Thursday 4/18/2019
I had a well-being score of 5/10 this morning. Nerves were OK. An interesting day.
From a monetary standpoint today was my worse day in 6 weeks. But from a trading quality, I think it was OK.
I took two live trades today, first one with MU and the second with AAPL. I was stopped out on both. I first thought that this was just the law of averages since my last 8 trades were all winners. Though I am not trying to count winners and losers at this point of my learning, one thing was nice about it. I am still on the fence if I am going to make it as a trader. I really don’t know if I am actually forming the skills yet. But it did make me think. It is difficult to have a streak of 8 winners completely on luck alone. So it made me think I may have acquired, at least, some of the basic skills.
I had to end my trading day (I had a busy morning planned), so I could only briefly go over my trades this morning. Both looked like OK trades that happen not to work out. That bothered me during the day for the MU trade. Because it was a REALLY good setup. Yes they can still fail, but it made me start to second guess my setup. Finally, now I was able to examine the trade very carefully and I saw the issue.
MU had a really good “Vish” setup and I needed to wait for the break 43.15 tech level. It had great TLs below it to take partials. When it broke, I shorted. It stopped twice on a level that seemed invisible and reversed and I got stopped out. Now looking at it closely, somehow the 200MA on my 5min chart got inadvertently changed to my 9MA color/line. It was supposed to be a dark thick line. I thought it was the 9MA. So there was no setup. If the chart was configured correctly I would have not have taken the trade at that moment and waited for the break of the 200MA (which occurred 4 minutes later). At first I got quite angry but got over it in a minute, because now I know why the trade didn’t work.
So based on the data I had I did make the correct decision. So I will accept this as an OK trade. I saw setup that satisfied my checklist. I waited for the correct entry and I S/O at the planned spot.
5min chart 1min chart
The next trade was with AAPL on a 5min ORB. I was waiting for the 5min candle to finish, but on the 4min candle the price made a new high so I went long. The price immediately reversed and broke the 203.39 TL which was my S/O point. Technically I took the share amount that 5c below that level was my S/O. But for a $200 stock it’s not easy to stop on the correct penny. So I S/O 2c too early. The price immediately reversed on my S/O and made it to my 1st partial.
In hind sight I can easily say I should have waited for the 5min candle to finish. I would have gotten a better entry and gotten two partials before being S/O. But, honestly I have not done well so far on the classic entry for the 5min ORB. I have been doing better on an early entry setup, where I enter on the new high. But my sample set is still well too small to make any conclusions. So I followed my current setup, waited for the entry and S/O very close to the planned spot. So I will call this trade OK as well.
What I did good today: Felt zero revenge after the two stop outs. Never thought for a second to take another trade. I took my max two trades and the trading day was over.
How did I challenge myself today? Searched for answer why the MU trade didn’t work instead of my initial reaction that it just didn’t work out.
What I did bad today: Not happy that I had my chart configured incorrectly.
What can I do better tomorrow: I need to check the configuration of my charts more often. Yes, I am completely at fault for the MU trade. There is no excuse for having my charts configured wrong. Your platform setup is the easiest part of trading and thus no tolerance for carelessness.