My attitude
I mentioned in
a previous Weekend Update post that I was focused on making my attitude the top priority for the month of May. I've done that. There have been some lower points, but overall I have lifted my attitude higher than usual for the majority of this month. As a result (I believe) I've had things working out in my favor more than usual. It has affected my personal life as well as my business. In fact, the amount of paying work that came in for my business was greater than it has been in months - without any extra effort on my part (other than just doing the work).
I intend to do something similar for the month of June. This time it will have to do with gratitude. I did this a few months ago and had very good results - it makes me wonder why I stop. Anyway that will be the focus of my attitude for this month.
An update on my trading in general
Over the past two weeks I feel like I've gotten back on track despite the fact that I seem to be trading more on "context" than on "setups." It's a little difficult to explain, even to myself. But out of sheer frustration in attempting to find hard and fast "setups" or "rules" to follow, I began to just "watch what the market was doing," especially at levels I've deemed important. Then I used my indicators to help support or reject my ideas, as well as to help me enter "better" than I might without them.
Much of this approach has come from contemplating how I would
like to trade and making some decisions about that. As a result I've opened my mind up to some somewhat different ways of looking at the market and approaching my trading.
The combination of these things is also changing the way I
feel about my trading. I've gained an unusual calmness and confidence about the future of my trading in general.
I've also gained a different feeling about each trade and what the market is doing in the moment. I'm feeling less of a revenge mentality. Less "I'm putting on a trade here because the market should do x, and if it doesn't, then I'm going to be pissed."
I'm feeling more things like, "this looks like it's turning out to be a good spot, price is reacting here, my indicators look good, take the trade."
I'm not trying to quantify everything in an attempt to write a manual (or trading plan) about it. I'm also not trying to make other hard and fast rules like "only
n trades per day," or "
$n profit per day," or "only
n hours of trading per day." I still have hard and fast rules about my stops and my daily loss limit, but I'm working more on developing my
abilities rather than trying to develop a
system.
A review of the trading week
In May I bounced around quite a bit between markets and trading styles trying to find the "right thing" for me. I don't like to be scattered and/or inconsistent, but I think it helped me to see what
does seem a little more "right" for me. And that seems to be the basic concept that started this whole exercise. So I'm back to trading the ES in a similar way as before.
This may not end up being the "right thing," but for now it's what makes the most sense to me and the thing that I feel the most confidence in. Although I know how long a month of trading can really be now, I'm planning to be consistent with this basic methodology for the month of June to see what I can learn and accomplish.
This past week I didn't try to force myself to "take every setup," but instead took a few trades each day when I thought I had an idea of what price might be trying to do. I made some changes to the indicators/indexes I'm watching and the timeframes of some of my charts.
I feel like I'm creating some structure now with regard to my trading business and my trading style.
