Trade Aptitude

Friday’s results: No trades triggered.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5823.25 stop 5820.00. Short 5820.75 stop 5824.00 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from zero to +21 with mixed sentiment on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Kashkari @ 9:00, Waller @ 15:00. 

Quick Tip: Performance Dips

Dedicated traders devote plenty of attention to reviewing their performance, just like professional athletes do. Sometimes we’ll see a dip in our results. Our equity curve will be flattening. We’ll ask ourselves “Is it the market or me?” 

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 we’re not thinking about it that much. 

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

Clear 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 deliberate 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 more detailed in your review. Look for errors, mistakes, and misses.

Our trading team focuses on multiple strategies for day trading futures. Maybe you'll fit right in. 

Trade Fearlessly,

Mike Siewruk

P.S.  Feel free to pass this along to your trading buddies. Share in the wealth!