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Happy Sunday! It's time to dive into the charts and make a plan for the week ahead. This week's video is longer than normal, so in the interest of time I didn't include discussion about my Weekly Pivot in the video.
I'll be using ES 4267.50 as my Pivot this week, favoring long trades above and shorts below. This is the midpoint from last week's range and I decided to use that as a Pivot as I expect buyers to defend what they started last week should price attempt to retrace ~50% of last week's move or try and return to the YTD Point of Control. I see 4267.50 as my "line in the sand," meaning I would not attempt to buy dips below there. Apologies in advance for the long video, I definitely needed to get a few things off my chest after experiencing one of my most disappointing weeks of the year. I received a few questions along the lines of "Why are you so frustrated with missing a trade, it's not like you took a big loss shorting it?" and I'd like to address those great questions here before the video: The reason why missing a large move can be so painful comes down to our baseline assumptions for trading: There's no point actively trading if you can't beat the market. Based on where I'm at in my own trading journey, I care about outperforming the market more than taking a loss in any given week. I hope that doesn't come across as arrogant, I'm just being real with you all. As I get older, there are less-risky ways to deploy capital in order to get the returns I desire for my future; therefore, if I'm going to continue to rely on my own strategies my performance needs to be significantly better than the alternative options available to me. That is why it matters so much to me. Any trader that's seemingly okay with missing a +6.5% move in the S&P might also be missing the forest through the trees. Yes, most of my money is in long-term bullish investments so you'll never see me complaining about the stock market rising, but missing a big move in my swing trading account isn't just a blow to my ego, it challenges all of my fundamental reasons for actively trading in the first place. Therefore, it stings. I hope that clears up any confusion. It's a tough aspect of trading that we all need to individually address at some point. I hope you enjoy this week's video, cheers to dusting ourselves off and learning from our mistakes.