End of day review 3-1-11 Tuesday

Pretty crazy day. It's nice to see ES moving again. Have to admit i started giving up hope. So today wiped out 2 days of gains, you gotta love a selling market. Any way ES was taking no prisoners today breaking a lot of key levels. Today was either your best friend or your worst enemy. Trend days will be like that. You will either kill it or cry on your way home from work. I have had both lol. Fortunately for me today i had a good day taking home 4 points. Not a lot for a 30 point range day but considering the work circumstance I'm happy and thankful. You can see my trades chart for details. I was a little suspicious of the big move up in globex this morning on no news so i was at first looking for PB to get long but after the market opened and headed south pretty quickly i started to change my bias to looking for selling opps. My first area i was looking for longs was globex lows being that we had a bullish macro structure. But with the econ figure out in a few minutes i waited to see the reaction of the market. After the release this area was pretty much trashed. Then the selling came in and i was looking for selling opps from then on. I was able to catch a quick retrace and join the move with only a few ticks of heat.

End of day review 2-25-11 Friday

So ES pretty much went straight up off the open. We had OTD opening type from the previous day’s high and the market shot up giving no real opps to join the move. We traded right into 1316 poc on the composite and shut off for a while. The expectation for the open was for ES to test lower then move higher. Im assuming that when the market opens above value I need to watch for responsive seller/buyers at the open to get an idea of who will take control of the open. I didn’t really see any good opps today and I only had 2 scratch trades.

   During the last 2 weeks I have been having a hard time with trading, mostly to do with my emotions. Some of it had to do with work but I don’t want to blame work for making me feel the way I did. I have a choice in the way I approach trading. I can either choose to let trading and my job make me feel bad when things aren’t going as planed which effects my results. Or I can choose to not let it affect me at all which is one of the most difficult things to do. But it will allow me to detach myself from being too emotionally invested in trading which I think is a very important trait for traders to have. Over all I didn’t do to bad this week im only down $175 bucks so not a big deal. I believe I have a better grasp on my emotional state and I learned a few good lessons this week. Lessons that I believe are far more important to trading then learning about the technical stuff. I’m going to enjoy the beautiful south Florida sunshine this weekend and hang out with my wife and furry kids. Till next week…

End of day review 2-14-11 Monday

We had an OAIR open type. Today was as dull as it gets... There have been no opps for any kind of trades for me. I was expecting a balanced session today but this was to balanced. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

No Trades for me today:

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 2-2-11 Wednesday

   So Es played out as expected today trading in a range from 1304-1298. There were a few good opps to trade today but other than that it was pretty dead. We only traded just less than 1 million contracts which is very light. Any way i was glad to get 3.5 points today. With ES in this new area of the market and putting in value all day along with the bullish weekly IB  its a good sign for the market to move higher. I would like to see ES test the previous value area at 1298 during RTH so i can get long for a swing trade and hold it for a few days as we make new highs. I may keep an eye on it tonight to see if we get down there and maybe put on  a trade for a few lots and hold on. We shall see...

  1st Trade: I took this trade because the market was in range mode and i was expecting a balanced session. After ES topped out at resistance level at 1304.25 I started looking for a place to get short. I waited for order flow to signal a short and i used the book to lean on an order to position myself in the book. What i saw in the book was offers chasing the market down after the bounce off of resistance so that was the green light for me to get short. Also VB was diverging. (see chart)

2nd Trade: I got long for a scalp trade off a trend line. I used the book to get into this one and watched for bids to firm up as price approached the trend line. When i saw the bids stick i got long in front of one and i only took 1 tick of heat. It took some time for the market to follow through. Price hit my target several times but didn't fill so I just took 1.5 and called it a day.

Pre Market Analysis 2-2-11 Wednesday

News: ADP Employment report @8:15AM, Challenger job cut report @ 7:30AM, MBA purchase applications@ 7:00AM, Nothing substantial after the open.

Daily chart notes: ES has broken out of the recent balance area of 1296-1267.50 and closed near the highs of the day making new highs on the year.

MP notes: ES had a big up day yesterday breaking the value established over the last few weeks. ES managed to close above the recent value area and within the value established on the day. With globex session trading in the same value area of yesterday. That gives us a bullish to neutral macro structure. We also have a bullish weekly IB so I'm expecting support to hold and looking for a move higher to search for more sellers. We could get another 16 point move to the upside which is half the weekly IB range.

Trade Plan:  Im expecting ES to balance for the day with no meaningful catalyst out today. We have a breaking of value type scenario with 1298 as the top of the previous value area. So i will be looking for a retest of this area for longs and also for a swing trade. For the swing trade i need to see ES build value here for 1 day then look for the retest to get long and hold for a few days. On the short side if ES forms a range i will look to sell the top and buy the bottom.