Day 63 - Choppy Markets, Small Losses, and the Gold Trade I Missed

August 18th, 2026

Kind of a rough day overall, at least during the morning session. There really wasn’t much to trade in the first hour, and my strategy kept me out of the market for most of the morning. With my previous strategy, I likely would have lost more money, so I’m continuing to keep track of how the old approach would have performed compared with the new one.

Overall, it was a very choppy market that spent most of the session inside value. I did finish down about $80, but the bigger mistake was not taking the Gold setup when my strategy was clearly telling me to enter. Had I taken that trade, I would have finished the day up roughly $280.

I’ll own that mistake. The setup was there, the strategy gave me the signal, and I simply didn’t take it.

Day 63 Travel Poster

The first trade of the morning was MCL, or Micro Crude Oil. It basically ended up being a wash, with only about a $10 move either way.

The second trade was MES at around 9:55 a.m., when price crossed out of value. Unfortunately, it then spent about an hour chopping around, and I ended up losing 4 points, or roughly $20 on each contract.

The third trade was MNQ, but I got out of it pretty quickly. This was the wrong trade to take. I should have taken the Gold setup instead, but I got scared and passed on it.

The fourth trade was MCL again, and that ended up being another losing trade for about $40.

Total Profit: $-83.50