Wednesday Wrapup (1/5/10) - $750 gain

12:30PM
Three trades so far today, all shorts.

First trade of the day was taken right before 8AM on a pullback off the 1000 tick chart.  There was about 25 mins before the 8:15 econ release, and my thinking was that hopefully my 1st tgt would at least be hit before the news.  Didn't work out like that, I ended up holding thru the news.  This wasn't a major release so I was slightly more comfortable knowing that, but I still had a bit of an uneasy feeling.  Don't want to gain/lose on a coin flip any longer, because I know that's a loser's game.  Right or wrong I kept the trade on, and right after the news my 1st tgt was hit and price quickly stalled just 1 tick above my 2nd tgt.  I sensed we might reverse but didn't act on my intution and up we went.  Ended up closing the trade for a $250 loss after being up the same.  Should've gotten at least $200 on this one had I been quicker on my feet.

Saw a decent countertrend short setup around 9:45 that I didn't take.  That one would've netted 2-3 pts at least very easily.  Usually don't like trading so close to the open since it's hard to read the price action.

Next two trades were countertrends.  First was taken at 10:17 on what was essentially a 3rd push to a new HOD.  Could've taken the 2 prior setups and made maybe $100 on each one, but I didn't want to fall into a trap.  After a 2 tick drawdown price fell and my first tgt was easily hit.  Then we pulled back and I sensed an opp to add to my position once the prior bar's low was broken in the mini-pullback.  Got that opp 12 mins later and added another full-size position.  My rationale was to treat these as two separate trades each with its own targets and stoplosses.  Worked out very favorably as I scaled out of both over the next 15 mins for profits of $725 with just 2 ticks of heat on the first entry and 1 tick on the second.

So I'm up $475 on the day on 2 for 3 trading.  Let's not have a repeat of yesterday please.

3:45PM
Done for the day.  Two more trades this afternoon.  


First was an attempted short pullback at 12:47.  Why I'm trading at lunch? Eerily similar setup as yesterday, a nice pullback during the lunch hour, but no follow thru to the downside.  This time I was prepared for my own stupidity though and scaled out for a minimum loss of $100 on the trade.  Did freak out for a sec though when price jumped like a pt in 2 seconds.  But kept calm and waited for my exit opp.  


Next trade was a countertrend setup off the 1000 tick chart at 2:45.  We had a huge vol spike on the 3 min chart and I knew the HOD had been put in.  I missed the first entry so I started a 1/2 position on the first minor pullback.  Entry pt wasn't optimal, but I added to the position a few ticks higher.  Took maybe a 2 tick drawdown before the market headed lower. Scaled out of 1/2 the position over the next 30 mins or so and found myself wanting to get greedy on the last 1/2 even though the market was telling me to get out (always listen to the market!).  Sure enough that greed almost bit me in the ass.  Price rallied back up to my entry point but I remained calm knowing that I had at least secured a breakeven trade.  So my only risk was the profit on the table.  Thankfully the market didn't go any higher and i scaled out of the last 3rd over the ensuing 15 mins on the drive lower and made $375 on this last trade.


So finished the day up $750 despite my best efforts.