Today's CL trades

I took 3 trades today.  In a day where price has been in a down trend, I found myself taking longs. Very Strange indeed.

The first one was soon after the open, at a minor demand zone from yesterday's 2K volume chart, after I had seen limit buy orders coming in.  The trade went 20 ticks in profit, but began to stall, with limit sell orders coming in, but I was too stubborn and held on.  I was eventually stopped for 6 ticks loss.  I think the reason I held on was that my stop loss was quite small.

After this, I took another counter trend trade, but this time, I was only scalping to get back my first loss and got a quick 10 tick winner, from another minor demand zone from yesterday's 2K vol chart.  This trade would easily have given me a 30 tick profit if I had held on, but I entered it as a scalp, so I was okay with that.

The problem with taking counter trend trades, is that my mind seems to lock out trend re-engagement trades, and I declined 2 very good ones, both of which would have got 40 ticks profit.  The second would have got 60 ticks.  So, I really need to concentrate on trend trades unless I see a volume reversal pattern.

The third trade was from the very good demand zone where I took the long yesterday.  This time I entered with limit orders at the top of the zone with a 16 stop loss at the bottom of it.  If this had lost, then it would have been painful with 2 contracts.  I took a little heat, but the stop loss remained intact.

My target was at a supply zone from today's 2K chart for around 51 ticks.  I took a scale out for 16 ticks, to ensure that at worst, I would have a breakeven trade.  After price had retraced and gone back up, I moved the stop loss on the second contract to break even, as I believed, if it broke the recent low, then it would continue down and stop me out.

Anyway, price kept rising and I moved my SL up to 13 ticks.  However, after getting to 40 ticks in profit, price began to stall.  I did not want to get a measly 13 ticks out of the trade, so I moved the SL up to 30 ticks and was stopped out there.  At this moment of writing, price is just breaking through the stall zone, and will probably reach my initial target. 

I took 46 ticks out of that trade in total, so I am quite happy with today's trades.  However, I must really try and take trend trades, unless I can see a volume reversal pattern, or a S&D trade at a high probability zone.

Here are the charts: