Howdy from way out west.
You could say today was my first day of live trading the ES, although I have turned on the live account for just a handful of time a few months back. I was addicted to Sim, or maybe I should acknowledge that I am a Sim addict.
FT71 gave me a good talking to about this last month during a FuturesIO AMA.
The advice was bite the bullet, ante up the tuition, turn on the live, do 30 trades then assess the results.
Day 1; Trading in ticks was 2, plus 0, plus 1, minus 4, plus 13, minus 6 minus 4 equals sum of 1.
Needless to say the $12.50 sum did not cover commish. So I'm down $4 or so.
Not bad for a first day.
Concepts to mull over:
1) If I never pulled back my 4 tick stop I would have made 2 more ticks today overall.
2) On the other hand, if i had pulled my stop one tick back on my 4th trade,
it likely would have worked out as I had the direction right.
3) On the other hand (can you tell I recently heard Tevye's monologue in Fiddler on the Roof?),
I did jump back in because I felt I had the direction and subsequently got 13 ticks.
What a great first day of trading!!! I tried walking away, hahah.
Now I know how it's done! HAHA
4) Then, I believe I was over confident but lacking market perspective and I gave back 9 ticks in my
next three trades which were: minus 6, plus 1, minus 4.
5) It was this last minus 6 that was a mistake- moving my stop out.
This has been my downfall also in my sim trading.
6) 4 winners, 3 losers, one even. 50% profitability.
Summary:
1) Don't move the stop out for further losses.
Waiting for better trade placement can help with good stop-loss placement.
2) Overconfidence without fresh market perspective can be detrimental.
Regain market perspective after a trade and have your "edge" lining up before entering a trade.
3) I'm considering the value of my one-tick strategy, although without those two
today, I'd be in the hole.
The thing is when they don't work, I'm still using a 4 tick loss. They have been useful for learning to get better placements on pull backs which also expands their potential. So I have learned something from them.
Happy and peaceful trading, Aeolian.