Today’s trading so far has been a dream come true for me. My two favorite patterns have played themselves out ultra-cleanly and as close to text-book as you can get.

Let’s see what I mean:

Earlier, I pointed out the Gap Fade Trade the market gave us like a gift this morning. The market wasn’t finished giving – that’s for sure.

The second set-up of the day came in the form of a rather massive and sudden bear flag which rose just above moving average resistance.

I describe more detail about this set-up in my educational post “How to Trade Bull and Bear Flags.”

As much as I have learned through education and experience, it seems strange that these two extraordinarily simple patterns and set-ups have made me the most money in my account this year.

I keep wanting all these esoteric and complex strategies and indicators to make it worth what I have learned about them but it often pays for retail traders to stick to simple knowledge and set-ups.

The more you see these patterns play out, the more confidence you’ll have in yourself when you perceive a pattern unfolding and you will join in with less hesitation.

Each time you see a clean or interesting pattern you recognize, print out the chart at the end of the day, annotate the pattern, and keep a ‘hard copy’ folder (or file) that gives you easy access to all the times you’ve observed the set-up.