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Trade for a Living

  #1 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374

I am a long time lurker on this forum, but rarely post. I have received a couple of emails encouraging posting trading journals. I have often thought that doing so might be beneficial, but I'm not sure how. I keep my stats in Excel, but I don't go into much detail other than the numbers. I trade two strategies. Options and day trades. On the options, I primarily sell them, though on rare occasions I will be net long if I suspect an impending volatility spike. I'm usually wrong, or get out too soon when I'm right, so the long options are probably a net loser. The day trading involves spreading correlated markets and hoping the one I bought goes up more than the one I sold, or vice versa. I'm not doing anything too brainy. I don't use charts. I'm a numbers guy.

Today was a good day as the options portion was up about 650, and the d/t portion was up 1300. I will provide exact numbers tomorrow morning when I get my statement.

For the month, the options portion is down about 2900 (the incredible rampage from about ES 2725 to 2960 in just a few days was not kind to my bottom line).

The d/t portion is up about 6600 for the month, so it is carrying the ball for me. Some months, it's the other way around.

One thing I am excited about is the introduction of the micros. I hate that it adds commission, but I love that it adds granularity to my spreads. Today I was short 24 M2K, Short 6 MNQ and Long 27 MYM. A month ago, in the E-Minis, those numbers would have been 2,3 and 1 respectively, and not as accurate as I desire for setting up the spreads. Now I can finesse the balance to a much finer degree.

My biggest strength as a trader is that I am a very competitive person, in every area of my life. I don't mind being wrong, that happens all the time. But I hate losing. So I never give up on a trade, and I'm never afraid to make adjustments.

My biggest weakness as a trader is that I am very competitive. I hate to lose. Some days I fight too hard and too long, and take bigger losses than necessary. I could do better at calling it a day, and come back tomorrow.

I am not selling any products, not wanting to manage money - just trade. If there are any questions, ask and I'll try to answer. If not, talking to myself is just fine. I do it all day, every day.

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  #3 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374


Options P/L: +665.46 Month: -2911.05
DayTrade P/L: +1304.02 Month: +6617.84
Premium Sold: 712.50
Premium Paid: 322.50
Open Premium: 6170

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  #4 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374

Coming in to the day with negative delta certainly helped my options position as the premium for the calls sucked out nicely. Now my delta is almost neutral, so ES, just stay where you are, please and thank you. Net gain of about 780 on that component of my trading today. Only new activity was the purchase of 10 cheap OTM calls. If market doesn't rebound strongly or quickly enough, I'll sell calls against them.

As for the day trading portion, it was a rare double negation day. What I mean by that (and that's just a term I use, it probably isn't the most accurate term) is two of my trades got 'negated'. Generally, I put on 1/3 of my position around 7:45, another 1/3 around 9:45 and the final 1/3 around 10:45. Since each position is independent (always a spread), it's possible that my 2nd trade (or 3rd) could buy a leg that I previously sold, or sell a leg that I previously bought. So when that happens I close out the first trade completely, including the unaffected leg as I do not want to be out of balance. So I consider that a 'negation' of my trade, since both legs are now gone and one leg has even reversed. Unfortunately the loss (and it is almost always a loss) is not negated. So today the 9:45 trade negated the 7:45 trade and then the 10:45 trade negated the 9:45 trade. The 10:45 trade bought Russell and sold NASDAQ, so it eventually got it right. There are two ways I can play it when a negation occurs. a) Just hold the existing positions until EOD or stopped out b) add another 1/3 at 11:40 and if necessary for the double negation, another 1/3 at 12:40. Since I was down 600 and didn't want to lose more than 1000 today, I elected a hybrid. I did the 11:40 trade. Then the trade started working very well, and within an hour and a half I was back to breakeven. So I exited. And did not do the 12:40 trade, nor anything else. For a silly reason. The daytrade portion is on a 7 day winning streak (now 8), and I was happy to keep that string intact. Long term, it's about a 58% winning methodology, so long winning streaks are rather uncommon. Don't tell me that's silly. I already know, and I don't care. I'm a competitive guy, and I hate to lose. FWIW, option A continued to work all the way up to about 280 in profit, and option B up to about 800 in profit, though both approaches gave a fair amount back at the very end of the day. So I profited a whopping 11 dollars on the daytrade portion.

Exact numbers in the morning.

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  #5 (permalink)
 
mtzimmer1's Avatar
 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
Recovering Method Hopper
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TOS
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Equities, Treasuries, Gold
Posts: 840 since Dec 2018
Thanks Given: 2,201
Thanks Received: 1,918

Please pardon my complete ignorance on spread trading. How do you determine the relative strength and weakness of one index against another? Do you come to a trade decision based off of the chart of the spread or the individual charts of each index? This morning I noticed the Dow holding its ground better than the ES and NQ. How does one conjecture whether this relationship will continue or invert?

Thank you very much.

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  #6 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374

Well, the simplest way, by far, is to merely look at the pct. change from previous close. I base mine on change in Garman-Klass volatility, but I doubt there's much difference.

And the Dow was the strongest this morning. My first trade was long Dow and short NQ, but then the NQ became the strongest, negating my first trade (at a loss of 108 plus commissions and fees) and then, always fun when this happens, the NQ became the weakest, negating my 2nd trade as well (at a loss of 471 plus commissions and fees).

EDIT TO ADD: I see I missed a couple of questions. I assess each market individually, not vis a vis each other. I never use charts.

As for whether or not the relationship will continue on any given day, I have no idea. I don't think anybody does. My theory (not mine, but I use it) is that there's nothing wrong with being wrong, but don't stay wrong. Eventually I get it right. Or hit my loss limit for that day.

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  #7 (permalink)
 
mtzimmer1's Avatar
 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
Recovering Method Hopper
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TOS
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Equities, Treasuries, Gold
Posts: 840 since Dec 2018
Thanks Given: 2,201
Thanks Received: 1,918


jba1962 View Post
Well, the simplest way, by far, is to merely look at the pct. change from previous close. I base mine on change in Garman-Klass volatility, but I doubt there's much difference.

And the Dow was the strongest this morning. My first trade was long Dow and short NQ, but then the NQ became the strongest, negating my first trade (at a loss of 108 plus commissions and fees) and then, always fun when this happens, the NQ became the weakest, negating my 2nd trade as well (at a loss of 471 plus commissions and fees).

EDIT TO ADD: I see I missed a couple of questions. I assess each market individually, not vis a vis each other. I never use charts.

As for whether or not the relationship will continue on any given day, I have no idea. I don't think anybody does. My theory (not mine, but I use it) is that there's nothing wrong with being wrong, but don't stay wrong. Eventually I get it right. Or hit my loss limit for that day.



Very much appreciate the response.


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  #8 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374

Options P/L: +745.80 Month: -2165.25
DayTrade P/L: +11.30 Month: +6629.14
Premium Sold: 0
Premium Paid: 475.00
Open Premium: 4935

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  #9 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374

On the option side, today was a good day. The market really didn't move much, but weirdly had a feeling of being a down day. No volatility spike though, so both my Puts and Calls did OK. Picked up about $500, and my delta is still pretty close to neutral. I did not close anything. I did not add anything. As long as the day doesn't go nuts, tomorrow I will probably sell a strangle.

On the day trade side, it was pretty much yesterday all over again, but in reverse. Within minutes of implementing the second trade I was up nearly $600., but then it abruptly stopped going my way. I was still up 400 when I added the 3rd, but then the freefall began and in minutes all was lost. I got out as quickly as I could, but IB's TWS does not make that easy. By the time I got out I had given it all back except for $60. So, a winning day (the streak continues) but disappointing after such a good start.

I keep track of my results in Excel and one of the columns is discipline, because like many traders, I sometimes am weak in that area. Yesterday I had to take a hit because I exited early for no valid reason other than to keep a meaningless winning streak alive. Today, no ding. I did the best I could. I just opened up a NinjaTrader account and bought a lifetime license. I am planning to learn enough C# to automate my strategy. Getting in and out with IB is often difficult and often costly. And I'll save a little on commissions. .41 for the micros instead of .47

Final numbers in the morning.

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  #10 (permalink)
 jba1962 
TampaFL
 
Experience: Master
Platform: TWS
Trading: ES
Posts: 183 since Oct 2017
Thanks Given: 97
Thanks Received: 374


Options P/L: +520.00 Month: -1645.25
DayTrade P/L: +60.14 Month: +6689.28
Premium Sold: 0
Premium Paid: 0
Open Premium: 4415

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Last Updated on October 10, 2019


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