Trade Aptitude

Results of Friday’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buying 4210.00 ran for 12.75 points. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points (consider wider stops and less size in fast moving markets): 

Buy 4217.75 on a retracement after price breaks out above. Short 4214.00 stop 4218.50. 

The World Sentiment Index: (+100/-100) drops from +21 to -57 with all major world markets bearish on rising volatility. 

Catalysts: Chicago PMI @ 9:45. JOLTS @ 10:00. Scattered Fed-Speak. Beige Book @ 14:00. Debt Ceiling vote. 

Quick Tip: Attention

In his excellent book Atomic Habits author James Clear named chapter 20 The Downside of Creating Good Habits. Darn good title! 

Here’s the gist of it: once we practice something enough to become skilled and automatic we become less aware of improving it. We stop looking for the mistakes. After all, once it’s a habit you’re not thinking about it that much. 

Think about how well this applies to your trading. You have rules and the discipline to follow them. You’ve entered and exited thousands of trades over time. When you see the setup and get the confirmation you click the mouse button. Automatically. 

He goes on to say that research has found that once we master a habit there is usually a slight decline in performance over time. That’s the last outcome we want from our trading!

The solution is review. Mark up your charts with each trade result. Take a screen shot at the end of the session. Put them in a slide show. Then be deliberate in your review. Look for errors, mistakes & misses. 

Here’s an example from yesterday that helped me. In my intraday trend strategy, there are two fixed profit targets then the remaining contracts are open managed looking for likely stalls and turning points on the chart. 

My second target on this short S&P trade was 4199.75. The price came down to 4200.00, the big round number, and kept bouncing. While in the trade I was simply waiting for my fill. It never did. 4200.00 became the day session low. If I hadn’t scrutinized that trade during review I wouldn’t have realized the target was ill-placed. I was on “automatic” following strategy rules and not attentive to the price action. 

Our team day-trades multiple strategies with edge. Every trade setup is screen-captured and distributed to the team afterward for personal review. Join us, learn the strategies, and trade live with us daily for 30 days. Money back if you’re not blown away!

Trade Fearlessly,

Mike Siewruk 

P.S. Are you looking for the best Leading Indicator for your stock and options trading? Join me on Thursday June 1st at 2PM ET for a live demo of a technique that will truly improve your results. Click here to reserve your seat.