Trading log: Post 2, 3-19-18, Bad Entry, Scared Out

Unfortunately I was sleeping. My need for sleep and how often I stay up late is certainly a bane of my trading.

All the major indices broke out of potential reversal formations. I went short after verifying, but about 2/3rds down the breakout move past optimal entry...because I wasn't paying attention!!!) So not only is loss potentially greater, and profit immediately smaller, I don't have as much leverage as I'd have wanted either. It's a messed up situation.

But I decided to trade the "old ways" and not care so much about the immediate short-term entry--since I  had already missed it after all.

3-20-18:
All major indices are printing different continuation formations. /YM1! is printing a bear flag and is the most dramatic/obvious.

If prices break out to the upside of said flags, I think I'd be in trouble. Don't want to move stops there though, because I'm not sitting on a profit. Attempting to hold on longer apparently. Stops should apparently be ideally at 10.35, which would be a $334 loss in my account, and a 3x that in Ben's. If I hadn't been sleeping, this would probably be a slight profit.

So, obviously not sleeping when market is open is very important. But I have a great deal of trouble with that due to the way my body is. I just cannot NOT SLEEP like many people I know can. So, the solution is going to bed earlier. Or somehow making my willpower get me up (good luck). Apparently I need to be disciplined about my sleep. But this is just...you know...it's such a disadvantage. But then anybody working a regular job has to get up at a certain hour. The thing is, without sufficient sleep my brain isn't working well enough and this can be dangerous for trading I suspect.

Will keep updating this longer-term trade.

3-21-18 UPDATE: Manually out at significant loss. In at 10.55, out at 10.28 on 5000 shares in IB account. The reason for the manual out: futures were printing a rounding top-type formation pointing to a downward price move. A large upward price move invalidated this formation, which gave a clear bias to the upside. Short-term. The risks are that after FOMC prices will really tumble, but then theoretically one could always re-enter the trade. Of course, it is probably more likely that prices will rise after FOMC as market returns to rally mode, given how depressed prices have been last couple days. It seems as if this move was a throwback into the triangle rather than a downward break as I started to think. The DJI triangle did break downward though.

Result: restricted from real trading for the time being. Back to paper trade. This is a result of balance of trade shifting to loss from profit. Until balance shifts back to profit, it is time to trade on paper.

Will provide another update in the future.

Update 3-22-18:

 

Overnight action due to Trump slapping $50B tariffs on China.