NQ Trade on Apr 14, 2014 12:33 from johnc_BOWS: Tradervue User Stock Trades.

Reason for trade:
I flagged this for a breakdown continuation the previous night. What we needed today was to establish an LOD that's higher than the previous day's LOD (which we got). I drew an ascending trendline connecting both LODs. I also descending trendline connecting the lower-lows that were established today.

NQ started bouncing on lower volume. 30 minutes before my entry, it couldn't even touch the VWAP and the descending trendline. I shorted it on the break of the trendline.

I actually anticipated that it would breakdown around 11.90. However, I couldn't get filled (likely because no one was buying at 11.90). I ended up getting my market order filled at 11.82. Took on 1.26x max risk ($63 max risk) since I based my position size on 11.89 as my entry price. I figure it was acceptable.

I set my stop at 12.01 because I thought that since the trendline had been broken, any pullback to 12.00 would get shorted.

How I could improve:
My first scaleout was too early. This was a mechanical error: I sent a limit order for 11.44 (2R) while I still had a live stop order. My platform sent this out as a market order.

My final scaleout was a mistake because I got shaken out by that "reversal candle". I saw that "green hammer" as a bullish sign. I could have gotten another dollar on this trade. Eh, no one's perfect. Still got close to 2.5R out of the trade.

To improve my trading plan, I need to define my personal reasons for covering the final shares.