Was it a trade or was it a move?

Price goes somewhere every day. A trade is only the part that matched my plan.

Missing a 100-point move in NQ costs exactly $0. The account is the same size after the move as it was before. The money it feels like you lost was in a trade that never existed.

Chasing that move is where the money actually goes. So after every big candle, I ask myself one question. Was it a trade, or was it a move?

A trade is planned before 9:30, a move just happens

A trade is something I planned. It met my rules, in the direction I wrote down before 9:00, at a level I marked before the open. I knew my entry, my stop (the price where I'm wrong and get out) and my target before I clicked. If it shows up and I take it, that's a trade, win or lose.

A move is price going somewhere. It happens every day, in both directions, often with no setup anywhere near it. Chasing a move is a guess, made late, at about the worst price of the morning.

Chasing costs more than missing

A chase goes wrong in three places.

1. The entry is far from any level that made sense, because the move already happened.
2. The stop has no home. It's either huge, so one loss eats a big piece of the day, or tight and random, so normal noise takes you out.
3. You're buying from the traders who got in early and are happy to take profit on you.

Even a chase that works is a bad trade. It teaches you that breaking the plan pays, and that lesson costs more later than a small loss costs now.

There's a second cost. The setup I actually planned might come at 10:20. If I spent my focus, or part of my $1,000 daily max, on a chase, I'm not ready for the trade I came for.

The check after a big candle

After a big candle I go through four steps.

1. Ask the question. If I can't name the setup, it was a move.
2. Don't count missed moves as losses. My journal is for trades I took, not moves I watched.
3. If I still want in, wait for the setup to form again: a pullback to a level and a 15-minute higher low (or lower high) in my direction. Sometimes it does. Often it doesn't.
4. Check the chart against the plan I wrote before the open. Don't rewrite the plan to fit the chart.

The plan is written before 9:30 for exactly this moment. When price is running, I'm the worst person to be deciding what the plan should be.

Next: $500 a day is a lot of money