1 Hour Workday
It might be best if I just work one hour a day, I swear. I ended today's session in the red, but I started off well. Here's a quick recap.
Monday's session started with a pretty significant news impact - President Biden withdraws US troops from Afghanistan. Hyperlinked is just one of many news articles covering this. U.S. markets did not react to this well or, at least, not at the open.
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| Tradingview: ES1! |
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The day started off really well for me. My AWT was larger than my ALT and I had a win rate of over 50%. These stats would've contributed to an expectancy that I've never had before. In the first hour or so, I ran up a cumulative after-fees P&L of $757.10. Great day, or so I thought.
Things started going south around 11 AM. I made quite a few trades that just absolutely refused to work out. The methodology and entry criteria were consistent and sound. I didn't try to chase the selloff that occurred over on NQ. I capitalized on the initial move and then sat out for the rest. You can see where the losing trades took over as my cumulative P&L started dropping. For me, it was whatever. Losses are just a part of the game. I was still patient and executing trades on pullbacks of a dominant move.
The final trade was where I took a much bigger hit. NQ bottomed out and then painted a strong bullish bar. I waited for a pullback, which looked like it was going to be exhausted. So, I entered. It flip-flopped around and then started drifting lower. At this point, it didn't look like there was any significant selling pressure. After all, I did read that NQ was bottoming out. I ended up adding another contract slightly lower to essentially DCA. Unfortunately, this trade didn't work out as well as NQ just decided to drift lower. Nothing I could do but close at a loss. This is where I took the big hit.
My overall trading for the day was solid. This DCA move was probably the only questionable play. However, this did raise a few questions. Should I have a daily profit target? Or should I just trade the first hour of the session at the risk of not making even more money sitting out for the rest of the day? This is my second losing day in this $50K Combine. I usually do pretty well right when the session starts and then trading becomes a bit more challenging.
The most obvious answer is yes. Set a profit target and/or only trade during the session times where you perform well in. I remember this advice from a Chat With Traders podcast episode with Kenny Glick. Specifically, he ran through this example where a trader was asking him for advice. The trader would make money in the mornings and then lose in the afternoon. The trader asks what he should do. The answer was simple - stop trading in the afternoons.
I think it might be time I consider this. If I can hit $500 to $1K in the first hour to hour and half, then why bother to keep trading throughout the afternoon only to return back profits?