Weekly Review: 3/13/23 to 3/17/23

My Weekly Review Process

OVERVIEW

This week was a tough week psychologically. However, it started well, adhering to my goals, focusing on my Intraday System Pattern A-C, and continuing to simplify and only trade my plans. My last week's review was on the right track, but further development was needed to unravel deeper issues that needed to be addressed.

From the previous week, Weekly Review: 3/6/23 to 3/10/23, I realized that a paradigm shift was needed to refine my strategy for better opportunities. This paradigm shift led me to focus on my trade plans, waiting for them to set up and ignore everything else. If I didn't, I would introduce more variability and less meaningful opportunities to profit from. 

In other words, by focusing on better opportunities, I will inherently neglect the unreliable patterns that alter my behavior leading me to take bigger position sizes and have a greater probability of losing.

Although this new shifting of priorities was an improvement, this week's performance reveals that more change is needed to grow and improve.

Further development was needed because, yet again,  I had another big loss day on a Wednesday. Although focusing and honing in on better opportunities helps, it does nothing to assist with behavioral cycles. You can have opportunities presented, but how you respond, behave, and capture them is entirely different.

I let specific triggers dictate my behavior this day, leading to poor performance/decisions. So not only did I have a significant loss day, but I managed to take a more prominent position size by averaging because I "wanted more," and I was playing out the exact behavior I have outlined in one of my recent posts, Day Trader Behavior Cycles: The Foundations of Change.

By giving in to negative triggers, I reactivated my behavioral Cycle A.

I no longer want to be trapped in Cycle A and must find a way out and operate in Cycle B.  Focusing on positive triggers and maintaining a state of sufficiency should influence or sustain positive behavior.

The next trading day, Thursday, proved to be a test of the whole behavioral system I created to understand my specific trading behaviors. I saw where the negative triggers came from and how they could influence my behavior. Being aware of this, I tried, which was very difficult, to focus on positive stimuli to control my behavior in a way that would not revert me back to old habits. Doing so staved off what I wanted to avoid and, as a result, ended the day breakeven.

Staying in Cycle B allowed me to keep partaking in solid opportunities and to recoup earlier losses in the day. If I had given in to wanting more, I would have had some way to increase position sizing or try to force trades as I have done many times. I was glad to have been tested this way even though it did not seem like it did much performance-wise, but psychologically it felt like I jumped a few levels ahead.

On Friday, I was put to the test again, partaking in solid opportunities but desperately wanting to capitalize on the extension of those opportunities. Furthermore, it was hard to avoid falling into the trap of wanting more here, but seeing that I was 100% on the right track was nice. I wanted to stay on this track, so I forced myself to keep seeing the positive triggers. 

Friday's primary battle was against wanting more and accepting that what I captured was sufficient. If I gave in to wanting more at any time, I could relapse back into the old cycle. Still, by staying in the positive process, the difference between success and more success was only a time differential of 15 seconds. 

I'm still trying to better handle and understand my trading habits, but I ended this week close to breakeven. Looking forward to seeing how having a behavioral viewpoint on my trading can influence my performance. 

NEW GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK

Everything I have implemented up to this point helps refine and simplify my process. Still, the one aspect that can ultimately drive my success and be the catalyst for changing my norm is to focus on positive triggers and to remain in a positive behavior cycle to allow opportunities to overflow. Focusing on positive triggers will be my primary objective next week while strictly adhering to my other goals/rules.

• Focus on Intraday System Pattern A-C. 
• Pattern A: reaction zone crossovers for an RZ reject or RZ bounce
• Pattern B: critical levels for a KL reject or KL bounce.
• Pattern C: RZ breaks (only on apparent long-time duration formations)
• Do not trade anything else.
• Keep position size small. DO NOT AVERAGE DOWN ON ENTRIES!
• Plan for the precise setups ONLY!
• Patience is the key to solid entries and to maintaining low-stress levels.
• Fewer trades with more confidence.
• Focus on SPY and TSLA options ONLY!
• Time to simplify the process and improve/reach the next level.
• Actively challenge my regression pattern to ONLY trade my plan.
• Do not give in to negative triggers.
• FOCUS ON POSITIVE TRIGGERS.