May 9th and May 6th Week Recap

Today was death by a thousand cuts. Yet another lesson that's been hard to learn... If there's no trend, don't trade. I know this. I acknowledge we were in the trigger box and it comes down to waiting for support or resistance to break. What ends up happening is I have thoughts about where price is going, if it goes there, I'm annoyed I didn't profit. Yet that's super biased, because all those times I anticipate price, and it doesn't do what I thought, I just keep waiting. It's imperative that I focus on high quality, high probability trades ONLY. The data is crystal clear. Since I've been sharing my trades in detail, the week with only 7 trades was far more profitable than weeks with 17 and 16 trades. Fewer, better trades, lead to greater returns.

I don't want to get too hard on myself. My analysis was on point, "Today's plan... tough. We're consolidating between the daily put and call trigger" clear consolidation. My patience, not on point. This continues to be the hardest part of trading - waiting until the high probability trade presents itself, and then waiting even longer for the high probability entry.

This is what the market does. It traps and traps and traps until the fewest people possible are able to participate in the big move. I was able to muster out a green week because of the early week performance. This despite being a very challenging week of very sideways price action.

Trades 1 + 2 + 3

Same thesis for all three trades. Same strikes. Same mistake... assuming I'm wrong at the exact perfect time to enter puts, hesitate, then get in at a worse spot, that forces me to take profit quick and / or stop at the ideal entry.

In all three cases price made a violent move up to, BUT NOT close in the 10m ribbon. Those probes into the 10m ribbon are the ideal entries. In the first two cases the 3m21e held as resistance, both indicating entry for puts immediately, with the 3m21e as a SL. 12 points on puts if entered immediately, instead only 7 points available. 2nd trade: 6 points available if entered immediately after 3/21 rejected vs. only 4 by the time I entered.

Then the third trade... The 3m21e was finally broken. But, we still rejected the 10m13e. So, when price immediately lost the 3m21e, very convincingly, I entered puts. What I failed to acknowledge, is that by closing above the 3/21 we signaled a trigger for a potential reversal. That means we know look to support for calls. The candle immediately following the close above the 3/21, dipped back to the previous candle open.

Sadly this is where I entered puts. The drop was convincing and I was disappointed I didn't take the entry in the ribbon. I took an immediate and quick loss. Turning a profit the first two trades allowed me to stomach the third trade loss. But, it left me a rough headspace.

Meanwhile, I'm well aware that there is no place in my system to even consider counter to the 10m trend UNTIL the 3/21 flips.

Without a 3/21 flip the bias has to, and can only, be with the 10m trend.

I must think continuation unless and until the 3/21 flips. Period. Yes it won't work all the time but the higher probability move is to assume continuation, unless and until the 3/21 flips.

I figured it out eventually and switched to calls.

Trades 4 + 5 + 6

The first attempt at expressing my bullish bias was to enter 1dte calls. I entered at a price of $36.50. There was extreme volatility and volume- I thought when in doubt get out. A loss of 1.6%. Frustratingly, the low was never breached again, and 30 minutes later we reach $43 / +20%.

In that stretch I decided to switch to 0dte. It offers far smaller position size and far greater volatility- both ways.

I entered calls once the 3/48 broke and then the 3/21 held. I was concerned that we were going to finally go with the 10m trend and breakdown, but the previous support held and the 3/21 flipped. I held all but 1 con until the scalp call trigger hit.

This is where greed got the best of me. As we broke the call trigger and we got a hammer off the 3m8e I added more 0dte calls for the inevitable move to the scalp 386 level, which aligned with the previous swing high. However, as I very well know, calls are to be entered at support only. Not in a supply zone which we were clearly struggling to breakout from. If I simply did NOT add to the position, and took all my profit at the scalp call level - green trade, green day.

Instead I took a loss. Used up my mental and financial capital. And 'missed' the move I was expecting to happen - the breach of the HOD and tap of the scalp 386.

Yet again, my analysis is there. My patience to enter is not. My patience to profit once I've entered is not. The solution is wider stops - which require smaller size - on the underlying price, not the derivative premium!

I enter calls at support / swing lows and puts only at resistance / swing lows.

May 6th Week Recap

Sideways price action. Sideways P/L. But green is green. And that's what we'll focus on. Not the lower win rate, not excess amount of trades, not the poor sizing of trades - No, we'll focus on the fact that despite these errors, we still grew the portfolio. Growth is growth.

4 days. 2 green. 2 red. 14 Trades. 8 wins. 57% win rate. Most importantly a 4.4% increase in the portfolio for the week. Smaller than the past weeks, but still positive!

Tiny caveat to make myself feel better about the low win rate...2 of the 6 losses were less than 3% losses -- typical of a trade I realize is wrong and exit before more damange is done.

Also of note, the max sell on a tranche of the 0dtes was 74%. I highlight this to show the magnitude available with 0dtes. Given the volatility the position size is significantly smaller, so while the trade had a huge gain, the impact on the P/L was not meaningfully different than a 20% return from 1dtes.

Just two EOD trades this week given only two green days. As a reminder I only use a portion of a days profits to trade full risk positions in 0dtes during the last 30 minutes. This allows me to juice gains while guaranteeing a green day. I was 1 for 2 on EOD but net positive over both. The EOD trades contibuted .80% of the 4.4% growth this week aka an extra 25% contribution that if I hadn't tried the EOD trades.