Sunday PM: 1st trade good. Wasn’t at computer for 2nd trade so wasn’t watching. Let +.4R turn into -.5R when it was clear it wasn’t moving in my direction.

Monday AM: -.5R in SI. SFP took form but I didn’t wait for bar to close and more importantly, was too big so couldn’t put my stop where I should’ve based on ATR. Mistake

+1R in GC. Trading my P/L way too much in this one, trying to get perfect average. Didn’t hold till target (2R) which hit. Mistake.

Dumb mistakes in CL and ZS cost me 2k for no reason, took a good day to down day.

AM: 0

PM: +1500

Day P/L: -500

AM: +1R in GC. Inverse. Held till target. Perfect

-.5R in CL: No real plan besides buying a pullback. Need to stop doing this.

-1.1R in ES: Kept on adding and puked the bottom. 2R in next 5 mins. Exit earlier. There’s no reason for me to ride the wave down. If I see something that invalidates my trade, get out and then re-evaluate.

+.5R in GC: Inverse. Exited partial early because P/L. Good

AM: -0.1R

PM: +5000

AM: -1.2R in ES overnight. I’m not trading at night overnights anymore. Simple, hard rule because I come into the next day not 100%, feeling the need to get back to 0 and forcing trades.

-.3R in CL. Bad trade. I don’t have enough risk left in the day to take this

+.6 in SI. Very good. Tight stop due to lowered risk. Waited for inverse price to be hit and saw selling before entry.

-.6R in CL. Again, very poor sizing. Not adjusting to volatility and either playing much smaller or being way less aggressive on entries.

PM: Due to other dumb trades when I was trying to force it, I hit my max stop and wasn’t able to trade in the afternoon. This greatly takes away from my EV and hurts me terribly in the long run.

AM: -1.5R

PM: 0

Finally a much needed win. Was patient and it payed off today. Lowered my stop and therefore will be decreasing the size of my units of risk (R). However, I will keep updating this using the same R so I give a clearer picture. Therefore, expect smaller wins and losses in terms of R until I put together a good run and get myself more comfortable risking more.

AM:

• Long GC inverse. Chased entry instead of waiting on the bid cost me lots of mental capital. Got out some early so fighting for last piece. +2R
• Long HG stop reversal. Not a big stop so no real reason to enter trade. Should’ve gotten out flat when it didn’t go my way after 2mins. -.8R
• Long ES inverse. Wasn’t in the proper size and got out of some early. This is a +2.5R trade. +1.6R

Total AM: +2.8R

PM: +600

AM: 2 wins, 2 losses

1st trade: +2R Patient on entry, missed by 1 tick. When it came back to re-test, I chased the entry instead of waiting for it at my price. That’s a mistake. Good add when it showed weakness. Thought about holding till next level, which would’ve been 3.5R winner but just took the 2R win

2nd trade: -3.4R in SI. Good patience on entry. Waited for stop at my level with ATR extended = winning combo. Couldn’t accept the loser so kept on adding and averaging down. Really awful when I had many opportunities to get out flat as I saw the seller just above my entry

3rd trade: +1R in HG. Entered on close. Was hoping for a bigger bounce but took what the market gave.

4th trade: -0.7R in SI. Entered on close. Had 1R profit very quickly and thought this could retrace higher for 5R as I was big with tight stop. Took partial profit to reduce risk in case of loss. Moved my stop as it came close because I mentally couldn’t handle taking another loss in SI. Mentality was to make it all back that I lost in the first SI trade.

Fucked up the PM royally for no reason except I refuse to take my losses when I should

Had +1000 and finished -3300. My goal is only +500 so how the fuck do I let myself go from double that to down a ton. More angry and pissed off with myself than I’ve ever been because I know this should’ve been an easy +3k day instead of -4k.

The past 2 days combined would be +7500 instead of -8000. Those swings are terrible for my psyche. I can’t continue putting this stress on myself for no reason. I force difficult trades when the easy ones are there for the taking.

I’m just rambling now but this is raw. This is what it looks like when after 6 years, you feel like you’ve lost the ability to trade and everything you do is wrong. Confidence goes down and you’re scared to make a move and be wrong, again. Instead of the past 2 days putting a dent in my downswing, I’ve put myself in an even deeper hole. I need to trust my process for the next 3 days. If I get up 2R in the morning, I’m done. Just need to put a green day on the board and build some fucking momentum so I can turn this ship around.

AM: – 1.1R

PM: -3300

Mistakes:

• Overtraded a ton. Had 3R profit from Sunday night and overnight trades closed. That’s an AMAZING day! Take that and just trade the close and you’re set
• Tried the same trade 4 times without any reason
• Many undefined trades
• Stupid ES loss at the close
• Too big without wide enough stops considering ATR

Good:

• Held 2 trades to target. Inverse and SPF are working
• My levels are working and price is bouncing from them

Overall a truly awful day where I ended down 1.5R on the day but from peak, -1.5R. As well, I felt like I missed a few good opportunities because I was fighting with trash trades for no reason.

There’s not a lot of free money out there, but I need to be patient for it instead of jumping in blindly into anything that’s moving. I have my levels, just need to be patient.

PATIENCE PAYS

End result:

AM: -1.68R

PM: + 1500

This site will be here to document my journey to digging myself out of the hole I’ve put myself in over the past 3 weeks. Can’t believe I’ve managed to put myself in this position in such a short period of time.

This is the start of the turnaround.

Step 1:

Stick to afternoon strategy. From my past 2 years of data, I can confidently say that the 2 products I trade will be able to bring in 30k/quarter.

Once I get back to even, I will withdraw 15k/quarter to pay for my lifestyle.

Anything extra will get added into my trading account in order to grow it at a quicker pace.

Step 2:

The morning is where I have punished myself repeatedly for the past 4 years trying and consistently failing to find a successful strategy that suits my personality and to follow it without fail. In order to change that, I need to create a very clear, rigid strategy that covers all the bases so I don’t have to think while in the trade. Self sabotage has lost me more money than I care to think about.

My solution to this problem is to trade higher time frames. This way I can have more time to make an exact plan for each trade. I will use an ATR based stop, have a target based on past levels and only then will I find an entry that will give me a 2:1 or greater Risk:Reward ratio. If price doesn’t come to my entry, I WON’T TAKE THE TRADE.

I accept that missing many trades is part of the game.

I base how much to risk on a trade on a fixed percentage of my portfolio, quoted as R.

2% of my portfolio is 1R.

If I lose 10R, I will cut my size by 25% until I get back to even.

This will have a twofold effect on me. I will be very careful, patient and picky with the trades I take, knowing I’m on a tight leash. As well, it will make me avoid going through large drawdowns, even if it means taking a longer time to get back to highs of the account.