Execution is a Constant

We are trying to execute perfectly this week and so far, so good. We ended the day down after 8 trades. That's a lot of trades for me but as i've added setups its only natural that the occurrences of setups and thus my trade frequency increase as well. Our goal this week was simple; to execute our plan perfectly and I can honestly report that as of 2:30 this afternoon we did just that today.

Today I took 8 trades, seven of which were par trades and we had one loser. No bid deal. We actually lost a full stop out on one of our par trades simply because the market spurted up and then reversed so quickly (it was literally within 2 seconds of it hitting the par target and stopping us out) I could not move my stop in time. I don't hold that against myself though because i'm pretty sure no human in the world could've done any better. And in volatile markets like these this kind of stuff happens - its the reality that you don't get, comprehend, or experience in your backtesting results.

Anyway, we actually had each of our 5 setups occur today and we traded them all. Just quite simply, none of them ran to profit targets with me. A lot of them just went to par levels and no further, some setups just blew away from me as I was waiting to pounce on them and others low ticked me out at par before exploding up to my targets. That's trading, it happened today, it will happen again, and it has no bearing on my execution performance.



In my view execution is paramount to becoming a successful trader and is 90% of what I focus on improving in my personal trading. Individual trades come and go and their profits are as random as the price level that your buying or selling at on any given day. But the point is, by having consistent execution you are always ready, able, and willing to take the next trade that just might pay you handsomely. Today I executed perfectly and I wasn't paid. Some might say the trades just "didn't fall my way". But tomorrow I may execute perfectly and every trade will fall my way. By remaining consistent and vigilant with your execution you create a constant in your performance within a medium that is based largely on random outcomes. And that and that alone gives you an edge many traders lack.

Trade Results:

- 50.00