TopStep Combine - Week 1

I started the combine on Thursday 2/15 so there were only two trading days logged this week.

2/15 -

My trading plan called for a long bias but I failed to capitalize on it. Price tested down in to yesterday's range much more than expected.

In hindsight the test and failure at yesterdays volume value area high (yVVAL) was a great place to get long but I had already been stopped out of yesterday's high (yHi) and didn't take it.

2/16 -

My head was in a bad place starting the day. The dog woke me up early and the gas company tech stopped by so my routine was off. I should've meditated before the open to get back on track.

My bias from my trade plan was long. I started off the day with a few losers. Took an out of plan short once price tested below the mid then let myself get chopped out of the planned long. After watching my hypo 1 play out pretty perfectly and being down ~$400 I was feeling pretty frustrated so I sat on my hands for a few hours.

After observing for awhile and calming down I saw a pretty good setup at the test of the initial balance high (ibH) from above. I took a long looking for the overnight high (onH) to be tested, which had a ~75% chance of happening today given current conditions. I puked out a few ticks below target due to order flow. I should've held on since the stats were in my favor but didn't have the stomach to wait it out.

Ended the day -$31 which was decent considering my early drawdown.

Here's the week's data:

I feel pretty good about this week even though it's red. I followed my plan except for one trade. I held to my daily stop loss on Thursday and recognized the want to revenge trade on Friday and kept it together. I was rewarded for that Friday by recovering most of my losses.

One of the biggest goals I have going forward is to keep my average losing days smaller than my average winning days and my worst day smaller than my best day. I know from experience that I usually have around a 60%-70% win rate but the outsized losing days are what hurts me the most. If I keep my losers in check my winners will take care of themselves.