Hello everyone,

I'm starting out this journal on my papertrading. This is primarily to give me some structure and self-analysis on my trading. I will be using a 3 "prong" approach. One way will be daytrading the E-mini, ES, or Euro futures, 6E, or both. The second way will be option spread trading using Iron Condors and Calendars primarily , maybe branching out into other types of spreads later. The third way will be daytrading a basket of stocks resulting from generated scans of optionable equities using certain parameters. Why did I choose three different methods? Mainly to work on my trading skills for each specific type of trading. Also as an attempt to limit my risk and losses with one type of trading style possibly hedging the losses of the other types and vice versa.
Taking off. glta.

10-1-11 , update: At this point, not journalling daytrading for now. Mainly short term positional option spreads and some intra day single options.

Today's results:

Option spreads:
p/l tot, day p/l (from last trading day)
ACI 1736 737
DIA 575 479
SPY 742 -90
MSFT 173 72
EEM -1835 -848
IWM 400 -1099
ASYS -224 275
ongoing 1567 adjusted -474

futures:
/ES 15 825

fut tot 825
opt tot -474
day tot 351

No individual stock plays today. Just watched my options spreads which some I've had for a couple of weeks with ACI and MSFT, both calendars started last Thursday. big drop on the EEM so far.
Did some daytrading on the 6E and pulled 15 pips on two trades. using scaling out, so overall $p/l varies.
Since they're all spreads, I have to hold them until time to exit or adjust.

Daytrading the futures I try to use Brooks Price Action coupled with other indicator systems to confirm. Then I try to analyze how Brooks PA could have led to a "smarter" PA based trade. Al Brooks has presented at futures.io (formerly BMT) as recently as June 29th so I came over to futures.io (formerly BMT) after having heard about it on Brook's website...

Glad to see your journal, looking forward to it.

Mike

Thanks Big Mike. Glad I found this forum. About my intraday stock scan trades. I use ThinkOrSwim ' scanning feature to look for candidates, then I check each one out, and enter call or put positions depending on the general market. I keep an eye on the ES and $TICK. (Check out Peter Resnick's shadowtrader room on TOS).

Today wasn't on the intraday stock options:
7/19/2011
ACI 336 CHK 120 CNX -630 IPI 150 MTL 0 NUS -375

day stk tot -399

The ongoing options had improved thanks to the "rebound up" day today:
"(e) means ending position, (n) means starting new option spread position"

ACI(e) 1200 -536 DIA 511 -64 SPY 899 158 MSFT(e) 200 27 EEM -702 1133 IWM 1287 887 ASYS -293 -69


ongoing 3102
adjusted
1536
The IWM , EEM, and ASYS positions I had adjusted a couple of times over the course of the last 2 weeks.
ACI and MSFT were put on last Thursday for a short term gain. ACI was a 200 contract calendar spread, MSFT was also. DIA and SPY almost hit their breakevens on the long side then slid down then today happened to end up back close to the middle again.


Horrible day on daytrading the futures. I had gained 15 pips on the 6E only to give
it all away -23 pips caught on a bull trap, then to lose -20 more pips with "revenge trading"
later and not following my stop loss. I tried to use 15 min time frame in order to catch "a bigger move"
or "let it ride", but it soon after reversed. I should have got my 3 more pips and been happy scalping
worked for the day. Later on, scalped ES for 1.5 pts (6 ticks)

6E -23 -1138
ES +6 200

day stk tot -399
opt tot 1536
fut tot -938
----------------
day tot 199.5

so the options gain kind of offset the losses. But my losses were mostly from bad trading especially on the 6e today.

option spreads:

DIA 536 25
SPY 1048 149
EEM -1570 -768
IWM 1090 -197

ongoing 1104
adjusted -791
6E +9 400

opt total -791
fut tot 400
-----------------------------
day tot -391

Stayed out of stock selections. Non-trending overall market. Lost profit in profit curve probably due to large overall vega. Theta still 152, so waiting a week or more with EEM hopefully staying within bounds should bring p/l back to breakeven at least. Did one trade trying to catch the elusive "big move". on the 15 min chart. Entry was ok. But move was short lived. So took out 9 pips. Brought equity curve (for 6e only on my demo ninjatrader acct) back to positive at least. Why I start out with 4 contracts? Two boring to stick to 1 or 2. Realistically my live account probably not large enough for 4 contracts, so will do 2 and scale out 1 when or if I feel ready for live daytrading.

7/21/2011

BRY 540
EP 900
HAL 900
OXY 250
SE 295
TBT 40

day scntot 2925

DIA -384 -920
SPY 505 -543
EEM -1360 210
IWM 1445 365

ongoing 206
adjusted
-888
fut tot 0
day tot 2037

Taking a break from daytrading/scalping futures. Had a good set of 5 stocks that came from my stock scan and since it was a pretty big up day, easy to lock in some profits on call options. HAL , halliburton, haha.
Just monitored the option spread positions. p/l for those fluctuate as price moves and expiration approaches.
Looking back I shouldn't have put some of those spreads out more than 30 days. Already had to adjust most of them. The goal is to avoid adjusting if possible.

7/22/2011

TBT -1207 -1167
day scntot -1207

DIA 125 509
SPY 484 -21
EEM -1092 268
IWM 1330 -115
ongoing 847 adjusted 641

fut tot 0
day tot -566

Forgot to mention. TBT was a plain stock position. My demo account started out at 100k, so was able to "buy" more than a thousand shares. Following a newsletter recommendation. But not good today as TBT went down.
Didn't do daytrading futures again. Maybe taking taking a hiatus from it and doing some more practice. Or I lost confidence in myself again. Option spread positions improved but not enough to offset TBT loss for the day. So playing it lazy and just monitoring option spreads and current positions.

7/25/2011
TBT 1307 100

day scntot 1307

option spreads: (new trade on ADSK +200 contract calendar)
ADSK(n) -94 -94
EEM -365 -425
IWM 1598 146
ASYS -362 -551
DIA 681 556
SPY 784 300

ongoing 2242 adjusted -68

scan total: 1307
fut tot 0
option spread total: -68
day tot 1239


no daytrading today. Just watched my position trading. TBT profit now +100 total. Last friday it was down.
Reasoning from newsletter guru: As the market goes up as the congress deal gets closer, Treasury Bonds may start a selloff. TBT is ultrashort TB instrument. Target may be 36 to 37.

7/26/2011

TBT -780 -680

day scntot -780

ADSK -104 -10
EEM 44 409
IWM 832 -766
ASYS 460 -118
DIA 819 138
SPY 1042 258
ongoing 3093 adjusted -89

stock tot -780
fut tot 0
day tot -869

TBT dipped down again erasing the gain from yesterday back into negative territory.
I adjusted ASYS selling off the AUG 11 22.5 call calender spread. After adjustment, the +1 day after expiration
breakeven on the leftside originally at 16.5 got moved down to 15 for 1.5 points to the left for more leeway, but less potential gain. If all goes well for the next two weeks, the position still won't make much past breakeven. Mainly just trying to prevent a total loss and giving it time to do so. Total position for ASYS is actually -480 now. Had to adjust the total p/l on my excel sheet, as TOS doesn't account for change correctly, even though the position shows positive p/l after the change.