I plan to use this journal to record my thoughts on the trading day. I am relatively new to futures trading but I have been trading various other instruments and strategies for about 20 years while working full time. My introduction captures what I have been involved with previously (.
I have shifted my work schedule to allow me to trade during market hours and sometimes jugling these two efforts leaves little time in the day - I need to keep the journal short and sweet to have a shot at sustaining it!
What I am working on right now:
1. Learning price action - I have found that the Al Brooks course fits my personality and style and also adds significantly to what I have previously studied in terms of technical analysis. I am still in the beginning stages of absorbing Al's materials but what I have been able to apply so far has worked for me.
2. Learning from each trade - intraday trading is fairly new to me as I have had to focus on options strategies and swings while working during the day (placing trades in the morning and swinging them for days). I am getting accustomed to the quick decision making and focus required while trying to keep in mind the context of the day and recent days. Each trade I try to learn - did I make a hasty decision, did I misinterpret the context, did I have enough proof that the probability was good, was my risk acceptable, was my target acceptable, was the trade reasonable, etc. I need to look at this for now even on winning trades so I can rule out luck (although I do like luck and not opposed to having some here and there).
3. Learning how to "see" better live - looking at a chart at the end of the day I can always see where I missed something or make sense of most of the moves (sometimes the moves make absolutely no sense at all - but that is the market saying everyone is wrong right now). The skill I am trying to develop is to be able to read this more quickly real-time...what are the next 5 bars likely to be? Who is buying or covering, and how strong are they? Where are buyers and sellers likely to step in? This is the biggest challenge so far.
4. Setting and adjusting targets, taking profits - I find that I take profits too quickly many times so I need to develop a better sense for when to get out.
5. Scalping - I generally look for moves where I can see at least 2+ points profit potential but I see many 1 point scalps that I do not take. I'd like to figure out how to take these with a very high win rate.
6. Breaking down Al Brooks content in to a decision making framework. Al shares a lot of knowledge - I would like to somehow create a very concise framework for making decisions so that I take all of the available context in to account. I have found on losing trades that I missed something. When a pilot flies a plane, she has a checklist and a routine so that she is sure to safely get people from point A to B. I need a mental checklist to safely manage a trade from entry to exit. I hate it when I lose a bunch of points after scaling in and then see something I missed that could have gotten me out sooner. Need to make sure the plane has fuel before takeoff.
7. Identifying potential S/R levels for the day - there are major levels on the day/week/hour and there are the open and close of yesterday and today's open...but important levels develop that these don't line up with. I think these mystery (at least a mystery to me so far) levels come from bulls or bears taking profits suddenly because of some previous big move...but I have not yet figured this out. I'd like to add some of these potential S/R levels before the day begins just as another piece of info.
My set up and approach:
I have traded ES on Tradestation and NinjaTrader and currently have accounts open with both. Since I am only months in to futures, I have not decided which I like better but I am leaning to NinjaTrader at the moment.
I trade the 5 minute chart and I have the Day/Week/Hour/15 min/2 min open in small windows. I use the …