Daily Score: -.333

Batting Average: 61.54%
Full Stop %: 30.80%
EpT: 1.00
 
 
Overall, I feel as if I traded well today. I implemented the changes that from yesterday and feel as if I was much more patient overall. However, my last 2 trades of the day were very impulsive and after analyzing them, I honestly can’t find 2 good reasons for entering them :-/

On such strong trending days like today it is best to just keep shorting rallies until you get abowerful & definitive reversal signal on the 15 or 60-minute charts. Such a signal never came today. But I still found myself having trading 8 out of 13 trades to the LONG side! That shows my counter-trend bias which I grapple with daily. Were it not for those last 2 trades of the day, I would have been profitable counter-trend trading too.

The breakdown from this morning was a beautiful trade though which I’ll highlight in a few minutes when I post the Trade of the Day.

As I’ve finally decided to stop fighting my tendency to be a trend-trader versus a pure scalper, I’m going to need to make some adjustments to the Daily Score paremeters so that I am better able to use it when analyzing my performance. Because in trend trading, my batting average is lower than in scalping, which has really been causing it to be much lower than normal.
 
 

Daily Score: -.333

Batting Average: 61.54%
Full Stop %: 30.80%
EpT: 1.00
 
 
Overall, I feel as if I traded well today. I implemented the changes that from yesterday and feel as if I was much more patient overall. However, my last 2 trades of the day were very impulsive and after analyzing them, I honestly can’t find 2 good reasons for entering them :-/

On such strong trending days like today it is best to just keep shorting rallies until you get abowerful & definitive reversal signal on the 15 or 60-minute charts. Such a signal never came today. But I still found myself having trading 8 out of 13 trades to the LONG side! That shows my counter-trend bias which I grapple with daily. Were it not for those last 2 trades of the day, I would have been profitable counter-trend trading too.

The breakdown from this morning was a beautiful trade though which I’ll highlight in a few minutes when I post the Trade of the Day.

As I’ve finally decided to stop fighting my tendency to be a trend-trader versus a pure scalper, I’m going to need to make some adjustments to the Daily Score paremeters so that I am better able to use it when analyzing my performance. Because in trend trading, my batting average is lower than in scalping, which has really been causing it to be much lower than normal.
 
 

Daily Score: -.583

Batting Average: 50.00%
Full Stop %: 37.50%
EpT: 1.13
 
 
Believe it or not, I almost lost money today; On a day when the dow was up over 200 points! The only reason I finished the day profitable was due to luck actually. Bottom line is that I made some bad decisions and they costs me dearly. 13 out of my 16 trades today were to the short side (This is why I am so lucky to have finished the day profitable).

At my heart I am a fader. I like to catch reversals of all durations (Short, Intermediate, & Long Term). I have learned to be very patient in waiting for the right setups and on most days this is very profitable for me. However, historically, my biggest losses have come on days like today when all my fades seem to fail.

I was very patient this morning. I made a few trades to the long side on the way up and then stepped aside until the Russell 2000 rallied almost 20 points off its low. It seemed to be a fairly safe bet, but no pullback ever occured and in hindsight, the positions that I entered were unwarranted in today’s market environment (Although they are the exact same plays that would often be very profitable on “normal” trading days)

Therefore I have added a couple new rules to my trading plan that will ensure I remain on the right side of the market:

First: On days where the TRIN dips below and stays under .60, I will not make any Fade plays based off of the 55 or 610-tick charts. Only if there is a viable setup on the 5-minute+ charts with Volume confirmation will I even consider a counter-trend play

Second: If you are in a counter-trend play an the TRIX hooks back in the direction of the original trend, get out

These simple rules should keep me out of trouble in the future. I’ll keep you posted
 
 

Daily Score: -.167

Batting Average: 66.67%
Full Stop %: 25.00%
EpT: .92
 
 
Today was a very nice trending day with good swings in both directions. Back when I first started trading full time, it was days like today that would kill me for my method then involved picking a market direction at the beginning of the day and riding it to close and then seeing if I was right.

However, now I’m much better equiped to handle & profit greatly from nice swinging days like today. As usual, my scalp-trades were negative but my Trend plays were very profitable more than covering the losses and allowing me to hit my target for the day.

Recently, I’ve seen a very costly error start to creep into my trading. I have labeled it the 618 Retracement Fade Error. It happens when I have a pre-conceived notion that the markets should reverse between the 50% & 61.8% Retracement Level. However, instead of seeing what price & volume do around these areas, 3 times I have entered pure fade trades hoping that price will reverse there. And 3 times I have recorded a full stop.

I don’t know why I’m making these trades more all of a sudden, but I’m aware of them now and will have to be more vigilant to sit on my hands when price gets to these areas. Some very profitable trades can set up in these areas, but confirmation of a reversal is needed before blindly jumping in for when these areas are violated, the next support level usually isn’t until around a 100% retracement of the prior move.