My name is Mark and I'm completely new to trading. After posting an introduction in the Trader's Hideout I was urged to start a journal so here I am. I plan to post in this thread at least once per day, post my pre-market and post-market thoughts, document every trade, post charts and anything else that has to do with my journey down the rabbit hole. At the moment I plan to sim trade for the next two months until I can validate my edge and build up a proper bankroll before I go live again.
Platforms
I wanted to start this journal this morning and make some trades. Instead I battled with various platforms all day. For the past few weeks I've been using Trading Technologies platform, but the more I use it the more complications I run into. The workspace is highly customizable and I like their DOM. On the other hand the software feels dumbed down in too many other aspects and it doesn't seem many people use it.
Over a month ago I tried setting up Sierra Charts and it took me all of five minutes to throw in the towel. There's no doubt the software is powerful, but the sheer features are overwhelming, the exact opposite problem I have with TT. Anyways I took another shot at setting it up today and was able to connect it with TT's datafeed, but after an hour I felt almost as lost as when I started. So I ended up installing a demo of Ninja Trader 8 and received a free 14 day trial for CQG Continuum data. After coming from ThinkOrSwim and Trading Technologies platform I felt much more at home with NT8. It only took me an hour to setup my workspace and I'm quite impressed with the amount of options without feeling lost. I'm excited to finally use tick bars and be able to automatically have trades I enter and exit marked on the chart. NT8's sim trading features really blow TT out of the water. With NT8 I can setup multiple sim accounts. I like the ability to sim using the market replay feature and sim on live data while keeping the statistics separate. Also the data feed seems like it will be quite cheaper so that's a plus too. Though I didn't get to trade today at least I was able to set myself up to trade tomorrow morning.
Long Term Goals
1. Become consistently profitable.
2. Be able to trade any market environment.
3. Expand beyond 1 instrument.
4. Become a full-time trader.
Short Term Goals
1. Find and validate an edge.
2. Develop discipline, not just for trading, but for eating healthier & exercising and posting daily.
3. Finish reading Market Wizards, High Probability Trading and The Way of the Turtle.
4. Start reading other journals on this site.
Trading Plan
I'm going to be attempting to trade a $5000 sim account for the next 60 days and evaluate my performance every 7 days. I'm pretty much going to be following the outline that tpredictor described in my introduction thread.
1. Trade with 2 contracts max.
2. Risk max $700 per day. If loss > $500 and not in position, shut down for day.
3. Risk $350 per trade max.
4. Profit objective: $5000. Max DD: $4000.
5. Do not exceed 6 trades per day.
6. Journal every day pre and post market and keep stats on all trades.
7. Evaluate every 7 days and set goals.
8. If I experience my max DD, the evaluation will start over.
9. Aim for a $500 profit target. (This number may need to be adjusted, time and stats will tell.)
Strategy & Rules
My strategy involves trading off of price action, momentum, volume, S/R levels and DOM.
1. Don't go short above VWAP.
2. Don't go long below VWAP. (This reminds me I need to get a VWAP indicator for NT8 before the open tomorrow.)
These first two rules are to help prevent me from counter-trend trading, for whatever reason I seem to always want to attempt a counter-trend trade and it cost me almost $500 last week. Time to eliminate that bad habit, maybe I can counter-trend trade in the future when I have more experience, but for now it's off the table.
3. Use Stochastics as a secondary signal to confirm trends. I'm looking to go with the trend …