May 6 Recap

Trade 1 & 2

The plan called for a downside bias, especially given we were in the opening gap, the hourly was negative, the MD put trigger acting as resistance.

I'm especially proud of myself for not only sticking with the bias, but doing a great job of entering at resistance (circled area). Of course I was concerned I may be wrong, but that's okay because the bias was down, and I was entering just 1 contract very close to my SL. We dipped to the 3/21 and 10/8 and bounced from there. I held because the thesis was still in tact, however once we had three weeks in a row all ultimately holding the 3/8 it became clear to me we would be heading to the top of the opening gap.

As you can see it was a really great entry. I was never in a drawdown, until I stopped myself out. Which only 1 contract with a 2.3% loss is nothing!

I like this idea of my first trade always being only 1 contract. If gives me skin in the game and forces me to really lock in on what's going on.

With three candles in a row unable to break back below the 3/8, it became clear to me we'd push through the morning gap. I exited my puts and bought calls.

I sized larger, because I had a very high confidence stop loss of the 3/8. We immediately ripped to the top of the gap and I exited 80% of the position for a net return of 7%, and max sells at 8.2%.

Yes it's a smaller percentage gain, but the confidence to size allowed me to exit quickly, and thankfully I did. The gap held and we dipped back to 10m support from there.

We also ripped off that level creating a sort of fomo into longs potentially, only to be dragged back down.

Trade 3

As I alluded to this morning... "I could see us just ping ponging back and forth between the gaps" Once we closed the opening gap, trapped late longs, we continued with the muted move down.

I'm a little disappointed with my failure to act. There was a clear rejection of the 3/21 the 10/8 and more importantly the 10/21. That was the ideal entry. The puts were around $23 at the time. Instead I entered at 27... And exited at 29. Grabbed 2, when 6 were available.

On the flip side, there was clear confirmation of the move down, so it was okay to size enough to move the portfolio P/L with only a small trade gain.

I think my hesitation will lessen over time, but in the mean time it is still frustrating to want to enter, not enter, only to size larger later and exit quick. Profit is profit though.. and meaningful at the portfolio level today (3.7%!) - pretty impressive for 2 meh trades on a low volume, low range day.

2 for 3 with the one loss sized so small it was insignificant to the portfolio.