I wasnโt profitable in my trading journey until I started journaling and completing a Post Mortem on each trade. Without this ongoing habit, and the data, I was simply trading in the dark.
The most common objection to journaling: I am already profitable without one. Here is an honest answer - what profit alone cannot prove, a 10 minute concentration test for your broker statement, and when skipping it is correct. https://t.co/eTkeCw2hzC
Friday SPY was down -0.52%, but money focused on:
Oil services: Crude bid hard ($USO +4.3%, $BNO +3.0%) and the money went past the producers into the equipment and offshore names: $OIH +5.4% (2.3x vol), $IEZ +5.4% (2.1x), $XES +4.7%. Single names backed it up: $OII +7.2% (3.1x), $TDW +8.1%, $SDRL +6.4% (2.0x), $HOS +8.1%, plus $REPX and $VIST on the E&P side.
Cybersecurity: $CRWD +8.3%, $ZS +7.3%, $NET +7.3%, $PANW +7.2%, $S +6.7%, $RBRK +6.6%, $TENB +6.2%, all on 1.3-2.1x volume, and the ETFs moved together ($WCBR +5.0%, $BUG +5.0%, $HACK +4.2%, $CIBR +3.2%).
Also note: staffing woke up ($RHI +21.7% on 4.7x, $KFRC +9.0%, $TBI +5.9%), and Brazil small caps saw 5.2x volume in $EWZS (+3.4%) with $EWZ/ $FLBR/ $ILF following.
$ILF / $FLBR - Friday we saw high vol positioning ahead of Brazil's presidential runoff on Sunday, with $EWZS on 5.2x volume. However, Lula won and not Bolsonaro, and we're seeing that bet unwind premarket - ILF -15%, FLBR - 25%, & EWZS -35%.
@flank2 A simple backtest would prove none of the methods work at scale. Thatโs when it gets very real very quick. But no one ever does that work first
The VSA series teaches you to read the bar. A journal tells you which bars pay you. What to record on every VSA trade, one no-supply trade logged end to end, and what a simulated 49-trade journal showed. https://t.co/kCDNMzNQJz
We spent this release trying to break our own backtester. We found 17 problems, and the 5 worst all made strategies look better than they were, like stops filling at prices the market gapped through.
July Backtester v1.16 fixes every one. Some backtests will look worse. Good.
Sugar ran from 13.3c in Feb to 21.3c in mid-Oct. Oil pulled Brazil's cane into ethanol, bad weather hit four crops at once, and funds flipped from -232k to +260k contracts.
Now it's going sideways on thin volume. ๐
https://t.co/L3H6p5i9P1
$SO - Yesterday's 1.6x surge complimented the overall 15% move from the bullish engulfing candle on Sept 29th, directly underneath the Dec 2025 line. The price action around that line is incredible.