20140220
Long 1 TF 1149.5, -1.4
Long 2 TF 1148.6, 1148.6, -0.6, -0.6
short 1 TF 1148.0, -0.6
Long 2 NQ 3647.5, 3648.0, -1.0, +2.0
Long 2 TF 1147.90, 1148.0, -0.7, +0.5
Long 1 NQ 3647.25, -1.5
Long 2 TF 1147.7, 1147.4, -0.5, -0.7
Long 2 TF 1145.8, 1146.0, +3.0, +0.5
Short 2 TF 1151.2, 1151.1, +0.5, -0.2
Short 2 TF 1152.2, 1152.7, -1.0, -0.4
Short 2 TF 1155.8, 1155.9, +0.5, -0.6
Short 3 TF 1156.3, 1156.4, 1156.4, -0.4, +0.5, +0.5
Short 2 TF 1156.8, 1157.0, +1.0, +0.5
Total NQ -0.5
Total TF -0.2
Preparedness is critical at the Opening each day. A number of ORB breakout plays are worthy of Trade Plan inclusion, but it does little good to have them so listed if I'm unprepared to call the trade in the chat room and get my entry orders positioned accordingly. And today, an early NQ short would have put me ahead into the pre-Philly Fed setups long before. I will credit some persistence on my part to reposition after the pre-Philly Fed trades failed, as an immediate Bad-News-Buy Opp was posted and taken successfully. Thereafter, my failings were a TF inflection breakout that was simply too skeptical to take, which cost me an important profit, and later a well time short at the end-of-frame TF high, which I lost patience on and failed to benefit from its full excursion. These three were critical errors, and because of them I only tread water all morning. Be settled and ready at the ORB. Have the YM, NQ and TF charts aligned and visible and enlarged to easy-viewing scale. See the model, take the trade. As for the inflection, this one deserves both study and memorization. I have failed at this very inflection breakout trade many times, usually because I simply believed that the near-peaked momentum was too big a caution to engage with it. But often on such 2nd Trend inflections, the final spurt of momentum is the most powerful. I need to get this breakout trade into my model, and executed on a consistent basis going forward. No more balking if it fitst the entry model. And as for the last mistake, that of exiting too soon from being short so well into the 1st Frame HOD, it comes of an unwillingness to give up the piece of profit that keeps my day at breakeven, after returning several times to negative territory as the shot clock winds down on my 1st frame entry trade initiation limitations. For this, I am simply suffering regrets, not true recrimination. As an unsuccessful day's trading that gets back to b/e at the self-imposed time limits elapse is really no shame. Regain focus. Be prepared.
