So after a year of trading, no wait, a year of learning and losing money, I've finally decided to do this right. Trade my rules, be accountable to someone besides my wife who I think has given up on me at this point in regards to trading, and be very diligent about debriefing my trading every day.
This forum is a great place to do that since everyone seems to be in it to help each other.
I have been down the holy grail path, bought indicators (until I found this site) paid to be in trading rooms, which I have to be honest, I learned a lot from some of them but never really found one that meshed with my personality and in general whittled my account down to an uncomfortable place. I even had a bad experience with an auto trader.....bad mojo there!
A few weeks ago, I stumbled on futures.io (formerly BMT), I hung around and read journals and downloaded indicators like mad. After looking at tons of them, I finally found futures.io (formerly BMT)'s thread about trading naked. Now I have to admit, the thought of BM trading with no clothes on is a little odd but I guess if it works for him, more power to him! LOL....seriously though, his thoughts about making it simpler really spoke to me. So I got rid of the indicators for the most part and the ones I do have are most reference points for me.
Since then, I have been more profitable than not. However, its been a little strange trading naked so to speak. But from here on out, that's the way I will trade.
Next BM had some strong words to say about how many visitors he had to the site, how many new members and the utter lack of people using the free nature of the site to host their journal. I also know those that write things down do much better than those that don't. Every successful salesman and every successful trader I've ever met says to write it down and debrief. So I am doing it right now.
I'll post every day except those days I don't trade....at least that is my intention. I know how good intentions often get derailed.
So here goes......
My Set Ups....
Panel 1
FTe16 set to 3
EMA set to 20 with rising color green and falling color black
SMA set to 50
4 tick range bars
VWAP
Swing markers set to 5
Range counter
Current OHL markers
50 SMA of the daily chart marked with a straight tomato line and updated each day for reference.
Panel 2
Force Index from Boomerang. Not sure if I will keep this or not. Just testing right now.
My Rules:
Contracts to be traded:
Initially, I will trade the 6E with 2 contracts.
Trading Hours:
I will trade the opening from 9:30 EST to 11:30 EST. I find these hours give us enough opportunity to find our trade set ups and exit the day with our daily profit targets and I want to spend time with my kid as well.
Set Ups I will take:
I have 3 potential setups:
The green trend line is underneath and climbing AND the trade indicator is blue and climbing. I only look for longs. I look for single set up: Trade indicator is blue, and green line is at or underneath and climbing. Preferably entering after a retrace once both signals have happened. I don't want to be the first one over the fence. I will enter after it closes above the green trend line and the blue trade line after a retrace.
The black trend line is above and falling AND the trade indicator is red and falling. I only look for shorts. I only look for one set up; trade indicator is red and black trend line is at or above and falling. Preferably entering after a retrace once both signals have happened. I will enter on the close of the bar after it passes back through both the black trend line and the red trade indicator.
The green line is flat, the trade indicator is blue AND prices are oscillating around or between both lines. This indicates chop. I will try really hard not to trade here. Its probably not worth it.
Profit Targets for each set up:
With setups 1 & 2, I use a 4 & 8 tick target and …