3 Trades, all of them green, only thing is that I could have got more. I am relatively early in building a cushion & have been doing well to limit risk, this attitude has protected me from pain, but has also contributed to missing out on days like today where there was considerable more upside that I could have captured had I stomached a bit more. I cannot be too upset with my performance, and I need to realize that this it the biggest green day I’ve had. Could have trusted larger time frame analysis better. There was abundantly clear bear flag, and while I acknowledged the strength of the direction and traded with it, I did not have faith in the extent of the larger pattern, which played out perfectly. Again, I cannot be too upset as I did capitalize on the direction & am walking away with my biggest green day to date since the start of my trading futures,
Again, now looking over chart after stepping away trying to be content with profits, I got out too fucking early. IF THERE IS NOT A REASON TO SELL DO NOT SELL. My trading this day was the equivalent of my SPX trading last year. I took a ton of trades, all green, on one up move, where if I had just taken one trade and held, my profit would have been considerable more. What’s more is that on both these days, these were easy trades to be in, there was not chop, the price action was straight forward, and there were no indicators to get out of position other than the arbitrary profits. You must address this mental barrier. You are learning and doing better, but you must separate your anxiety from your analysis. The charts are above all, you must adhere to what the charts are saying.
Calm down. You captured in your 3 trades a third of what was a straightforward move. It should have been more, but 33% is reasonable. Half would have been better and was completely possible. You need to hold trades unless there are reasons to exit. It was a mistake today on your last trade to set a limit order that wasn’t following the price.
Be wary not to over index the significance of this day either. This was the most significant red day since 2020. Not every day will be like this. True, you need to be able to identify & capitalize on the days when price action is clear and aggressive like this but there are merits to the timidness with which you approached this day, as you’ve been approaching all other days. The only significant mistake was the one outlined in the paragraph above: setting a fucking limit order at your price target instead of just following the action down.
Feels like I’m still getting used to profits, like I almost still don’t believe it’s possible, and I set the limit order today, because I felt like I was going to be persecuted by the market—that I’d be lucky to take advantage of the market and get as much as I did out of it. This is a mental pattern a story, and all stories are flawed before the market, it’s a story you were telling yourself, and while you’ve done well enough to tell yourself stories that are leading to what has proven to be sustained success, they are all stories, and none of them are ‘True’.