Non profitable trader in training for swings

Thank you for your reply Fred.

Yes it is true that HTF plays a role and keep and eye on everything is almost impossible, I have a problem with my way of doing things in life and trading, I need to learn how to let more space to uncertainty and be okay with bad results.

Alejandro, 
Let me make it simple for you! 
here is my advice if you like to have it: 

Stick to the RTH chart for now and spot only and only blue box entries (best trades) that's it. 

no ETH, no premarket, no GX SRs nothing. at least for a month, focus only and only on blue box entries on the RTH chart. use RTH HoY/LOY/and other SRs. Do not even look at HTF Only Blue box entries on the 5min chart. 
so your goal would be to spot (and take) those best swing setups with strong signals, even without knowing what's going on on HTF or GX chart. 

I understand your confusion, doubts on plans etc. and all is normal, part of the process. but try to really simplify everything and focus on ONLY one thing at a time (Blue Box Entries out of 81 bars) 

Hope this helps ; )

Thank you Ali,

I will do and post the result here.
Only 5 min RTH setups with strong signal. I guess it is okay to read yesterday last 1h PA in order to find possible wedges / DT /DB / MM etc.

July 2024 Friday 26 ( 5min MES futures )

Welcome, in order to make everything more accurated to my trading experience I decided to make some changes on the journal:

1.- I will only mark down the setups that I took

2.- If I mark any setup with white arrow, means that I saw it but I wasnt sure about it ( I will explain the reason )

3.- I will keep explaining the trades that I took and the reasons behind it, also the TG, if I was able to hold them or not ( this way you will see were my real fears/weak points are )

4.- I mostly trade the first 1h30-2h since the open, and I am looking for the opening Swing, if I cant find any entry past that time I will probably leave the chart ( The reasons behind this is because I dont like Mid day trading, even if we have some really good moves sometimes, it used to be quiet and slow, also the swing opening if existed is already done and I dont feel confortable )

5.- By doing this I want to create more discipline in my trading by being aware of what I am doing, and the fact that I will show my trading day later, maybe this way I will be able to hold a little more and dont exit early for no reason, also you will see what is going on in my head while doing real trading, as I said I am not profitable so it is going to be a lot of mistakes, missing trades, early exits, and a large etc.

I hope you like this new way of doing the journal, it is more personal, but at the same time is more accurate to my real trading, I am able to read PA and see what I would do or not but being honest If I wasnt at the chart at that time ( for example the entries past my trading hours ) I think theres no point in reviewing them because all my feelings wasnt there at that time.

Okay, moving forward. As you know from now on I am only going to trade based on RTH and 5 min charts, I will only have yesterday resistance / PA levels and weekly/montly High, Low, Open in order to make things easier, I will forget completly about GX session, or HTF and focus on the chart in front of me. The first thing that I need to do is learn how to read what is in front of me and what is happening now, and also be able to take trades without any bad feeling or regret, accept losers and the fact that I will lose until I learn how to trade properly. It is going to be hard -.-”

Yesterday was a Huge TR day big down + huge big up + huge big down, the day closed as a 100 points doji Bear bar. We opened the day with gap up almost at 50% of yesterdays range and after a big TR day, if we open at the middle of the day before there is a high chance of having a TR day or even an Inside Day. Both HoY and LoY were far away and the most important magnets for me were the following:

1.- The last Swing high marked in blue after yesterdays last bear BO

2.- We had gap up, and trapped bulls at the high of yesterday, so we could have some movement to the upper side in order to let those traders exit and get the 2nd bull leg up

3.- Also yesterday closed at its lows and we could have trapped bears who want to test that LoY in order to exit or continue with the Bear BO, but that big gap up its a problem

All this reasons makes me think on a TR Open, and the bars that we had confirmed my analisis, every bar was overlaped, every trend bar was faded, big tails…and being honest all those bars were huge, which makes my trading extremely hard because I cant take trades with more than 10p SL ( small account ).

Trades:

1.- I am not sure if Wedges are a thing in TTR but the most important reason behind that entry is the FBO of that important level, also FBO of HoD + Strong reversal bar + Top of TTR. Because we were on TTR I wasnt expecting a full swing out of nowhere so I decided to take profits at 50% of that TTR almost 1iR.

2.- Remember white arrows are trades that I saw but didnt take because reasons —>

Reasons to take it:

All Trend bars are being faded

Low of TTR and EMA

Bull bar, not closing on highs but in TTR bad signals leads to big BO too

Reasons to forget about it:

Huge Bear Trend bar ( even if in TTR that could be faded sharply, the BO was impressive )

First time Stop Orders traders made money

We might have a PB to 50% in order to reverse with 2nd leg down and take LoD or the gap below

Signal bar is not that good

I am taking only Stop order trades ( to avoid LMT order FOMO, scale in etc ) and I dont think that Stop order buy on that bull bar was a good bet so I decided to let it go.

Then my trading session ended, I saw a TTR with big bars, that we were above EMA almost all the time, we had more bullish pressure ( more bull bars, above EMA, and more Trend bull bars, CC bull bars, even if we had that huge Bear Trend bar, that bar was faded ) I thought that HoY or EMA 60 were the targets, but I also thought that the TTR was strong, so EMA could get to the TTR by going sideways and I wasnt sure about any BO, I couldnt see any good reason to stay because this wasnt a good market for Stop Order trades, even if later in the day had a good trades, I dont know in advance if the day is going to evolve to that or stay as a TTR the whole day.

Thats all, I hope you like this new version, more real and close to my trading session.

Have a nice day!

July 2024 Monday 29 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday we had an Inside TR day and today we started with a TR at the middle of yesterday’s range so the odds of having another TRD was high.

1.- TRD but reaching HoY were a lot of bulls were trapped yesterday

2.- TRD but going low to the last Swing low were bears got trapped

Trades:

1.- Remember white arrow with setup but without targets are setups that I saw but I did not take

Reasons to take it:

Wedge Top

Strong SB

HL DT with yesterday’s PA

Reasons to forget about it:

Strong bull BO with FT above TR

1st target for bears ( trapped bears above thar doji bear bar, bad bull signal that lead to bull BO ) was way to close, so traders could be waiting with orders to exit BE and more bulls buy at that zone

50% PB of bull leg

We were way to close to HoY but we got a PB, even with that PB we could have a second leg up and reach that HoY

2.-I think this is a really good sell after 3 CC bear bars CoL with good context for BO down. As we were on a TR I wasnt looking for swings and I wanted to have more modest TG so instead of going for the last Swing Low of Yesterday, my target was the first MM ( bear BO body MM ), In order to have a good R:R and after those 3 CC bear bars I decided to use a tight stop above the SB which was an Outside bar, so my target was at 1iR

3.- After those 2 bull bars and the exhaustion bear BO, I thought that bull bar SB was a good reason to take the chance, atleast we were in a TRD and theres a lot of bulls who want to exit BE on theirs first entries, so this setup looked good for me. As I said we were on TR and this setup is a H2 FBO of that TR, It is true that we could expect 2 legs up before bears are willing to sell again or reach the top of the TR, but after all this PA I wasnt expecting any swing so I decided to use the TR BOP as target, a lot of trapped bulls could be there and in case the the day evolved to a bear day I was pretty confident about bulls reaching atleast that BOP, so this trades was another 1iR trade

Maybe I should hold this last trade betting on TRD and reach the top, but being honest I thought that the day could be evolving to a bear channel and if it was the case a 1iR trade was enough

This last trade took place at the end of my trading session so as soon as I closed the trade I left the charts.

Thoughts —> I am happy with todays performance, even if I wasnt able to take any swings ( 2iR ) I think I did a good job with my Stop Entries, which I think were the only ones in that Limit order market, maybe the 1st trade ( the one that I did not trade ) was a good trade too but I dont like to take trades were I see so many good reasons in both sides to take it.

Maybe I could hold the last trade too, but I cant know in advance if we are going to have that kind of reversals, I saw a lot of TR days that evolve in a bear or bull day after a BO and this could be one of those so even If I let some profit there, I think I did good choosing my target.

Thats all, see you tomorrow!

July 2024 Tuesday 30 ( 5min MES futures )

As you know we had 2 Inside days in a row, that means BO Mode in daily chart ( I am going to show you the daily and the 5min chart of 4 CC days RTH, so you can see the ii pattern properly and from where my trapped bear lines come from )

I wasn't sure if we were going to have a strong BO today as there is FOMC news tomorrow, but as you know, the important thing is the chart in front of us and we should stick to that.

1.- More TR in order to wait for tomorrows news ( reversals up and down )

2.- In a lot of ii patterns we have failed BO were the price take the last H/L and then completly reversed, bulls have the EMA 20, the BOP and the Gap above as targets, and bears the trapped bears below the ii pattern.

Daily chart ( Remember last bar is today’s PA )

4 days of 5 min RTH chart ( the purple/pink lines are zones where I thought some bears could have been trapped, good STC or LMT order entries, theres also swing points along the way down but the lines are exclusive for trapped bears )

I am trying to focus only on my trading session so everything that happened after my trading hours I will not review it ( I want to be true with myself and you, so only talk about what I was feeling at the moment the PA was being unfolded in real time, If I wasnt there and now I start to analyze it I will be biased because I know the outcome )

I want to be completly honest with you, and today was a really good day to make money but I wasnt able to do so ( I made some money thanks to quick scalps but that is not what I want to do, the journal is not about scalps either and even if I won, this is not the kind of trading that I want to do, I just saw how the market was going down with bad signals but at the same time trapping bulls with outside bars so I ended taking some scalps because I couldnt see any good Stop order entry at the beggining, I new about the bear strenght and the bear targets but I havent any setup so I took scalps, today went fine but this is not what I want, was just Fomo and not discipline ).

I was scalping the way down until we had the first Stop order entry, now I am going to show you the chart and the reasons why I wasnt able to take the trades.

Trades:

1.- Reasons to take it:

Bear Tight CH down

No signs of bulls

Strong SB CoL from EMA

MDT at BOP of Last Swing Long ( Yesterdays PA)

Reasons to forget about it:

We had any good Stop order entry

A lot of tails a long the way ( looked like a leg in a TR more than a BO, but now I think that this MCH down could be a bear BO on HTF, anyway I was looking at 5min chart and I missed that )

Bears reached MM of ORange

We had a Wedge at a resistance level

I decided not take it because I was scared of a failed BO, I wasnt confident about bears, I was wrong.

2.-Reasons to take it:

Bulls already did the 2 Leg PB in LTF

MDT at BOP LoY

Strong SB

L1 after Huge BO

Reasons to forget about it:

Extremly huge BO ( I wasnt sure if that was a MG BO or a Exhaustion BO )

The BO stopped at the low of the first inside bar that created the ii pattern on daily ( possible reversal ? )

This last point is more personal and it is simply that I couldnt afford the SL ( the BO was way too big for me to take the trade and the PB wasnt enought to let me take the trade with controled risk )

Thoughts —> I was able to see the micro setups that bears were doing in order to trap bulls, also we were in a Small Pullback Bear Trend ( my worst trading scenario, I am awfull with them ), I new about the bear targets and the lack of bull strength and thanks to that I made money with scalps even if I am trying to avoid them ( I am not good dealing with loses and scalping is hard because 1 loss = a lot of wins, that destroys my mental ) so for me it is best to forget about them and get rid of the risk, but FOMO was there and sadly I am not disciplined enough, I am trying thought. I know that I should not be doing this kind of trading with scalps.

After that I wasnt confident about huge Bear BO, but I remember Al saying “ sometimes the trend starts out weak but gains strength over time” today was one of those days and I wasnt ready for it, after the weak bear trend everything else that looked strong was more like an exhaustion than a bear trend gaining strenght and the reason behind this way of thinking is probably because I dont want to be the guy who sells late and gets the reversal, again fear and not PA.

Tomorrow I am not going to trade because we have FOMC news late on the day, I mostly trade the open so the market could be in a TR until news ( maybe not ), I will analyze the chart anyway for my trading session, but I am not going to trade it.

Hope you all have a nice day, see you.

July 2024 Wednesday 31 ( 5min MES futures )

Todays was FOMC day so I did not trade, yesterday the market closed the day with a huge bear bar

at the low of the daily last bear leg, and today the market opens with a HUGE gap of 100 points, right at the open of this month ( remember today is last day of the month, month magnets are important ).

Trades:

Even if I did not took any trades I want to do my homework with the open.
It is pretty rare for me to take trades with in the first bars, so even if we had thar 1st strong bear bar and some of BPA traders could argue STC, I know that I will never do that ( I dont like to trade the first bars so I am not going to mark them )

1.- I notice that when we have “normal” gaps the market use to reverse or stay in TR waiting for EMA, but when we have HUGE gaps the market use to trend in the direcction of the gap, you must already know that I dont feel good buying high on this scenarios but the setup is good.

Open TR BO + SB + FT —> TG MM ORange or even Last Month High

2.- WT + MDT + SB —> TG BOP trapped LMT bears. If I was on this sell, I think it is good to exit above that strong reversal bull bar, bears couldnt get their BE and also the bar before the bear signal was a bull bar after a strong BO bull bar so it is a high chance of trapped bulls there and the market might go up again and retest

3.- The reason is already explained in point 2, but if you take the trade you need to be aware of the HoD and see if bulls are dissapointed enough to exit or if they want to keep pushing the prices higher

After that my trading session 2h from open at max is done. I think is important to notice how trapped LMT bears at 1 high would able to exit BE and how the market reached the Last Month High.

Thoughts —> Extremely Huge gap days have something that makes me really unconfortable, I dont know if any of you guys have the same issue, but I would love to know what do you think about them and how do you trade those days, if you are biased or not and how you deal with this kind of days ( I am not talking about FOMC or big news here, only about the Huge gap days that we face sometimes ).

Have a nice day.

August 2024 Thursday 1 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday was a Huge bull day ( having in mind the gap ) but the RTH data was more like a TRD even if closed with a bull body. We also had a prominent tail so it is important to see what is going to be the reaction at HoY in order to know what to expect for today.

1.- More TRD

2.- FT so successfull BO of HoY

3.- FBO of HoY and fill the gaps below, trapped bears

I did not have a clear idea of what could happend today so I was eager to take any good setup, the only thing that I new was that HoY could be an important level and also that the last Hour of yesterday’s PA formed a triangle BO pattern.

I am going to show a bit of data from the day before yesterday because theres some important levels to keep in mind.

Trades:

I am not going to mark every single entry, but being honest we could sell at any place as long as your SL is where it should be.

1.- The trade its awesome, I think theres almost no reason to not take the chance if you can afford it, the only reason why I am using a white arrow is because lately the ATR is huge and with my account I cant afford this kind of SL, as you know from my past posts I am trading with almost 2’5% risk on every single trade, but with this kind of ATR the only way to take this trades is if I am willing to increase my risk to 5% and I dont know If I should do it or just wait until the ATR goes down again.

The rest of the day is self explanatory, huge bear day, theres no reason to buy, bears were implacable and they managed to fill all the gaps, even almost reached the Low of 2 days ago and reversed that huge gap in a single RTH day.

Thoughts —> I cant say much, we need to understand that this kind of days exist, and no matter how much you think something is climatic, if the price keeps doing what its being doing theres no reason to be against it, just wait, hold your trades if you are strong enough to hold them, forget about fear and focus on what is the market doing.

I need to think about my risk and see if it is worth it to increase my risk per trade in order to be able to take this setups and also allow me to take setups like BO + FT and be able to buy with 1 contract at the highs for example and leave some room for another contract if there is a PB. This way I could trade with more room to take good setups with good management, but I am not sure if it is wise to risk 5% of my balance in a single trade…maybe the best is just keep my risk low at 2-2’5% and just wait until the ATR goes down again, even if that means miss a lot of trades.

Thank you for everything.

August 2024 Friday 2 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday was one of the biggest bear trends that we had in a lot of time and today the market opens with a really big gap down. Seems like the market is melting and being honest I am not sure about any setup in advance, so the only thing that I can do is wait and see how the PA unfold and trade it.

1.- We could close de gap

2.- TRD

3.- BO FT

Today ATR was huge, on the first hour we had like 16-22p ATR and that is massive so I decided to leave the charts early and that is the reason why the last entry ( the one with TG ) is with white arrow, I wasnt there, and the SL is higher than my 2’5% risk so no trade for me.

If the market keeps with this new ATR it is possible that I will move to a different instrument like M2k in order to be able to trade, I hope MES came back to normal ATR because I am starting to understand the way it moves and I dont feel confortable trading other instruments, but at the same time I cant stay with this ATR either

Trades:

1/2.- Both are different entries under the same premise, BO + PB + L1 + Trend Resumption, after the 3th CC bear bar, which is a good trend bar CoL you can give the short a try and aim for a swing down, atleast for MM of ORange, same thing with bar 7. The problem here is that bar 2 was huge and CoH, also we are low and LoY + LLW ( Low Last Week ) is still there so I thought that we could have buyers below bar 2. If you take any of this shorts I would be so fast in exit the trade if I see some resistance there but instead of that we got the Bear BO.

As I said the ATR was huge and I couldnt take any trade.

3.- I think this trade is a good one, atleast for a 1iR, the market was transitioning to a TR, the EMA wasnt tested in the whole day, we had 1 extremely good bullbar before and also the setup is solid.

Thoughts —> I need to checkout M2k in order to see how to use BPA in other markets just in case this new volatility stays for a while, I dont feel good with it because even BPA works, the markets have their own personality and I dont know any other market as much as I know the MES so I will need to think about moving to other market, wait for normality on MES or increase my risk in order to be able to trade here.

If someone trade the M2k or other markets with BPA I would love to know what are your thoughts, if you feel more confortable with ones than others or if you feel exactly the same, I had this same feeling of uncertainty when I see different timeframes, like the setups dosnt behave the same, the MM are a little bit different, how legs develop etc... What do you think about it?

Have a nice weekend!

August 2024 Monday 5 ( 5min MES futures )

The market this days is completly crazy, with huge movements, the market is falling and today’s session started with almost 215p gap down. I really dont know what to expect on this market right now so the best option is wait for setups and follow the PA.

As you know the ATR is huge and I can take a single trade so I couldnt do anything today either.

Trades:

1.- I dont like trend from open trades but if you do, this one looks promising, atleast to reach 50% PB or BO MM. I wouldnt trade it

2.- I think this is a good setup, we are in a bear trend in HTF and a WT PB to EMA or 50% looks good, and even more good if we have a good SB and more bear bars early, even if we had bull bars, we had a pretty good looking wedge (imo). The setup failed, maybe the bull bar after the 2nd legged bear move that created a DB is reason enough to exit the trade, but I also know that the market use to do those kind of moves to trap traders out sometimes, so I think I would hold my short and bet for the HTF trend and the WT PB setup more than the DB.

If someone thinks different I would love to hear it, because I know that trade management can improve your trading a lot, but doing it poorly can result on the opposite.

Thoughts —> Not much to say honestly, the market is crashing and doing huge moves, I cant afford to trade it, I am doing my analysis because the setups are the same, but I am not taking the trades.

Have a nice day.

August 2024 Tuesday 6 ( 5 min MES futures )

Yesterday was a TRD after huge gap down, I thought HoY was a good magnet to see the following:

1.- Bears sold bad H1 on daily after Bear BO, so more TRD or Bear Trend Resumption

2.- Bulls keeps pushing higher seeing this Bear BO as a Exhaustion Bar

Trades:

1.- It is not a 2iR trade because is a BO + FT trade, but it is good enough, higher prob = more risk

2.- It is good to take the chance, but I dont like too much the fact that we were over EMA for a lot of bars and the last bull leg was strong and could be trapped bulls up there since reasonable buy, also even if we had a L2 short the PA there was more like a TTR than a clear LH L2. The price didnt reached the target for very little, and bears got trapped with that STC bar that was reversed.

Thoughts —> I am starting to see how trapped bears/bulls are able to exit with BE on first trade most of the time if the entry was reasonable and this makes me think that take good bars/setups that aim to those targets are reliable trades, even if you look for a target at 50% of both entries.

Again no trades for me due to high ATR

Good morning, friends,

I am writing this last post to say goodbye to the trading journal in the forum, lately the market is changing or going through a phase in which the ATR is not the same, it has been several weeks in which I have not been able to trade and this is causing me to feel disconnected with the market. For this and other reasons I have decided to start looking at other more affordable markets in futures that allow me to trade until the SP500 returns to its normal ATR.

I will continue with my homework and continue doing my analysis, but this time I will keep them to myself instead of posting them, because first I have to learn about this new market situation and possible change to another instrument, and also because I am seeing that in this time I have not been able to get people to interact with the post.

I want to thank all of you who have been here and have written me both in this post and privately, you have helped me a lot to think and improve my way of trading, and on the other hand I hope I have also helped you in some way with your doubts.

From now on I will continue working on this and I want you to know that I will continue to be available whenever anyone wants to discuss about trading.

Best regards and thank you very much.