Hello everybody,

After virtual trading and studying price action for about 6 months now, I've come a long way from the days of trading with no idea as to what to do and losing consistently. I've been keeping a trade log and journal, reviewing every night, writing down / testing my short-term market forecasts, and working to understand/fix all my shortfalls. But the last one is much easier said than done and one of the shortfalls that I would really appreciate help with is trading in between the 1-3 strong trend days that allow for easier trading. It's not that I incur terrible losses during these days; the issue is that my performance is absolutely unsatisfying (I average a 1-2% return trading stock options during each of these days as opposed to an average 13-17% return on strong trend days).

I make it a priority to review my trades during the "in-between" days like trading/trending range days where price action is choppy, difficult to understand, and prone to reversals and breakouts which are preceded only by very subtle hints (or subtle to me at least).

My current approach to these types of days is to do the following:
-Reduce position size and scale in when the trade shows better signs.
-Put emphasis on observing price behavior around S/R levels and the moving average (I use the 20 period EMA).
-Enter trades using bar counting with scalp targets if they are not at an extreme of the range. (I never take high/low 1s in trading/trending range days and I never take high 2s near the top of a range / low 2s near the bottom).
-For trading range days, I fade range breakouts that I think lack adequate strength.
-For trending range days, I look for entries with-trend and I fade moving average tests.
-I keep an eye out for developing patterns like sym. triangles, wedges, pennants.
-I keep track of bar size and try to recognize climaxes / vacuums

Although the list goes on, these are more-or-less the dominant elements of my trading strategy for the in-between days. If you have any feedback or advice, please do not hesitate to tell me.