 10 ticks is a very small stop in gold to employ that tactic, so I will be looking for some healthy compromise and instead of technical points or swing high/low will use high/low of the 6s momentum candles in my direction.

I will start trading my practice account with this technique in my starting today as if it was a live account. I am tired of doing 50 trades a day just to see "what if" might work better or not. I think I stuck a bit in a search of perfection.