Friday Wrapup (12/11) - $1166 gain

8:30AM
No trades yet in the early AM session.  Thought about buying the first pullback to 1102 around 5AM, but just felt like there was too much downside risk.  Skipped the idea.  Would've broke even on this trade most likely, at best a marginal profit.

And around 8AM I thought about selling the weak pullback around 1103, but this is not really my style so again I skipped the trade.  After the fact, this one would've been fully profitable in 15-20 mins. 

Just missed a nice countertrend entry after the 8:30 econ release.  Wasn't paying attn and tried to get in late, but wasn't filled.  Ugg.

10:00AM
Finally my first trade of the day was a quick short pullback right after the open.  Don't like trading in this window, so only traded half size.  1 tick of heat before heading lower and up $200 to start the day.

Also took a gap fade with two lots.  Decided yesterday that it's best if I trade 2 lots vs 3 as I haven't been comfortable with the drawdowns of late.  First tgt hit already (50% gap retracement), let's see what happens on the last lot.

On another note I'm feeling a bit asleep at the wheel and need to be cognizant of such.  Almost entered a trade seconds before the econ news at 9:55AM.  Yikes woulda gotten stopped out in a heart beat.  What's worse is that I checked the econ calendar this morning and saw the release.  Just too much going on I guess.

1:00PM
Yet another snooze fest.  Geez what is this 2003?  Not much happening closed my last gap fade lot.  Booked a $375 profit on this fade with 2 lots and a 1 pt drawdown at most.

Also, had my first bonehead trade in a while.  Took a short off the first bounce following the LOD print around 11:30.  First tgt was hit easily, and we came within 1 tick of my 2nd tgt before quickly reversing.  At this point I move my stop loss (had prev moved to 1 tick above new swing hi).  Yeah and you can likely guess what happens next.  Fortunately for me I realized my lack of judgement and moved my target limits up to try and get out a reasonable price.  Had one set filled when I stepped away.  And am still short 2 lots.

Right now I'm up $550 not counting the current $225 drawdown I'm on this last two short lots.  My goal is to try and get out of this position with the least bit of damage.  My gut says this new bull swing is just a trap so I'm leaning short.  But I've been wrong plenty of times before!  At least this time I only have two contracts on.

4:00PM
Well despite my best efforts I ended the day with solid profits. Since the ES futures had a range of about 10 pts today, I've gotta be pleased with that.

Took 3 trades to close the day. A countertrend scalp just after 2PM that I absolutely nailed.  We had a nice volume spike on the 3 min chart and I sold off the first break.  Took forever to trigger (break the prior bar's low) and I was tempted to enter early several times w/o confirmation, but held out.  This trade was good for 2 pts.

Right after this trade, I sold the first pullback up to 1102 and netted 2 pts out this as well.

And my last trade of the day was another countertrend scalp right after 3:30 that I nailed.  Nice volume spike on 3 min chart set this one up, and I took maybe 1 tick of heat before we fell 3 pts fairly quickly.

And last but not least, I closed the trade that I was stuck short in for a $300 loss.  That was really my only dummy trade today.  Should have been out of that trade for a small profit or at worst a $25 loss.

Overall solid job.  And definitely feel like I've got some momentum going into next week.  Now hopefully the market will cooperate.