🤕Tough day in the ring
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Today’s article is focused on my feelings after Tuesday’s difficult trading day. I usually write my journal in an actual notebook, but today I wanted to share it with you. I lost around $600, which is below my daily max loss of $1,000. So it’s not the end of the world.
What hurt me is that I felt powerless against the market.
I’m having a relatively successful start to the year, and have met my financial goals so far. Being able to be dedicated to the market at 100% over the last few months helped me tremendously. But I’m a competitor, and today revealed some weaknesses in my trading framework and knowledge.
So what should I do after a bad day?
Firstly, it’s important to remember that we don’t change strategy after a bad day.
The overall edge of my framework accounts for bad days like today, assuming that my emotions will not affect my future performances.
But this should not be the reason to never listen to warnings sent.
I like to do a simple +/- comparison to have a less biased view of my performance.
👎 Negative observations
Observation: My first loss was a classic FOMO case. I entered long right before we swept the London’s session lows. A rookie mistake that could have been avoided. It happened because yesterday I waited for that exact same setup but prices ripped without me. I thought I felt good about it, but today’s action proved the opposite.
Action to improve: Note this type of feeling and be more careful next time something similar happen.
Note to me: This should have been a great trade as I was just stopped by 2 points. Would have I waited two more minutes, this trade would have made my day.
Observation: I came into the day with a strong long bias that I carry since last week thinking of a stronger rally instead of being ready for both scenarios.
Today my plan is relatively simple. 12,105ish has pushed back every bulls attack so far. Want to position myself below my anchored VWAP to target this area and hopefully the breakout. So I will maybe be in position at the open which is rare. Gl ⚔️Action to improve: Stick to the process. Get prepared for all the different scenarios (trend day, range day, trap day).
👍 Positive observations
Firstly, I have not hit my daily max limit even though I was going in the opposite direction of the market. In a way, I preserved some capital, and I’m proud of it. I didn’t seek revenge trading. Instead, I twisted dumb stuff. Much better.
Secondly, I’m still sitting behind my screens, trying to understand what went wrong. Instead of closing the screens or ranting, I’m actually working on my psychology and actions to be better tomorrow. This is what makes the difference between the 99% and the 1%.
Thirdly, my last trade after I cooled off had a perfect entry, leading to a 40+points ripper. I put my stop at BE and hold for a V-shape recovery that never happened. But I’m happy with it.
That’s about it for today’s journaling. I don’t know if that format is helpful for you, or if you’d like to see my charts with fills instead of TV charts, or a video/podcast. Let me know!
Other than that, I’m working on a really exciting Machine Learning project where I train a Random Forest algorithm to do swing trades on actions, indexes, and cryptos. I will probably talk about it more in a future article if you guys are interested to learn more about it.
I will be off from Friday morning to enjoy some vacations.
Stay safe,
Retail ❤️
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