Mind
I have made mistakes with yesterdays trading. Today, I shall ensure I set sensible limit orders to exit a trade before I put the trade on. Furthermore, I shall write down a mental stop closer to the market than the hard stop of 30 points. I will not trade if I am frustrated, fearful of missing opportunities, or impatient. I shall take some exercise in the early afternoon, and half a good lunch. As my sleeping is poor I shall rest until late morning.
Market
We should refer to Atilla's recent chart, and long term trendlines. Some sort of bounce will probably be likely towards the beginning of the session. I shall wait until clear direction has been established in the first half hour before putting on a trade. Longer term, I'm waiting for a test of 400 for a short opportunity. Longs towards the end of the session in anticipation of a rally into the close (shorts covering before the weekend) may be in order provided there is sufficient evidence of a bottom forming.
Levels to watch - potential resistance at 350. I'm short on a test of that.
Support around 200 which could be very bearish if broken convincingly.
I'm not wanting to take longs until perhaps the end of the session under circumstances previously explained.
I'll look to short on pullbacks to the 100 minute EMA in a downtrend, and cover on RSI / Tick divergence. I'll be keeping an eye on Tick for entries and turning points also. In a solidly trending market, Tick will be of limited use, however I see a range bound market for tomorrow as there is some accumulation by longer term bulls.
Potential Issues
Tight range market with limited profit opportunity.
Risk taking due to missing out on the great moves of the week.
Attempts to "recover" my £30 loss from Thursday.
Letting losses run to 30 point stops.
Taking profits too soon.
Sleeping through the US session or being too tired to trade. (or sleeping through most of the session and making silly gambles into the close)
Suggested Solutions
Take only high probability trades near S/R levels / EMA pullbacks.
Make good use of volume.
Ignore the £30 loss yesterday, the £500 loss for the last month, the £1600 loss in total, the opportunity costs of spending thousands of hours studying the market, etc.
Tight mental stops, written down.
Limit orders set for profit taking with reasonable risk:reward.
Go back to bed, try to sleep, stop posting on T2W, reading Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, looking at charts, etc.
