Gamera

No trades for the 26th as I was unavailable for the session. Prep and actions for the 27th, quit around noon as I was unable to stay focused.

z, It was the best that I could come up with, a swing point marks a level the traders were unable to move beyond and started moving price in the other direction. I looked at a couple thousand examples of swing point breaks focusing on breakouts, range extremes, reversal/stride breaks and strong trending moves in order to figure out the danger point (the point at which a swing point is broken by enough of a margin that it will likely keep going). Is it optimal though? I've questioned myself on this a few times and my stats would say it is not. 90-95% of trades that move more than 3.5 points negative (MAE?) will be closed out at a loss, the trades that move over -3.5 points and close out positive fall a long way short of recouping the losses of the losing trades, effectively making an auto stop of 3.75-4.00 points more optimal than a swing point break DP. BUT Those stats were generated from trading as I did not think about other ways of managing a trade other than swing points, BO's, stride breaks, and not so much by the testing phase where rules could be more easily or rigidly followed. If it isn't obvious my trading has been as far from optimal as one can get with the process being heavily influenced by emotion and bad habits that have crept back in which has skewed the stats making it harder to figure out if they stack up or not. Might need to dedicate a weekend to this study. g

Prep and actions for the 25th, most of the decisions were based of the 10 second chart this time around.

z, Stops are usually placed above swing highs or below swing lows, if PA shows hesitation moving in a certain direction I might exit before the criteria is met. It can be a little knee jerk at times.

Actions for the 22nd.

Prep and actions for the 21st, odd day and volume spikes throughout the session seemed to confuse me a little.

Prep and actions for the 20th, trying to catch knives ended in frustration.

Prep and actions for the 19th, though I see things happen I struggle to act on them and find myself attached to my initial idea, I fail to follow where price leads.

Prep and actions for the 15th. In hindsight the exit on trade 3 was pushed by a little emotion as price seemed to futz a little, stopped after that as I thought I was risking over trading with three trades in the first 30 minutes.

Prep and actions for the 14th, I was poorly organised prior to the open and felt like I was chasing my tail when it came to the prep and focusing on the open. Whilst I could see the opening PA I was unable to take advantage of it and by the time I did the drop was over. Decided to sit out on trade 1 exit rather than flip the trade as my head was screwed on the wrong way. Lesson: Be prepared and calm prior to the opening bell.

Prep and actions for the 13th.

Prep and actions for the 12th.

Prep and actions for the 11th.

No prep prior to open as my charts were not rolled to the new contract until a couple minutes after the open so it had to be redone on the fly (sloppy).

Prep and actions for the 7th, had to shut down shortly after trade 2.

Prep and actions for the 6th.

Prep done prior to open but not documented, this post will include what I was looking at before the market opened. Once the first trade closed I ended up effectively sitting out, limited success in trading made me defensive about my gains which limited my opportunity for success (vicious circle), frustratingly, the trades I was looking at worked for the best part.

I have in the past, and there are often good opportunities that come about prior to the open. The opening whipsaws can cause a little drama, which is fine if a trade is high and dry but I find some of these whipsaws can bust a trade without actually changing the direction of travel which can be a little frustrating at times, but, it is something I have been thinking a lot more about lately when doing chart reviews.

Sharp move early on led to indecision later in the session.

Back in new territory, is there sufficient demand to propel prices higher?

Result for the prep above.

Prep for the day ahead.

Think I may have exited trade 1 a little early, stopped after that as I was hesitant about chasing the rally.

Prep for the day ahead.

Frustrating trading day, had a sneaking suspicion if price got back into the range it could go on a run to the MP or maybe the upper limit, the first op was in the first minute which was a little too fast and the second op I missed as I futzed with my order placement.