I definitely felt more patient today. I’ve really been working hard on some different relaxation & meditation techniques so that I don’t feel so compelled to get in on every little market move throughout the day.

However, with that said, I found myself being a little too patient today and entering a hair late on the plays I did enter. Luckily for me, they all went my way, but I’ve highlighted one of the trades below.

The entry setup I acted on here is what I call a Shallow Retracement Scalp (I use the abbreviation SRT instead of SRS, don’t really know why). There are 5 criteria that I use to identify an SRT play and this met all of them. The entry point is supposed to be on a price breakdown below the bar when the first red TRIX dot appeared. This would have called for entering on any price lower than 740.80. So in all likelihood I would have gotten filled either at 740.70 or .60.

“So What?” you might be saying. So I was off by 1-2 ticks, big deal!

Turns out that it is a very big deal though, especially when your price target is only 1-2 ticks. Had I entered when I should have, I would have been covering for a quick 2-tick profit precisely at the time when I was merely entering the trade today…Not good. And there are no excuses for why I waited other than not trusting my plan and the setup. I wanted to see just a little more followthrough before entering and it nearly cost me a full stop. I got in at 740.50 and a second after I exited at 740.30, price reversed for a quick 1.5 point pop.

So the big deal comes into play when you give away those extra 1-2 “insurance’ ticks even before you have placed the trade. That’s no way to win consistently and I was lucky to escape this time.