A little better on CL today. However had one which should have been a loser which I doubled , actually quadrupled down on. Then YM I did the same for a couple of trades. I think I need to step back and think about my bad habit of doubling down. I have to start practicing being serious about a tight stop or any stop for that matter. I had a webinar host educator who said have a tighter stop on countertrending scalps. Will ponder over this. I should probably read "Trading in the Zone". I have it but hadn't read it yet.

CL
+8+6-11-3+11+11+4.5 = 26.5
Then I restarted this morning and CL was moving fine and I got some good scalps in with decent movement for once.
+5+3+4+4+5-1+4+3 = 27
YM
-2+2+2-1+3+3+2+4+4-3+2+3+3+0+4 = 26
The 2nd YM trade was a very poor one. I had anticipated a reversal up; I just didn't know when. I had already scaled in and was in heat for over 20 ticks. Very bad risk management. I held on just because I felt it was a fake down overall by the big money, which it was, but I should have focused on how to trade it better than to hold on to a loser.

= +79.5
"death" by a "thousand" commissions&fees for each trade. +0(scratch) +1, and +2 costs heavy % in commission+fees. losers are worse = loss amt + commission+fees.

Just YM today. And just a couple of periods of taking trades.

YM
+4 +4 -1 +4 +3 +2.5 = 16.5

While scalping, I noticed I had been taking many countertrend scalps. Using indicators and pa, I should probably try to figure how to discern higher probability scalps from riskier countertrend scalps.

I was feeling a little better about my trading, but I noticed I didn't really capture the best entries for the major overall swings. Maybe partly because of scalping it's harder to see the forest for the trees at the same time, or I just need more work gauging the 250tick or 5 min chart.

YM
-1 +2 +4 +1 +0 +3 +5 +5 +1 +3 +2 +1 +6 +5 = +37

Taking time off from day trading today. With the markets range bound and the media hounding on Greece news again. Decided to restart my option spread practice.

This time I looked at the daily charts for the instruments. Implied volatility was higher so hopefully the options will sustain decent intrinsic value for a while. I am betting GLD will go sideways for the most part and preserving enough capital to slap on an adjustment if goes out of bounds. RUT, I'm guessing it will either continue uptrending or sideways for the most part and will not dip too much down if it does.

GLD - double calendar
RUT - BWB (broken wing butterfly)

Hi Cloudy, you using the YTC Scalper strategy exclusively or is there other stuff in the mix as well for daytrading?

I don't know how you manage to trade more than one market (didn't you say you also trade 6E?) - I am not fit to trade anymore after 3 or 4 hours on EUR/USD. I do six hours and the last 2 are just a complete waste of sim time.

I haven't traded the 6E anymore for a few weeks. I got tired of it not moving anymore and tepid daily volume. i.e. kbit's thread on "Are futures dying?" I was using the 377 tick and the 1131 tick on the 6E per CJ booth's method. Right now, I'm just trading YM or CL. I don't really trade both at the same time. I do CL for a bit, then switch off to YM or the other way. I too get burned out after 2 to 3 hours. Scalping I found is still very anxiety producing and I need to be focused or start making more mistakes.

Bad trading today. Big loss total due to commissions and fees.

3 major losers. 1 of them was because I was ready to get out with 2-3 tick knowing the sentiment had changed, and I had chances to get out, but I was greedy hoping momentum would push it to 4 ticks.
And completely wrong on one trade. Double scaled-in the loser. Cost all my previous gains. Maybe not completely wrong assessment, but should have not traded that stretch in hindsight. As it turned out if I had entered completely opposite it would have been a good swing in the opposite direction.

A bunch of bad emotions. Anger. Blaming things, circumstances and distractions instantly came to my mind. As of now I've kind of forced myself not to think about that. So I can just do the report here.

Had a good start up run. Then the major mistakes. YM only today.
+7+4-1+2-1-2+2+0+5+4
-9-5-10-5-1+2-12-9
+2+7+2+3+0+0+5+2+.5+3+3+1+5
-11-8-5
+6+4+4+4+5-3+3-3-1+3+3
= + 4.5

The last trade I double scaled in again. Luckily I was right based on my assessment of the pa. But it was a horrible first entry.. Overall I had lost confidence in myself. I pushed myself to keep trading. Was able to come back to even ticks (though not commission and fee wise) , but then lost the gains again, then finally ended up back to even ticks. Nothing seemed to work right. My assessment of pa was off.

Options trades.
GLD and RUT. No adjustments yet. Vega very high.

What's "double scaling in" exactly? Sorry if you've already said.

No problem. What I mean by "double scaling-in" is that while I usually scale in a trade meaning averaging in a trade with the intent to go long or short with both entries. So I would enter into a trade with 2 contracts for example, then if the trade went against me by a certain number of ticks but I was still positive the trade would work in my favor, then I would enter again with 2 contracts, the entry would be averaged in between the two prices. That should work in theory with "discipline". However if it still went against me, instead of letting it stop me out, I would enter again in the original direction this time with 4 contracts.(what I called "double scaled in") So the new average entry would be the average between the current entry of 4 contracts and the average of the set of the 2 entries earlier. This is when I stubbornly think the market will move in my direction, or worse fooling myself and not stopping out and not willing to admit I was wrong, losing exponentially more capital in the loss when eventually I stop out, exit, or my broker margin calls me in the worst case! They call this the worst way to trade i.e. continuing to scale in until your account is busted or margin called. Supposedly some scaling in a controlled "disciplined" and skilled way is rationalized as an "advanced" method of entry.

Today, lost my confidence from yesterday. Did some replay trading last night. And just watched the market today, and not even sim traded. Not useful to post the replay trading because it's not helpful as a non-real time trading session. No day trading to report.

Option trades:

Still ongoing, no adjustments.
GLD - bad vega..still in good position by option pricing not moving , curently at -300 heat
RUT - good position, but premium dropped for now. -1000 heat

Not good trading again. Some ok scalps. But some major mistakes.

CL
-1-1+3+3+3+3
-9-4-9-4-3-3-3-3 +4+4+4+4+4+4+4+4 //a massive scale-in blunder, danger of margin call

YM
+7+0+6-1+2+1+7+0+3
-9-5-13-6
+0+1+3+8+3

= +11
overall loss due to commission and fees

options: added new position.
BAC May put at 7 strike .44 (based on tip)
RUT - good position still
GLD - moving up. waiting to see if needed adjustment. was hoping to sell off premium, but bad vega to theta (9 to 1)