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Morning Ritual Checklist:
6.5+ Hours of sleep- Workout or Meditate
Did I eat, am I full?News today or tomorrowExpected move and VolatilityPlan ReviewMarket Review- Practice/warm-up trading
What I am feeling:
- Calm
- Focused
Describe it in detail:
Even though I lost a lot yesterday, I still feel calm, focused and centered, with my mental tools in place, I have a plan to revisit the basics since I’ve strayed into directionality off the open. Usually, just taking VWAP or the price at open into an iron butterfly spread has always worked for me.
Intra-market check-in: 10:40
- Feeling anxious and scared at the moment, being up $80 from this morning. Wanting to take profits and lock them in and then recenter for fear of losing it all again. However, it’s been staying pretty range bound. I just don’t want to feel that pain of losing again. I like my 5% cutoff for profits, and if I do that I just can’t let losers run. But in trading you need to let winners run. Because…in the time it took me to type this paragraph I went from being up $80 to now down $50. I just don’t know why, when my hypothesis was up today that I took off my earlier trade when it was trending in that direction…just fear, with no reason to sell. It makes me feel like a loser and that I feel I can’t do this.
Intra-market check-in: 11:22
- The VIX spiked again and things had been pretty contained all day. Given that it was approaching the lunch hour, the expected move was quite big today and with the upcoming news this week, I decided to bail after doubling down on my iron butterfly. I doubled down on my spread position when the VIX spiked thinking price would stay at VWAP longer. Which it did for a bit but I can tell the accumulation phase of something is brewing. Just don’t know what, so I’m nervous and decided to lock in profits.
Pre-Market Analysis
Stick to my original goals of scalping for a quick 100 if the morning is looking rough. If it stays centered consider just waiting then. The VIX might continue to increase today depending on if people are taking risk off the table as confirm payrolls and ADP reports come out this week about the labor market.
EM is a 25 points and vix is sitting at 13.86%
Post-Trade Analysis
What did I do well:
- Focused on VIX and the price action more than my profits today
- Stuck to my plan of 5%
- Reviewed my plan and journaled more with intra-day feelings
What do I need to improve on:
- If the price is in my target butterfly, consider just letting it ride longer and placing stops at the break evens