Friday Wrapup (12/18) - $751 gain

9:00AM
Not much to report so far this morning.  I've taken 3 trades since 6AM without much to show for them.  First trade was a long pullback taken after first drop from the overnight high.  First tgt was hit and ultimately was stopped out for a loss of $38.  Not much movement after entry.

Next trade was a pullback short taken just after 7AM.  First two tgts were hit on this one and I was a bit too careless about closing the last lot and ended up getting stopped out on that one.  Made $63 on the trade.

And the last was a countertrend setup that's normally part of my setup.  Felt like it was a low risk entry and ultimately I was spot on.  We had rallied up to 1100 and pulled back and took out the prior bar's low.  Shorted 3 contracts at prior bar low.  Without a tick of heat, I was up as much as $187 before ultimately closing the trade for just a $37 profit.  Closed the trade early before my stop was hit, and if I had held on this trade would've been nicely profitable over the next 1/2 hour or so.  Problem was this wasn't a normal setup for me, so I didn't trust my instincts.

Should note also that I've only traded 1/2 sizes on all 3 trades.  First 2 were due to larger risks where I had to place my stops, and the last was because this was a new setup.  Up $62 so far with another mtg scheduled at 9:15AM.  Ugg.

4:00PM
Was again in business meetings for the better part of the day but did manage two trades during the regular market session. 

Faded the opening gap up and scaled out at 50% and 100% retracement levels for a solid $450 gain.  Never took more than 1 pt heat on this trade.

And around 1:45 took a countertrend short which I entered a bit differently then usual. I missed the initial entry, so sold the first mini-pullback once we had broke the prior bar's lows.  I had made a note to myself about this the other day to watch out for this setup and sure enough there it was.  Pulled in $238 on this one.  Shortly after entry this one got fairly choppy, so I scaled out fairly quickly.  Booked $238 on this trade.

All total for a $750 gain.  Not too bad especially considering my relative lack of screen time. 

Of note, I missed two nice countertrend entries, one at 11:30 and the other at 3:30, which would've both been nicely profitable either trading the initial break or the follow-up as discussed above.  The first one I just flat out missed, the second I was in front of the screen but pre-occupied with something else.