Mentally Challenging Day

Total gross profits:  $25.00  +0.50 ES points
Total trades:  2 [1 scratch]
Accuracy:  100.0%
Execution score: 100.00%
Opportunity cost: $0.00

This was one of those days where if you weren't prepared to get on board one of the ES's "big" moves, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, I could have easily fallen asleep, or would have been susceptible to being chopped to bits trying to squeeze water out of rocks.

Today, the high of the day was 1367.25 and @RenaTrader had a Diamond Setups short call at 1367.50, which means getting a fill for the HOD trade was missed by just 1 to 2 ticks.  And if you were awake earlier at 4:00 AM Eastern time, his "Asia & London Levels" would have gotten you long on the move down to 1360.50.  I missed both of those.

There were a couple trades where I did get some fills, and both went at least +1.50 to +2.00 (without a fill), so by following my trade management rules, they ended up getting stopped out at b/e or with a +2 tick profit.  However, both of the trades ended up going +2.00 and beyond after I was out. 

And after I missed those +2.00 target opportunities, I admit, I felt the ego get bruised slightly.  So I started to look even harder for setups.  Probably too hard.

Not a good idea for a day with hours of a relatively tight, range bound price action.  Although I would have made +2.00 on at least two additional trades where I actually placed a live order (but just a few seconds too late to get a fill), it just wasn't worth the mental capital drain, in hindsight.  There are better days to trade, and it's worth waiting for them.

On the bright side, even with all the conflicts and angst in my mind of trying to find decent setups, while even bending some rules slightly so that I can justify them against my trading plan (yellow flag!), the orders that I did place ended up being good calls.  So maybe my subconscious is learning something after all.

But the bottom line is that I didn't overtrade, and most importantly, I followed my plans and executed against my plan 100%.