That’s right.

Basically I check the /CL chart in the morning from bed (4am - local time) and, if it looks “ok” then I’m in (1 - 5 contracts just to be “mentally tied” to the market), if not, I check later (6am - 10:30am).

Initially I go for my $1000 goal (usually just a couple of scalps). If it comes “easily”, I go for $2000 and so on. My “mental energy” is what dictates when I’m out for the rest of the day (4pm is my limit).

I defend my positions dynamically, constantly adding to/subtracting from a bigger position. If it feels right, I’m in. If I change my mind, I’m out or I reverse. My results average are pretty nice, but the variance not (we are talking about oil here, right?!).

Although I have several undergrad/grad courses under my belt (including Mathematics and Statistics) and expertise in Programming, the intuitive approach (gut trading?) works perfectly for me.

I trade from TDA mobile app for a 9 or less contracts position (my best trades!). For 10 and beyond I use Thinkorswim if I’m home.

I love to trade from my iPhone while doing something else, including attending classes at the University (I’m a lifelong student). Idk, it just makes me feel more relaxed.

I’ll try to put some stuff in this thread to illustrate my style.

Thanks!

Bruno


Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

I failed to wake up at 4am today, but I made an effort to wake up from a strange dream to check the market. I though to myself: "there's no way I'm going to wake up from bed right now."







Ok. I'm up. Wifi connection is down (1st world problems... not). Battery is almost gone. 4G activated. I'm in.







Then oil does his stuff as always.







But I haven't changed my mind.







And it's over for today (I'm not going for 2x 'cause I'm not feeling 100%).



.

brunobt 

I failed to wake up at 4am today, but I made an effort to wake up from a strange dream to check the market. I though to myself: "there's no way I'm going to wake up from bed right now."

Hey, it is really cool to see someone doing a trading journal that is purely intuitive. I have felt intuition at times with certain markets, but I don't feel it all the time. I am curious to see how it goes for you, and please put some detail in as to what you are feeling when you place these trades (what your gut says, thought process, etc..), I am very interested.

Every time price moves, basically I think that big institutions are trading among them, and my job is to add liquidity to these transactions. Of course the volume I add is irrelevant considering the market size. I’m irrelevant myself as a liquidity provider. This helps me a lot to avoid thinking non sense stuff.

In this way, there’s some economic sense to “justify” my income (my profit comes from the risk I assume while providing liquidity to the market).

Some people view trading as a problem to be solved, or a craft to be mastered. This leads them to quest for an “answer” (in the form of a methodology/model with a set of variables/predictors).

Although there’s nothing wrong with these interpretations, I prefer to consider trading (as an individual) to be a competition among other traders to provide liquidity to the big guys.

There is a specific necessity at all times: price NEEDS to move. I think to myself: where it want to go? How can I "help" it? How can I profit doing it?

If price is moving then I enter the market as soon as possible and try to "go with the flow". I often revert my position during a trade if I notice I'm "against the flow". I use Al Brooks jargon to call it the "always in" approach.

Of course, all this discussion is a "mental model" I use to trade. Things are the way they are. But as humans we need to extract meaning from the reality. For me, it's just too sad to look to a chart with a couple of indicator and drawings and try to push buttons at the righ times, as in a video game.

Let's see if I can explain this "craziness" with reasonable examples in the next days.

It was around 21pm when I was preparing to take a shower after a sunny day (I live in the Brazilian savanna and it's hot and dry as hell). I like to watch youtube videos while showering, but I didn't resist and took a look at the oil chart. This time of the day the liquidity is extremely low and the price is almost always in some trading range, sometimes changing levels with breakout movements.

I put a position while in the shower (I'm with the Ipad).



Sometimes the chart screams to you what it wnats, and this time it screamed "I'm going down!". In compact charts like this you don't need to draw anything. I just eyeballed the whole situation and could find a lot of reasons to sell. Can you visualize the EMA 20? The broken channel? The price "faking" a reaction?

Let's call the big red bar around 21pm bar 1. bars 2, 3 and 4 were inside bars (also dojis and pause bars). When I saw this chart for the first time, bar 5 was at its highs. I entered this trade at this bar with a market order (I fade the bull bar).



But price reacted in a way I didn't expected, with 2 legs up. I added another contract and shortened my target. The market changed and I changed with it. Price is testing resistance levels, the channel superior line, the last swing high etc.



In markets like this I usually trade a couple of contracts while enjoying this slow motion. The reaction failed and the prices went down (at this time I was at bed staring at this nice price action), bringing my $150 bucks.




Good night!

Today was a real mess. I didn't wake up until 6am, and lost the "opening" (somewhere in Europe... it doesn't really matter). Oil was up and I managed to add some trades (buy side) with 1 or 2 contracts, reaching 50% of my daily goal.

I traded by the Iphone in a Uber car (I had to solve some problems in the city).

The internet connection was a sh!t (4g->3g->no signal), and I had some problems to follow my (yet small) positions.

Basically I ended up chasing the market like a dog, inverting and adding to a (losing) position (up to 12 contracts). I "knew" a sudden movement in my direction (a major correction) would happen.

Some pictures (initial position + final result... forgot to print the major trade screen - I was in the "chasing dog" mode):







That's enough action for today (the USA market is opening but I'm out).

brunobt 

Today was a real mess. I didn't wake up until 6am, and lost the "opening" (somewhere in Europe... it doesn't really matter). Oil was up and I managed to add some trades (buy side) with 1 or 2 contracts, reaching 50% of my daily goal. I traded by the Iphone in a Uber car (I had to solve some problems in the city). The internet connection was a sh!t (4g->3g->no signal), and I had some problems to follow my (yet small) positions. Basically I ended up chasing the market like a dog, inverting and adding to a (losing) position (up to 12 contracts). I "knew" a sudden movement in my direction (a major correction) would happen. Some pictures (initial position + final result... forgot to print the major trade screen - I was in the "chasing dog" mode): That's enough action for today (the USA market is opening but I'm out).

Nice! I have to say, you have balls of steel to trade on a mobile network. I flip out if I even leave my SIM account running while I'm not in my room .

spetscom 

Nice! I have to say, you have balls of steel to trade on a mobile network. I flip out if I even leave my SIM account running while I'm not in my room .

I've always been very lucky in this respect, and the fact that I do not trade this way in the most volatile trading times helps a lot in this luck.

I took sometime to enter the flow today. Using ToS, I reverted once, held a big loser during a long pullback, changed time frame in order to keep the perspective etc.

This one was a stressful morning. I took a stomach pill... the down side of a gut trader life.



That's all for today

ps.: I trade at GMT-3

I was out, but took a look at the chart and it was nice (I felt it was going the "shake the traders off", swinging like crazy).



-2 @71.75 (let's go!)
-3 @71.95 (averaging up...)
+5 @70.60 (the low of the bar!).