Yesterday, you’ll notice that I didn’t get an opportunity to trade. As many of you are aware, I am still in full-time employment at this stage of my trading career, and I can only trade during my time off. Yesterday, I was at work and therefore unable to look at the markets.

Which brings us on to today, a day that I am free to trade, and I happily finished my trading day just 18 minutes after the opening.

Today I went long for a 10 tick scalp after noticing that the price was in an uptrend and it has recently had a minor breakout. Let’s take a look.

Two Ticks Away From a Stop Out!

I have asked myself a few times already – “What made you trade this?” and still I can’t really answer myself.

I’ve marked up the chart, in hindsight, with what I think I saw, but truthfully, I am sure someone else would disagree. In fact, whilst my trend lines do seem correct and they do match my mentor’s charts (something I only look at after I take my own trades and only view in hindsight), I am sure my wording or analysis is wrong. Where I have marked as “2EL” (second entry long), this is the exact area that my mentor has marked “2ES” (second entry short). So I clearly need to revisit this naming convention.

You’ll see on my chart that I had noticed the price had been in an uptrend before market open. A sharp upward move followed by a more prominent bullish channel.

Price then broke out of this channel and began moving lower. But I have come to learn that when this happens, it is just the market preparing itself for its next move. And often that move is in line with the previous trend.

So I waited, and truthfully, my gut instinct was to take a long entry at the “DB” (double bottom). This may be because I’ve been reading a book by Lance Beggs, and his method talks about getting in early when you think other trades are trapped. But despite this, I stuck to my rules of my mentor and I waited.

I then saw that we got this first move bullish, followed by a pullback, which hovered around the EMA. Here I was even thinking about buying after what I thought was a “2EL”.

I didn’t trade because the price then quickly moved below the EMA, but when it did, it quickly ran out of power. The candles started to leave wicks, and it felt like the bears were losing steam. It also meant that I now had a two-legged move that was forming after the 1st up leg, pullback, and I now expected a 2nd leg up.

I then saw what I thought was an “HL” (higher-low), and I set a buy stop order above the EMA. I felt like if this move happened, it would be quick. I got entered into the trade at 6701.50; my stop loss was 6698.50. ATR at the time was around 2.3, and I targeted the previous swing highs at 6704.00.

I was triggered into the trade. One that I felt was risky, but my gut told me it was right. I had to withstand the pressure of my entry candle reversing and halting just 2 ticks away from my stop loss. Before price then immediately went in the bullish direction and quickly hit my +10 tick target.

And that’s it. I’m done for the day – It’s Friday and I’m happy with my result.

Next week, I won’t be trading much at all due to commitments at work. But I’ll do what I can and post as soon as I have something to share.

To my readers – best of luck with your trading, and have a great weekend.