Thu AM Briefing Preparing For Our Emini Trading Room 09/19/2024
Preparing ES & NQ Traders
For Our Emini and Micros Futures Trading Room
RESOURCES:For Our Emini and Micros Futures Trading Room
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome ES MES Futures Traders! Good morning, everybody, and happy Thursday, September 19th. It’s sandwich day—the day between FOMC and triple witching. A beautiful day to take off, hit the golf course, or get out your lures and go fishing. That’s my opinion; today is a day to be kind to yourself.
If you messed up yesterday, remember: "As he thinks in his heart, so he is." Do not beat yourself up today. If you did things yesterday you wish you hadn't, don’t dwell on it. We all have days we’d like to do over, and I know you do too. If you pushed too hard yesterday, we’re going to discuss that in more depth today.
Today's scripture relates to self-care and rebuilding yourself if you need to start fresh. So, let’s get into it! Welcome to the AM briefing brought to you by MicroTrader.com, where together we trade better—iron sharpens iron. We are here to support and build each other in the growth of our trading careers to create that perfect trading life.
We are in the ES MES Futures Trading room. Why ES? Why MES? Because our system performs beautifully with them. Our system will keep you safe if you let it. That was the tip of the day for the last two days, and I’m throwing it in again: our system will keep you safe if you let it. When you go outside the system, good luck.
Yesterday, we talked about this: maybe on your calendar, you need to have a trade calendar. For example, schedule your doctor’s appointments on days like FOMC, non-farm payroll, or CPI—days that are great for brain breaks, self-care, fishing trips, golf outings, or classes to learn a new hobby. Put those on your calendar on days you know you should not be trading. Protect yourself from yourself.
Let’s discuss another topic: how to start over. Let’s say yesterday you knew you shouldn’t have traded or should have traded small, but you messed up. The first thing—look at the graphic on the bottom right: how do you hurt yourself? This pops up in our group two or three times a week. How do you usually hurt yourself? What is your tendency or temptation of choice? Recognize it and prevent it by saying no and being self-aware.
Whether that means scheduling a doctor’s appointment every FOMC or non-farm payroll day or planning an outing with your buddies to play golf, do something to protect yourself. Recognize how you hurt yourself and put some protocols in place. Stop trading—it’s your ultimate power. When negotiating, like buying a car, your ultimate power is walking away. If you cannot say no to the chart, you will not be a trader, period. If you cannot trade within your leverage metrics, you will not be a trader. It might work for a while, but one day, those old habits will creep back into your trading.
Remember, the market is open tomorrow. The casino is open every day, but the goal is to be here trading. So, how do you start over? If you had a bad day yesterday, journal it. Write it out vividly. Be Ernest Hemingway or Tolkien—go for pages describing what went wrong so you can feel it. Then, journal your perfect day. What would that look like? If you had a nice AM profit, prioritize it over PM profits. Decide, “Green Day, boom, done.”
Revisit or build out your written trade plan that outlines your perfect trading life. What does that look like? Do you want to trade all day, or do you want to do two trades in the morning and then explore other facets of life? Design your perfect trading life with your written trade plan. What are your best days? Some people struggle on Fridays, others on Mondays. I do poorly in the afternoons, maybe because of age or fatigue, and I’m not as disciplined in my entries.
Put yourself in the game when you are at your best. Know your best trades and your best hours, and trade those. If you mess up, you have to go back to basics. As Vince Lombardi said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” Revisit your levels, leverage metrics, and trade plan. Re-earn the right to earn more leverage.
Should you ever blow an account in a single day? If you do, you broke every rule in the book. You can break every rule but one: never go beyond your daily loss limit. Especially in a funded account or a personal live account, this is a hard rule.
If you like what we’re doing here, please like, subscribe, and consider becoming a member. Being part of a group that helps and develops you is worth way more than the $5 a day I charge for membership.
Today’s news drivers: It’s Thursday, and I call this sandwich day. We’re between FOMC and options expiration, so it’s a level 10 no-trade day. Dial it down. Let’s get to the charts.
Before that, a trader in our group asked me two questions: Do you attempt to trade FOMC mornings? Are you mostly out of it already? Here were my answers: Sometimes trading is fine in the AM; sometimes we go nowhere. Let’s watch and see. For the love of price action, can we just watch the price action and not press a button?
The afternoon is electric fence time. If you’re the type to test the electric fence, maybe there’s a setup for you, but it should be small, if at all. My safest advice this week has been to say, “See you on Monday.” I’m still here on Zoom, satisfied with trading small.
Yesterday, we were done early. A beautiful 70-point candle followed, and we bounced between our strong levels. The afternoon was dangerous, so dial it down. One micro, one loss, and you’re done—you can’t get hurt.
Overnight, ES showed strength, testing strong levels and moving up and away. Let’s take a look at the other indices. They all look on the same train—play long or flat. Stay out of the way if you don’t want to trade this.
Yesterday was characterized by “trap the trader”—no follow-through reversals that crushed traders reverting to old habits. Today’s bull-bear scorecard shows the bulls are in control. The play is long or flat; staying flat is a trade too.
Stay green, my friends, and to learn more about our group, visit MicroTrader.com.
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