May 29th, 2026

Today’s trading session was a bit of a frustrating reminder of why rules matter.

Going into the day, I wasn’t feeling particularly comfortable with the market. Yesterday’s price action had me second-guessing things, and I found myself hesitating and questioning setups more than I should have. As a result, I ended up losing money on trades that I probably shouldn’t have managed the way I did. Thankfully, the damage wasn’t significant, but it’s still painful knowing the loss came from not fully following my own plan.

The lesson is one I’ve learned before but clearly need to keep reinforcing: follow the rules.

The reality is that none of us know what the market is going to do next. A setup can look questionable and turn into a huge winner. Another can look perfect and fail immediately. That’s why having a system matters. The edge isn’t in predicting the future; it’s in consistently executing a proven process over and over again.

Today was a good reminder that when I start making decisions based on discomfort, fear, or recent market experiences, I usually create more problems than I solve. My job isn’t to predict. My job is to execute.

So, heading into next week, the goal is simple: trust the system, take the setups, and let the probabilities play out. Whether the result is a win or a loss, I want it to be because I followed the plan, not because I talked myself out of it.

Monday starts a fresh week, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

Day 25 Travel Poster

MNQ Chart

Now let’s talk about the trading.

Nothing really happened until around 8:30. Looking back, I’m still not sure whether I should have entered at 8:25 or not. According to my strategy, I shouldn’t have because the lines were too close together. That’s where the confusion started.

Then at 8:30, right at the market open, price moved higher. I hesitated because it had reached the VWAP line and was only barely above it. My strategy says to take the trade once it’s above, but I got nervous and talked myself out of it. That’s completely on me. Had I taken it, the trade would have been a winner worth 39.75 points.

One thing I’m still working through is whether I should wait for the bar to close before moving my stop loss. My gut says no in situations like this because the move happened quickly. The trade would have hit the target and then eventually come back down, so I think the runner would have been stopped out for a 5-point loss. That’s something I’ll need to refine in the rules.

At 8:40, I would have entered again because my strategy calls for another entry when price crosses back above the 8 EMA. That trade also would have worked, producing 51.75 points on the first contract and another 5 points on the runner.

After that, not much happened. The next valid setup would have been a loser for about 29 points on each contract. I didn’t take it, and in hindsight I’m glad I didn’t. However, I also missed the final setup of the day, which would have produced 62.25 points on one contract and 5 points on the runner.

By the end of the day, I finished down about 12 points. Had I simply followed the rules, I would have been up roughly $200 instead. That’s the painful lesson from today. The opportunities were there. I just didn’t trust my system enough to take them.

Total Profit: $-12.72