DislikedCan't go broke taking a winner. Will reset and prep for tomorrow. The entire trade netted +14RIgnored
1
VSA Trading: Reading the Tape & Learning to Wait
Lost ~3R on the ENPH trade. Gap risk is brutal (but unavoidable) w/ the current strategy. I sidestepped FCEL and MSFT losses w/ good VSA reads but wasn't as fortunate here.
What's done is done. The convo now shifts to: 
Last week's bar showed a lack of demand and a close off the highs, but this week's bar at that point had shaken out the lows and was trending mid-bar. TBH, this makes the trade defensible. What is not defensible is that because I had traded ENPH earlier in the week, I skipped most of my trading checklist and assumed that things were mostly unchanged. I also didn't have a stop, which is unlike me. I knew when I wanted to exit, but I usually automatically add a contingency order but I didn't this time. That laziness didn't cost me this time around, since I would've entered this trade regardless, but it's something to note.
FWIW, this isn't the worst type of mistake to spot fwiw:
What's done is done. The convo now shifts to:
- Was there anything in my setup (read: trade filtering) that would've kept me out?
- If not, is there any tell that I wasn't accounting for. (Has to be worthwhile or else I risk overfitting)
Looking at the daily chart, I would take that entry 100 out of 100 times, so the issue is not there.
What about the weekly, which is also a trade filter? I will use trade replay to view how it look right before my entry:
Last week's bar showed a lack of demand and a close off the highs, but this week's bar at that point had shaken out the lows and was trending mid-bar. TBH, this makes the trade defensible. What is not defensible is that because I had traded ENPH earlier in the week, I skipped most of my trading checklist and assumed that things were mostly unchanged. I also didn't have a stop, which is unlike me. I knew when I wanted to exit, but I usually automatically add a contingency order but I didn't this time. That laziness didn't cost me this time around, since I would've entered this trade regardless, but it's something to note.
FWIW, this isn't the worst type of mistake to spot fwiw:
- Mistake made + money made + issue recognized = Get compensated to fix the issue
- Mistake made + money lost + issue recognized = One time payment to fix the issue
- Mistake made + money lost + issue not recognized = You've set up automatic payments for the unresolved issue
- Mistake made + money made + issue not recognized = You've set up automatic payments for the unresolved issue but you received an initial cashback bonus
I also didn't have a stop, which is unlike me. I knew when I wanted to exit, but I didn't pair my entry order w/ a contingency exit order like I normally do because I was in a rush. I will revamp my ThinkOrSwim default orders to account for this and reread the docs for some hotkeys to use as well.
But yeah, the volatility has blown up most of my watchlist, so I'm done trading for the week. I will put in a half-day to knock out some general upkeep before I take an edible and watch the NBA Finals in the evening. I will tackle my EoW review later in the weekend
- #86
- Edited 2:43pm Jun 9, 2026 10:54am | Edited 2:43pm
I entered one trade yesterday but scratched it. Thought about sharing it but there was nothing of note for the setup.
A part of me feels like posting everything I do so that it doesn't feel like I'm selectively sharing winners but OTOH, some trades have less signal than others. I will probably use kinfo or something to verify my trades if my numbers start to seem fake, but I'm nowhere near that ATM lol.
Anyways, decided to share yesterday's scratch for the learning lesson:
Here's yesterday's screenshot and takeaway
And here's today's price action (after I had stopped myself out)
Very frustrating but reframed things this morning w/ the following:
A part of me feels like posting everything I do so that it doesn't feel like I'm selectively sharing winners but OTOH, some trades have less signal than others. I will probably use kinfo or something to verify my trades if my numbers start to seem fake, but I'm nowhere near that ATM lol.
Anyways, decided to share yesterday's scratch for the learning lesson:
Here's yesterday's screenshot and takeaway
And here's today's price action (after I had stopped myself out)
Very frustrating but reframed things this morning w/ the following:
- A missed winner is just a future winner that needs a bit more TLC first
- The missed winner's tuition will pay dividends once I resolve the underlying issue
- This incentivizes me to double back & rectify mistakes
With this trade, the down bars where (extremely) low volume which was a clue that there wasn't conviction to the downside. Filing that away for future trade management. I am also going to create a trade snippet that creates some friction when emotions start screaming at me to exit a position.
- #87
- Jun 11, 2026 12:59pm Jun 11, 2026 12:59pm
Took this trade and was stopped out when I was typing this up. Here's my analysis of the lead-up, mixed w/ realizations post stopout (labeled 'Hindsight-tinged')
MRVL
Daily Chart
MRVL
Daily Chart
- Shakeout of the prior bar and close at new highs, bulls are in control
- Strong up-bar bulls are dominating altho a bit extra volume here
- EvR w/ an upthrust. Clear selling which makes me wonder if the excess volume on the prior bar may have been subtle selling as well
- Shakeout of the lows and close back near all-time highs. Maybe the market is stronger than i expected after all
- Gap lower and close off the lows. Negates #3 completely and reaffirms #2
- Gap higher but look @ that price action. It upthrusted the prior bar and fell lower. Volume was reduced too.
- This down-bar recolors the last bar as No Demand given background weakness (Hindsight-tinged: This bar does closes off its lows suggesting buyers are still present though
- (Hindsight tinged: Test bar as price trades towards the lows of the range)
65m Chart
- Gap higher but short-term resistance holds
- Shakeout of the lows and closes right back where it started. Strength for sure
- No follow through after all that strength. If it's not strong, it must be weak (Hindsight: If the markets were truly weak, it wouldn't have recently shaken out the lows of bar #1, and if it did, it would've distributed or something more obvious signaling a sentiment change)
Bar #4 was a reversal bar off of a rando Trump tweet. Unlucky, but the bar #2 on the 65m was likely the signal to sit on my hands in retrospect.
- #89
- Jun 14, 8:01pm (45 hr ago) Jun 14, 8:01pm (45 hr ago)
{quote} the friction concept is exactly right. the goal is not to eliminate the emotion but to slow down the decision enough that it does not execute automatically. curious what the trade snippet looks like practically, is it a checklist you run through or something that forces a pause before the exit?
But yeah, good question. I view emotions as panicked autopilot reactions, while snippets are predetermined, measured reaction on autopilot as a counterbalance. IMO, it's the equivalent of bumpers in a bowling alley: it makes it harder to fail because (when my snippet is set up correctly) I have to consciously override my rules to end up in the gutter.
The snippets undergo lots of iterations because it's not built for how I feel rn, but how I feel when I'm at my worst emotionally. The snippet is a bridge between rationale vs panicked decision-making. I create the template initially, but how it works in the moment determines what changes to make... Was it too long so I started skipping parts halfway through? Is the formatting congested which causes friction w/ having to fill it out? Does the wording use terminology that I will have trouble deciphering when I'm tired? Etc
There are two different fields in my snippets types of fields:
- Checkboxes - These are akin to speed bumps to slow down just a tad when I'm on autopilot
- Open-ended fields - These are stop signs basically. They are repeated sticking points or areas that are important and so require a more detailed response.
I have an existing snippet to help to know when it's time to bail (created after being unprepared AF when prices violently reversed off the Iran War lows) but based on my latest experiences, I will make tweaks so that it also covers premature exits as well. Below is the existing snippet:
(tp.file.cursor is a code snippet for a plugin tool (Templater) that allows me to jump to different parts of the snippet quickly.
- Yesterday's Bar: <% tp.file.cursor() %> Expected Price Action Today: <% tp.file.cursor(1) %>
- Narrative overall on the Daily: <% tp.file.cursor() %>
- Why are you still confident directionally: <% tp.file.cursor() %>
- Support/Resistance Escalation Level: <% tp.file.cursor() %>
- (Checkbox) As it nears, I will analyze how price approached the level of concern
Here is a rough outline that I plan on refining a bit before it is used for managing every trade I take. It starts as a brain dump of questions that could be useful but is too clunky/long as is. I will workshop and widdle it down to 1-2 lines this week
- Does the industry/SPY back up this belief
- Does the intermediate term timeframe back up this read as well?
- Has sentiment shifted or is this typical price action
- Or was my entry low %
- Should this exit wait until the closing bar so that I have a richer story on price and whether to exit?
- Is a stopout probable or just possible?
- Does the volume confirms or rejects my hypothesis.
- #90
- Jun 15, 12:12am (41 hr ago) Jun 15, 12:12am (41 hr ago)
{quote} Been talking to myself for so long that I thought I was posting in a simulation
- #92
- Jun 15, 1:34pm (27 hr ago) Jun 15, 1:34pm (27 hr ago)
{quote} the distinction between checkboxes as speed bumps and open fields as stop signs is exactly the right mental model. most people just write down what happened after the trade but you are engineering the friction into the moment before the decision which is where it actually matters. curious whether the snippet catches the state shift early enough or mostly kicks in after you already feel the pull to exit
Jared Tendler introduced me to the 4 Stages of Competence and it is a great rough outline. I'd say that my snippet evolution over time is an example of a journey from Unconscious Incompetence
Unconscious Competence. Will do a post on Jared Tendler in the future because he is vastly underrated and my hot take is that he is much more useful than Brett Steenbarger.
- #95
- Jun 16, 12:53pm (4 hr ago) Jun 16, 12:53pm (4 hr ago)
Entered CLOV
I'm on 5-6 losers in a row right now which is forcing me to strengthen my resolve. I'm proud that I'm still pulling the trigger and looking for my setup in spite of the drawdown. I know my strategy is still functional, because the TGT trade would've been +15R had I stayed put, so I just have to bide my time until the next fat pitch comes across the plate.
With that said, I'm a loss averse kinda guy so it still stings seeing money leave my account and I haven't had enough consistency to know what typical drawdown should look like. FWIW, I have pared back my rate of losses substantially compared to 2 months ago.
It has triggered a theory in my head: there's an inverse correlation between skill and luck. The more skilled you are, the less you leave up to luck but conversely, the less skilled you are, the more you have to accept as unlucky because you have a finite amount of bandwidth that should be focused on executing the fundamentals correctly.
As your skill improves, the fundamentals take up less working memory (ie you start chunking your analysis), so you have the capacity to dive much deeper into ambiguity/uncertainty and build out richer mental models. Another way of thinking of it is that uncertainty is initially an art... somewhat undefinable, but over time, you can turn it into a science, but it only makes sense to do so when the fundamentals are firing on all cylinders. It is a heavy load (ayo) because you have to take the concept of 'luck' and restructure/denature it from 'luck' to 'ambiguity that can be exploited w/ structure/a decision tree'
Moving away from theorizing to my current trading, I don't have the mental capacity rn to see what is causing the skid to limit the drawdown further, and so I will chalk it up to an expected distribution for the time being. There are squeakier wheels that I am working on but when I have capacity, I will try to look for patterns in the drawdown to see if there is an underlying theme I can revise.
I'm on 5-6 losers in a row right now which is forcing me to strengthen my resolve. I'm proud that I'm still pulling the trigger and looking for my setup in spite of the drawdown. I know my strategy is still functional, because the TGT trade would've been +15R had I stayed put, so I just have to bide my time until the next fat pitch comes across the plate.
With that said, I'm a loss averse kinda guy so it still stings seeing money leave my account and I haven't had enough consistency to know what typical drawdown should look like. FWIW, I have pared back my rate of losses substantially compared to 2 months ago.
It has triggered a theory in my head: there's an inverse correlation between skill and luck. The more skilled you are, the less you leave up to luck but conversely, the less skilled you are, the more you have to accept as unlucky because you have a finite amount of bandwidth that should be focused on executing the fundamentals correctly.
As your skill improves, the fundamentals take up less working memory (ie you start chunking your analysis), so you have the capacity to dive much deeper into ambiguity/uncertainty and build out richer mental models. Another way of thinking of it is that uncertainty is initially an art... somewhat undefinable, but over time, you can turn it into a science, but it only makes sense to do so when the fundamentals are firing on all cylinders. It is a heavy load (ayo) because you have to take the concept of 'luck' and restructure/denature it from 'luck' to 'ambiguity that can be exploited w/ structure/a decision tree'
Inserted Code
# traditional fundamentals if I see X then I do Y. This works x% of the time and everything else is unavoidable # Turning luck into structured ambiguity if I see X then I do Y, but if X also shows A, then I have to worry about Z, yet if Z instead shows B, then I need to also need to worry about C [..]
- #96
- Jun 16, 1:01pm (4 hr ago) Jun 16, 1:01pm (4 hr ago)
In the midst of typing up the last post, got triggered for FCEL and entered that:
Never feels great entering a stock that is already up 15% but this does have the potential to run.
The options chain doesn't have the 60 DTE August calls available so I had to take some front month calls that will typically suffer time decay. To offset that, I have bought deep-in-the-money calls instead. That circumvents any time decay, but also removes the profit-compounding nature of OTM calls going -> DITM. I think that the August calls should be released in 2-3 days, if so I will figure out how to roll forward while managing the same risk level if that's possible, not sure my quick maths can handle alla that tho
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Never feels great entering a stock that is already up 15% but this does have the potential to run.
The options chain doesn't have the 60 DTE August calls available so I had to take some front month calls that will typically suffer time decay. To offset that, I have bought deep-in-the-money calls instead. That circumvents any time decay, but also removes the profit-compounding nature of OTM calls going -> DITM. I think that the August calls should be released in 2-3 days, if so I will figure out how to roll forward while managing the same risk level if that's possible, not sure my quick maths can handle alla that tho
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- #97
- Jun 16, 1:27pm (3 hr ago) Jun 16, 1:27pm (3 hr ago)
Entered ENPH.
No more entries for the day. Have been so busy watching the markets that I haven't tackled any of my outstanding tasks for the day.
I will finish my trade management snippets for each so that I don't bail prematurely (w/o reason) and then pivot to my trading tasks
No more entries for the day. Have been so busy watching the markets that I haven't tackled any of my outstanding tasks for the day.
I will finish my trade management snippets for each so that I don't bail prematurely (w/o reason) and then pivot to my trading tasks