End of day review 6-1-11 Wednesday

Trade plan and Price action review: (Price action) Wow nice sell off today lol. I saw so many people trying to catch the bottom of this move I was starting to wonder if these people should call them self’s traders. Anyway. The market was trying to put together a rally and price action yesterday was very bullish. Today changes everything on a few different levels. If we can’t find buyers down here then the 1313 level becomes very important on a higher time frame. We could see a sustained move down and even a new down trend start to develop. Either way I am a day trader (I hate that label lol) and I will look at the shorter term trend and trade with it. But it is always good to know what’s going on around you. If you don’t it’s like flying a plane without a radar system. You will be able to see what’s going one right in front of you but will not know what’s happening just around the mountain. On to the price action. We had a bearish reaction to the ADP employment report which came in a lot worse than expected and caused the initial move lower in globex. We had a little bounce into the 1340-1341 level and the market consolidated in a range until the econ release at 10 AM. Both news releases were worse than expected and the market never looked back. I had nice reactions at all my levels today and they all broke except for the 1311-1313 level which is the cvpoc and where the selling shut off at the end of the day. Today was a perfect trend day down and it needed to be treated just like it was a trend down day. There was no reason to try for longs anywhere as at each level the market never gave any reason to get long. The easy trades were looking to sell the rallies into resistance. You were either on in the morning and held for the ride or you sat on your hands. The only good area to join the move was selling the IBL retest which was also the C period poc and the retest of the down trend line on the break back inside of it.

(Trade plan) On to my trade plan. I posted it before the ADP release at 8:30AM. Context was bullish before that and I was looking for support to hold. After seeing the reaction to the news release I changed my bias to bearish and was looking to sell into resistance somewhere.

Trades review: (Hypothetical) See 5 min chart

(Actual) I had a few trades today i didn't write them down so im not gonna take the time to go back and figure them out. Over all i missed the pull back in the down trend to join the move lower so i mostly sat out for the day. i ended the day down 1 point and they are just scratch trades. I didn't take any full stop outs.

Conclusion of the day and thoughts going forward: It was a trend down day and i am happy with my trading for the day. I didn't get a jumpy and try to get on somewhere. I stayed calm and relaxed and if i didnt see a safe place to get on board i didn't do anything. Over all I'm a little pissed that i didn't get anything at all but like i said i followed my game plan and i wasn't down big because i did.

Grades:

Following my plans: B

Following my rules: A

Trade execution: C

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 2-22-11 Tuesday

At first my expectation was for ES to trade back up to the value area high at 1342 area with the bullish action in the first 60 mins. ES traded up to 61.8% retrace of the bigger move down and sold off and never looked back. Then when ES reversed and started to trade lower I was looking for shorts below 1319-1321 area which we got at lunch time. After that there wasn’t any good opps for me to take except a long at 1314-1316 level after it chopped around there for a little bit and put in a 30 min reversal candle. It was good for a few points only as ES wanted to trade lower. The 1310.25-1308.25 level shut off the selling as expected. Now that we have continuation and we are away from the highs of the year area maybe we will get some good trade opps going. I will monitor globex tomorrow morning to get an idea of what we can expect tomorrow. Buyers will want to see this above 1306-1309 to stay in control of the bigger picture. If we take out this level then a move down to 1282 is likely.

Trades: See 3 min trades chart for details

End of day Review 1-28-11 Friday

Well as expected the market sold off in a hard way. I had the expectation of a complete rotation to test the lows of the week at 1278 area because of the neutral weekly IB (see Thursday 1-27-11 end of day review post) . We have been trading around the top of this range most of the week and we were building out value for a few session so i was expecting a break out but GDP wasn't that great and i think that's what the market was waiting for. Consumer sentiment came out a little better than expected and the market reacted well at first trying to make new highs and there was no initiative activity above the range highs so this was the golden ticket that the market was waiting for. Then the responsive sellers were more than willing to sell the crap out of it giving us a clean long liquidation type day closing at the low tick of the day.

1st Trade I took this trade on the back of the momentum that was entering the market. I wanted to sell higher up at 1294 area which was an area of small support that turned into resistance on the break but i was pulled away due to having a full time job. So when i got back to my seat i saw the market down another 6 points and break globex lows where i got short i had first target at 1286.75 for 3 points and second at 1283 for 6 points. But the market started bouncing and i had to go outside to check on something so bailed for 3 on the second one. Damn i wish i held it longer LOL. All kidding aside 1278 the 1275 were the real targets i had in the back of my mind and both were hit without a problem. As i get to increase my size i will be able to target take off a couple for 2 or 3 points and have extended targets for the rest. Because i know that one of the keys to trading is to maximize your profits. Remember the old saying "let your winners run and cut your losses short" well that is so true and it is crystal clear today.

2nd trade: I took this trade after ES made it low for the day. And i remember Kevin taught me that you don't want to go long after and big trend down until you se the market chop around for a while indicating a change in trend. That along with a few other things is what got me long for 2 points. My target was 4 points at 1278 which market hit my order but didn't fill so i locked in 2 and moved on.