May 19 Recap

What a not awesome day. Such emotionally driven trading. My morning plan was perfect.

"10m ribbon has turned bullish and any dips to the ribbon are buyable with a loss of the 618 as the invalidation level. A close above the previous days low would signal further upside to the -382 level and potentially up to the put trigger."

Right off the open we ripped relentlessly to the put trigger and then some. The 3m8e didn't even get touched, so I'm proud of myself for not chasing in, but that 'I missed it' mentality plagued the rest of my day.

Once price was testing the PDC I felt that we were far too extended to enter. Of course the 10m8e and previous resistance turned support was an ideal entry for the extra 17 point move up.

"I missed it" Fine. That happens and totally doesn't matter anyway because TIAAT.

I was able to collect myself and focus on support and resistance levels. However, I dismissed the clear 10m divergence forming, in addition to the distance from the hourly 21. Price made a clear higher high above PDC, PO made a higher LO and signaled a mean reversion.

Rather than wait for the full mean reversion out of fear I may miss it again, I waited to enter at the previous ema support which was the 10m8e. Actually a pretty decent entry relative to when I've chased in the past...

And, I didn't stop out, because in reality the 10m21e ended up acting as support. Where I completely acted like an amateur trader, I sized too large initially, and kept averaging down....

The feeling I had that I believe led me to oversize was the lingering disappointment of having missed the morning and then 1230p trade. So, it felt 'acceptable' to oversize this time around to 'make up for the missed trades.' Just really horrific trading and I'm completely embarrassed. I really didn't want to write this out, but I've got to do something different if I expect things to change. So, here's my ugliness in all it's glory.

What's super interesting to me... once we bounced off the 10m21e and then created a W pattern off it on LTFs it was incredibly clear to me that was the entry. The calls I was already in increased 30% in the quick move back to PDH.

Then when PDC rejected and we tested the 10m21e again I was convinced we were heading down to fully vommy, BUT we aggressively bounced and that was yet another clear indication we were headed higher. My calls increased 50% from that 2nd ideal entry, to where I eventually exited.

I managed to exit with "only" an 11.9% loss on the trade. However, because I kept averaging down and my size was so large, I drew the port down 8.7%.

If you see this, please shame me. No trade should ever detract more than 2%, period.

This is absolutely unacceptable. My max risk on any individual trade is 2% of the portfolio. On a dollar basis I wiped out last weeks gain... With proper position sizing this would have been just a losing trade, which happens! My win rate is 70%, meaning 30% I lose. The probabilities cannot play out if I don't adhere to position sizing.

What's confusing is I obviously know this. I know there's always another trade. I know there's no such thing as missing a trade. I know that I do not need to position large to extract profit. I know the only thing that can hurt me is over sizing. I know all these things. Yet, today I let my emotions get the best of me.

In hindsight I lost awareness of the fact that many small trades get me to by goals. I do not need to make it all in one trade. That happens and is ideal. But the system is good enough and presents enough opportunities in a day to take multiple smaller trades.

Are we at support? Are we at resistance? Size according to R value. I cannot and I will not lose more than my predefined R on any individual trade ever again. Enough is enough.

It's not often that I can wipe out a week of gains and leave on a positive note. But I didn't chase the morning entry. I didn't chased the missed 1230p. I'm okay with my entry parameters for my initial actual entry. That required patience and a real effort on being aware of support and resistance levels. I've made amazing progress focusing on that constant mantra. Are we at support? Are we at resistance? The second and frankly more important thing to adhere to is position sizing.

P rogress

O ver

P erfection