End of Day Review 2-28-11 Monday

ES had a balanced session today trading from level to level offering some good trading opps. I unfortunately i missed the good runs. I still end the day up but not as much as i should have been. I guess a positive day is a positive day. So i am thankful for it. I see where messed up today and i will take note of it so i can adapt and get better in my trading. There is one good trade that i didn't get filled on but was the trade of the day IMO and that was long at 1320 area. I had my order in and market traded at my price but no fill. Over all im very happy with my levels and the change i made last week in how i get prepared for trading has been helping me to feel more confident before the market opens. Until tomorrow have a good night.

1st trade: I went short at 1328.25 after market hit resistance. I ended up  scratching for + a few ticks because this was a very counter trend trade, everything was pointing up and i only took it because we were chopping around and was looking for a rotation to the downside. I ended up getting out to early but that's ok i would rather be out instead of being in wishing i was out.

2nd Trade:  I took a short at 1325.00 1 tick in front of the 15 min double bottom after the move lower. I was correct in selling the 1328.75 level but didn't hold for the follow through. Then ES sold down to 1323.75 and i took the retrace short at 1325 to join the move lower. Unfortunately i was tied up with work and had to go outside so i move to BE and didn't want to let the trade play out without me watching it and i took the BE and went to  handle my work issues then went to lunch. The market did follow through after touching the 1326 resistance level so trade was a nice one, just work interfered with it.

3rd trade: I took a short at 1323.00 playing the down trend line and resistance area. I was stopped for 6 ticks on this one. I didnt really like it but i think i took it because i was bored and i missed the others. Not a good reason to trade. Any way the context was telling me to stay out of it after testing the 1319-1320 level.

4th Trade: I took a long after the trend line broke so i can join the move up. I had a 3 point target on this one because i believed a rotation back up to the highs of the day was in the cards. The market traded to my target and i didn't get filled so i settled for 2 points at 1325.25.

End of day review 2-11-11 Friday :)

No trades today

WE had an OAIR opening type this morning. ES went higher in a trend type day today. We opened above globex and didn't test any support and buyers moved in right away and the market never looked back. We didn't get any pullbacks into support until lunch time and i was out for lunch. The market pulled back into 1320-1322 level which was also 38% and 50% retrace area which is a good trade set up for going with a trend type day. So no trades for me today. But i am still up for the week (see PNL pic) The market has made new highs on the year and that was expected due to the bullish context. I stayed out of selling resistance at 1320-1322 because of the bullish context. That is a great example of how watching the context and not set ups will help a lot in trading. Before i would just wait for set ups and i would have sold that level without even thinking twice. But now that i have incorporated context into my trading it helped me to pick my trades more wisely and not get caught up in just looking for set ups. So i continue my journey next week and hopefully will not get side tracked to much with work. It is very difficult to try and trade while working at the same time. I constantly have to step away from my computer or i will not be able to complete my pre market analysis before market open. But hey i have to give when i have to because the truth of the matter is i get to spend a lot of time on the computer to learn how to trade while i am at work. And i get paid a nice 6 figure paycheck to do it lol :) Tonight I'm going to the beach for the week end and will clear my head and enjoy my wife and dogs. Till next week...

End of day Review 1-27-11 Thursday

With ES trading at the top of the range which is the high of the year as well it made for really choppy session. The context is bullish and ES has been balancing since yesterday session and all day today. ES tried to break out a few times only to be meet with R. sellers. I had 1 trade today and scratched a few minutes to early (See trade 1). Over all ES is still bullish above 1290 area which is the bottom of this little range we are in. A beak of that would be a heads up of a possible move lower to test for more buyers or a possible trend change. We are still working with the balance area of 1296-1268 and have a neutral weekly IB and could see a full rotation tomorrow back down to the lows of the week at the 1278 area.

1St Trade: I took this trade because we are at the top of the balance area and was waiting to see responsive sellers above the range which we got when that figure release came out at 10AM. The market traded above then quickly rejected so i started looking for an entry for a short. I got into the trade and market started chopping and i ended up scratching for break even. In hind sight this was a bad idea because the market ended up going to my target of 3 points pretty quickly. Looking at the order flow on MD i realized that it still looked good and that would have given me the confidence to hold.

End of day review 1-26-11 Wednesday

End of day review 1-26-11 Wednesday

So today was a good day with ES opening and trying to go lower then bouncing up into the highs of the balance area. This is where i got short and traded back down into 50% retrace level which ended up being a good target (see trades chart). Then we had FOMC announcement at 2:15PM and the market was dead leading up to that. So i waited till after the release to put on another trade but couldn't find anything to trade other than selling the top and i dint want to sell their due to the bullish context.

1st Trade: Took a short at the resistance zone which is the top of the balance area 1295-1268. I was expecting responsive sellers to be active up there due to the FOMC announcement at 2:15PM. Responsive sellers did step in and push ES down into a retrace level where i exited for 3 points. Felt good with this trade and was confident holding it for second target. I was patient and waited for the market to tell me when to get short. Most heat i took was 2 ticks.

Review and analysis for Monday 1-24-11

Last week ES traded below key support at 1274 area and bounced off of the VPOC of that balance area below (1274-1258). Fridays session spent the day establishing value back into the range and making for a false break type situation. ES traded down to 50% retrace of the move also the lows in globex . So the expectation was for the market to trade higher if we can stay above 1274 area and we have been trending higher throughout the day. For the most part the market played out according to my expectations. The only problem was i didn't follow my plan this morning and i should have been looking to get long on that second test of the open which was in a support area. I

1st Trade: I took this trade on a test of the highs as resistance and the order flow died above that resistance. The trade resulted in taking a scratch. I think the reason was because it was bad trade location and i took some heat on it because of it. i should have stuck with my original plan and waited for the globex highs area which is the first resistance zone on my chart. This would have offered a better trade location and higher chance of seeing a rotation.

 2nd Trade: This trade was taken because the market got to my resistance area that i wanted to trade at. My expectation was for the market to move higher but i was also looking for opps to sell at resistance due to the expectation of a balanced market. I took a scratch on this trade after it got in front a point. I didn't see any follow through from the sellers so i tightened up my risk and bailed when i had the opp to do so. I only took a tick of heat on the trade so entry was good. I might have been better waiting for a better test of this area.

3rd trade: This trade was a break trade of an intraday support level. The market topped out at 1288.75 then traded lower and selling picked up as it broke the 1285.50 level. i waited for the retrace and got short. The market started chopping around and i decided to exit after being 1 point in front then bouncing back up to my entry. The market bounced right off the VWAP and the 50 % retrace of the move up on the day. This was the correct move i made cause ES popped back up. I guess this day was meant to close higher lol.