I did some good things already today: I got up around 8, and was at the computer by 8:20. It’s still before 8:30 and I’ve already made coffee and I’m getting started (I might have to take an intermission to use the bathroom unfortunately, but, baby steps).
I’ve been on the struggle bus lately as far as trading, but all of my weekly day trades should be available, so I’m giving myself no qualms on using all of them today. We’ll see how it goes. I also want to think about swing trading and buy-and-holding some things, so maybe that’s a scenario and plan I look at after exhausting my trades (or myself) this morning. I’m off to a good start. Today can be a great day.
Looking at S&P futures right now, we might have a sideways day. Price has been pushing up over the last couple of days, but yesterday reached a resistance area that’s been a pretty strong key level on both the support and resistance sides, and so far it doesn’t look like it’s threatening to break that area. That’s unfortunate because it might make for a poor trading day, but this is my day so I’m still going to take a look. And also, the market technically hasn’t opened yet, and I want to give it 20 – 30 min. to “breathe” anyway, so I’ll make more of a determination on how to analyze the S&P in a few minutes.
In the meantime here’s what I’m thinking for today:
Take trades in the direction of the overall market
Fade stocks in the opposite direction of the opening move (if the patterns and R:R line up)
Since I’m letting it breathe, and I do have to use the bathroom, I think now might be the best opportunity for that. Fingers crossed my plan works out. My palm was itching earlier, let’s hope it means something
I’m back from the bathroom, and it looks like equities are breaking that resistance area for sure. There may be a retest in the near future, but I’m going to start looking for longs here
Update 9:30am
I’m in a couple of trades now, feeling pretty good about them, and they’re somewhat working out, but I just had a thought about something I need to work on/implement and that is that I should start to look to have the dips be my entries and then the breakout will be my 1R etc. Instead of waiting for confirmation back to the upside (where it may push but not as violently as I’d hope), I get in on the dip, with the expectation that the trend will continue. That will also push my stop to the next support/resistance area, which would also increase the likelihood of my trade working out and not getting stopped out early and then making a run.
Not something I’m going to do or implement today (unless I take some practice trades) but something I want to think about going forward.