Trade plan and Price action review: (Price action) ES opened above the value of yesterday and buyers were active on the open. They pushed ES up a few points into the 1331-1333 resistance area and sellers pushed back down to 1327-1328.50 support and yesterdays highs where buyers were once again active. I was long here but got scared out of the trade and took a BE scratch. ES shot back up into the resistance level and we tried to break above the IBH but responsive sellers were active pushing ES back into the day's range where we chopped for the rest of the afternoon which was expected because of the extended weekend. As of writing this ES is at 1329.7 @ 2:15PM.
(Trade plan): So i said that because of the holiday weekend that we could just chop around after the news release and that's exactly what we did... Nothing. I was expecting support to be bought on any PBs and the buyers were active at the 1327-1328.50 level yesterday highs. I wanted to see more of a PB into the globex lows area but the reaction at the first level is a bullish sign that the buyers are in control. So over all my analysis was correct and my expectations played out accordingly.
Trades review: (Hypothetical)
(Actual)
1st trade: I was long at 1327.25 and i got scared out of it for some reason. Not quite sure why but i remember that it was all emotions that was driving that decision. I started looking for reasons to get out instead of reasons to stay in and the reason i decided to take the trade in the first place.
2nd trade: I took a short at 1332.75 because we were trading into resistance at 1331-1333 and 60 min trend line. Buyers gave it one last push and we had div on ticks and VB so i took it as i was expecting a balanced session anyway. I was shooting for 3 points to catch the rotation down but buyers were active at 50% retrace which is where i should have exited in the first place so i ended up taking 6 ticks on it.
3rd Trade: I sold the trend line in this choppy market for +2.5 points and got out at 61.8% retrace of the lows on the morning. It was a good straight forward trade and a nice way to end the week.
Conclusion of the day and thoughts going forward: I did well today but so so for the week. I was able to tell we had a different type of trading market this week after that big gap down on Sunday night. We mostly chopped around in the beginning and had small limited moves mostly in this balance area. We broke out of the balance area and the market started moving a little bit more which was a relief. I was only down a 100 bucks for the week so not so bad. I'm realizing that once a trader gets comfortable with the technical aspects of trading that it's just a matter of overcoming ones emotional waves of highs and lows. When you're doing well you are filled with positive emotions and you get a little bit to confident and then bam you get knocked back a few steps. And when things are going bad you never feel like you will get back up on top. Its these waves of emotions that cause a trader that is still learning to have the swings in their PnL. Trading is about staying level headed and not letting the highs get out of touch with reality and not letting the lows keep you from having the motivation to get back up again.
Grades:
Following my plans: C
Following my rules: B
Trade execution: C
