Thanks - to Big Mike and fellow traders for the site, your wisdom, and this opportunity. Have enjoyed the price action thread the most. Putting off formal journaling too long. I am committing and becoming accountable today.
A little history - winning and losing streaks, inconsistent trading. Evolved from stocks, to etfs, to es, to ym. Tried indicators, chat rooms, strategies and theories. Tried platforms and instruments. Trading for 2 years now (a year back in 2001 too) and the equity curve is looking more promising, but certainly not breakeven with all expenses in. Working on personal psychology, market auction, and tighter technique. Consistent journaling is a perfect step. Finally realized its all about money management.
A few goals - Consistently and confidently taking a net positive return out of the market in the morning session, in three trades or less, and then closing shop. Adding more contracts with that consistency, to ultimately meet an income level to support me into and thru retirement.
My business - I did form a partnership,and treat this like a business. I'd suggest starting traders do this. If you lose starting out (ha!) you can at least have a write-off.
My equipment - HP laptop with an extra 22 inch flat screen plugged into it. When I have used certain purchased indicators, it has tuckered out the CPU, but no problem with normal activity. Windows 7, AMD dual Core RM70, 2 GHz, 3 GB RAM.
My platform - Tradestation. I have tried Ninja but never took to it. I may try again, once I can be consistent on Tradestation. Commissions and expenses are not unreasonable especially after rebates.
My instrument - YM. Not the most popular one I know, but it moves nicely. It may not have the biggest bang for the commission buck ($ per tick) but slippage is not as painful either. Again, I may go back to ES or try CL again, once I have the consistency in YM.
My screen - matrix (dom), 89 tick for final trade timing, 3 minute for trade identification using slow stochastics, 15, 60, and daily for trending, t&s (single and blocks of 10 or more), advance/declines, tick, eur/usd. I'll post a picture after I read the best method.
My morning routine - Review daily chart for floor pivots and overall trend. Review overnite globex session for highs, lows, and any early morning news. Mark the daily chart with previous close, high, low, pivots. Check stochs on daily, 60, and 15 for trend. Prepare for a possible gap fill, by noting open and prev close. Determine crabel range, noting 15, and 30, and 60 min established ranges as they happen.
My setups - 1) a gap fill if its not too large, 2) watch for the crabel breakouts, and primarily 3) when low 3 min stoch cross back up over 20 longs, or high 3 min stochs cross back over 80 shorts, when in agreement with the larger trend. Trying not to take countertrend trades. Will fade high and low tick trend exhaustion. Will trade the keltner channel as well.
Number of contracts - up to three, 7 and 11 targets, and run the last. Move stop up to breakeven as soon as first one hits.
My known issues - as discovered in my trading analysis - overtrading, stubbornness and moving stops, recognizing scaling in to a winner as opposed to adding to a loser, turning winners into losers, bailing to quickly on runner.
I'm committed now. See you tomorrow after trading.