Today (yesterday really as this is late) was a frustrating day… two triggers and two losses and zero wins – one of the first days like that for a while. Fortunately the entries were not huge.

Hopefully some of my mistakes will help your trading.

$SPY $XIV $TVIX $UVXY

I am likely going to stay away from $SPY related trades until the election and $VIX related trades until right before the election.

$DXY US Dollar Index

The day started with the $DXY threatening… and oil initially did respond to it but as the day progressed oil continued to get lift off the diagonal trendline (blue on oil charts). So that was my first miss (lesson # 1) – the trend line was a high probability trigger that I should have pulled on (I would have been long $UWTI).

FX: $USOIL $WTI

As the US Dollar continued its assault $TZA continued to rise (a reminder of my alert near bottom a number of days ago that I didn’t take full advantage of) – lesson # 2.

$UGAZ

Lesson # 3 is in following through with your trade plan. Now, it is important to understand the difference between a intra-day swing trade plan and my normal trade method. My normal method is to “time” an entry so that I pull the trigger literally right before a spike so that I get 1 – 3% room to decide if I want to stay in a trade through the pullback etc… when I entered $UGAZ I wasn’t confident I’d get that 1 – 3%… I got a bit and then it pulled back and it became uncomfortable and I sold AND THEN OF COURSE IT RAN. So the lesson was obviously if I had a plan for it (which I did as I did foresee it running) then I should have been prepared for the pullback. Anyway, in the trade room I’ll be able to explain in advance of pulling trigger which trade is which type in advance of pulling trigger. Bottom line… should have stayed in it because it went in to rippy mode shortly after I sold. I should also note that when I pulled the trigger, part of the reason was I thought I’d get a bounce off the 200 MA on the 1 min as it did bounce in that way earlier a few times.

White arrows are entry and exit – you can see my entry was right above 200 and it didn’t hold. That should have either caused me to exit immediately or hold for the full swing.

$UGAZ trade - 200 MA on 1 Minute chart failed.

$UGAZ trade – 200 MA on 1 Minute chart failed.

Gold Miners – $DUST $JDST (Bear) / $NUGT $JNUG $GDX $GDXJ (Bull) / #Gold $GLD

Lesson #4 for the day was the inverse Gold Miner’s trade… I was all over it the night before and in the morning and got distracted with the $UGAZ trade… $JDST and $DUST were great trade opportunities missed.

$CVI – CVR Energy

This was actually a good risk reward and when it didn’t spike on a double bottom after a significant downdraft I did exit – so my risk reward was intact and normally I win in this trade. It didn’t turn my way this time… but I wouldn’t do it any different next time. You have to accept the risk with this trade.

So those were my lessons for the day! Hopefully the help your trading some!

Stay blessed and see you for Friday session soon!

Curt