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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets


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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets

  #1601 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


josh View Post
haha!

I may have to close my long soon btw, though ESH 40.75 has made a very nice bottom here. POTUS is speaking as well.

I can recommend the Logitech Performance MX -- wireless, needs recharging once every 4 or so days with a simple micro USB plug (I do it overnight), contours to the hand well, and works very well on any surface (except maybe transparent glass) without a mouse pad. I have mapped 6 buttons (with a little tinkering though I must say) and can perform operations pretty quickly using these.


I have a phobia about wireless devices for trading. Even though I sometimes trade from a laptop (although weaning myself off it), at least NT says "Conection Lost", or even before that the info stops flowing and I can see it. I have looked at all the fancy mice and sometimes desire one, but I need a cord and most of the "cool" ones are cordless now.

I don't know who POTUS is, someone I should know I assume.

You mentioned a tough day to be a buyer. That is something I was struggling with recently when crude hit a buy zone a few days back. I debated that internally for days. Buying a down market is a horrible idea in many situations, but buying at key support is different. Knowing where key support is, well that is somewhat of a calculated guess, so it is still tough, but getting easier. That is why sometimes my "zones" are as wide as 70-80 ticks. I think it is in there somewhere, but volume is where is shows itself. So, I have an area I have staked out in advance, and I wait to see if anyone else got the same idea. It is a recent change that I will buy without a reversal signal, but I am trying to get myself to accept that if I have other things going for it.

Bringing up a tender spot in my memory, that 5500 contract 1 minute bar last week should have screamed buy to me, but I was afraid to pull the trigger. That was big and intimidating. But, that is where the power is that reverses markets, that is the power behind the new wave.

I ignore ES for anything other than a view of the mood for the day. I wanted to short last week, but just cannot read ES as good as I would want to, even though I probably have far more time on it than anything else. I just gave up hoping to gain any real sigificant advantage based on my personality type, and moved on. Maybe you can teach me the secret some day.

Thanks Josh.

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  #1602 (permalink)
 
Sunil P's Avatar
 Sunil P 
los angeles
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: nt
Trading: cl
Posts: 290 since Jan 2012


GaryD View Post
closed +50. Done


summary.

+30 long
+27 long
+18 long (accident)
+50 long

net 125. going to the gym.

Very good Gary! hit the century mark.

I play with 10 cars so the last 2 months have been very profitably. Just like last year this time.

Chaos in the Middle east is our bread basket here.



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3 more votes ppl. Ice cream wins!

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  #1603 (permalink)
 
josh's Avatar
 josh 
Georgia, US
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: None
Platform: SC
Broker: Denali+Rithmic
Trading: ES, NQ, YM
Posts: 6,216 since Jan 2011
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GaryD View Post
I have a phobia about wireless devices for trading. Even though I sometimes trade from a laptop (although weaning myself off it), at least NT says "Conection Lost", or even before that the info stops flowing and I can see it. I have looked at all the fancy mice and sometimes desire one, but I need a cord and most of the "cool" ones are cordless now.

They are incredibly reliable -- and I have a backup corded mouse in the drawer that I can connect within 15 seconds. One is as likely to fail as the other IMO.


GaryD View Post
I don't know who POTUS is, someone I should know I assume.

Acronym for president of the united states..


GaryD View Post
Maybe you can teach me the secret some day.

I will, once someone teaches me the secret.

Wound up completely flat on my trade after adding lower, which I do NOT like to do.

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  #1604 (permalink)
 
Deucalion's Avatar
 Deucalion 
Calgary, Canada
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Multiple
Broker: Multiple
Trading: Multiple
Posts: 428 since Aug 2009

Nice going, the symmtery again is terrific.....the big picture makes sense in completeness...103 (as we talked last week is looming) as the USD approaches its first wave target, expecting CL to behave accordingly, and the extension after that (if at all) will provide my next wholesale lever opp...until then I hide in the bushes, nibble away, admire the skill of others and say .....

I leave a ton of info..unexplained in the the charts...the symmetry, failure of support and failed patterns and immediate reversal signals thereafter......the meek shall not inherit the earth...if I go down in ball of flames at least I have a good story to tell....


  #1605 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


Deucalion View Post
.....the big picture makes sense in completeness...103 (as we talked last week is looming) as the USD approaches its first wave target, expecting CL to behave accordingly, and the extension after that (if at all) will provide my next wholesale lever opp...


I have not ruled out lower prices for crude. While my preferred support zone for the day held, look how many times it got hit. Every time it holds, another chunk is bitten out of it. If this is not a major reversal area and the zone gets battered again, it will eventually fail.

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/9qtcyj.jpg[/IMG]



What I see on down, if that occurs, is 103.30-103.60, then 102.35-102.70, and then a good amount of of confluence at 101.30-101.70 (which if it got there would most likely coincide with the rising major trendline). The furthest down is my favorite for solid bounce.

But, on the upside I have now coded 107.40 as green, which to me says I would expect a breach. If crude heads that direction again, it would be coming off a double bottom at major support, and if I am in the right town I will swing that one.

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/s4erm7.jpg[/IMG]





But when I really step back and look for the obvious points in reference to the wave we are coming off of, I see two areas before the major trendline breaks, and where we are is one of them.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/c58crg.jpg[/img]

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  #1606 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

I have now had the luxury of trading from home for over a week, and starting to feel "normal" again as a trader. It really surprised me how much it changed to try to trade on the road, but I learned a lot about that. The biggest problem is not the limited screen size, it is the fact that I have to find a trade within a certain time limit. When I trade in Orlando and have no outside obligations, I just sit and wait for something I want to see happen, which could be within minutes or hours or days sometimes. Believing in the trade is really the difference.


I had a fever this weekend that sent me into an internal conversation for quite awhile, off and on all day maybe, and by keeping all my current psychological issue right in front of me for so many months, I believe that is what finally allowed me to bring it all together. This journal, as simple as it seems, has become a tool that I use to work on myself, a bulletin board to keep me aware, a diary to see how I am doing. I realized why I got frustrated with 30-60 tick trades, and why I keep coming back to that area. The answer was really not that elusive; it is what I have trained myself to do.

I thought I would type out a lot of the information I put together, I was afraid I would lose them, and/or thought it might benefit someone else. But now I see that I broke through some things that are meaningful to me, and that is all that is required. The very short explanation, without all the background, psychology, upbringing, internal wiring, etc;

I traded from a 9 range chart for a long time before coming down to a 6 range, and have spent a lot of time studying the most likely swing to occur on those charts. (I posted a great version here previously). The highest odds favor a 40-60 tick move before it retraces at least some of that move. And I know I can catch those moves with high frequency. I know how, I know when, I know another is coming very shortly if I was wrong. When I first moved to taht range of target, it was a step up from a 12-15 tick scalping target, and felt like a "major move" lol!

That size also gives enough room to have a reasonable chance of keeping my average loss to roughly half my profit, which is a concept I strongly believe in. And I find that I handle losses much better when I don't feel I have to wait long to take a good trade, so the 50 tick swing suits me very well.

Today's trades are a great example. My last trade was 50 ticks, I closed, an in a short time the market came all the way back down to where I got in again. Had I held my first entry I could have gotten maybe 75 ticks or so (I can't recall exactly), but any target bigger than that and I would have failed on the long side today altogether. Many days I might fail completely. And then there would be one where it runs for $3. I'm not convinced it is worth it without going to a multiple contract strategy.

Meanwhile, I study moves that dwarf my target, and I have experienced many times when I should have stayed in. The larger the target, with the stop size I typically use, the better risk to reward, which alaos is something I believe in very strongly. So I keep pushing myself for a bigger target. However, I already know the likelihood of that target being achieved in a single 6-range wave is not that good, so I keep falling back to taking what I know is out there. That creates some inner frustration.

When I first started into business at age 25, I lost money the first year. Not much, I believe $16,000.00. The next year I made $39k, then roughly $80k the next. I was rich! lol! Then I was over the hump. Great money to follow. The IRS made six figures off me for several years.

So now I am pursuing trading, still just settling into the similar "over the hump" of being able to make money, but I already have the taste of substantial money in my psyche somewhere, and I want those big swings with great rewards with minimal risk. But having gone through the losses I took in real estate developing, I do not have the trading capital to make what I would like to make while still maintaining something I would consider a conservative risk ratio. Maybe my broker would allow me, but I have been down that path. So I get impatient sometimes and push myself to get there sooner.

The good news, and to me a showing of my ongoing maturity as a trader, is that for the most part I have learned to deal with my internal struggle in this journal instead of in the market. Keeping a journal private is different than posting one for anyone to see, and while it may not always be pretty, it is what a trader goes through, succesful or not.



I said last night I want to phase out posting live trades, skipped my first one today and thought I would just relax and trade today. But then I went back to it, almost felt a need for it? It seems to have a way of making sure I only take what I feel are the best trades. In trying to show what I have learned, I only reinforce the lessons to myself. That has been a great experience I never would have thought of had I not happened across this website while searching for indicators. Seredipity...

Another bonus I was not expecting, is I almost feel like when I log in here I am surrounded by friends with a similar interest. (Not any friends yet that I have been able to meet in person, I try from town to town. We traders are a solitary bunch it seems ) But just familiar characters that it feels comfortable to be around. I have not PM'd a trader yet with a question that they did not seem more than willing to help me with. Some go out of their way to do so.

Well, that's my official journal entry for today. Long and not exciting, but the type of post that benefits me the most.

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  #1607 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

I posted this previously, but I have now increased the number by 10x.

Which Scenario would you choose? Scenario #1, having a winning trade 70% of the time but have a $1500 stop loss and a $1000 profit target, Scenario # 3 with a $2500 profit and a $1500 stop loss? Something not shown?

Note that whichever option you would choose, the amount of profit you made at the end of the week was exactly the same.

The risk to reward ratio is something I think about a lot. I prefer a minimum 2 to 1 actual, even though I may start a trade differently n appearance, I typically close manually. Depending on other probabilities of course, I believe I would choose #4.


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  #1608 (permalink)
 
bluemele's Avatar
 bluemele 
Honolulu, Hawaii
 
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Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: ATC/TT, AMP/Zen-Fire, AMP/CQG
Trading: TF
Posts: 2,543 since Jun 2010
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GaryD View Post
I posted this previously, but I have now increased the number by 10x.

Which Scenario would you choose? Scenario #1, having a winning trade 70% of the time but have a $1500 stop loss and a $1000 profit target, Scenario # 3 with a $2500 profit and a $1500 stop loss? Something not shown?

Note that whichever option you would choose, the amount of profit you made at the end of the week was exactly the same.

The risk to reward ratio is something I think about a lot. I prefer a minimum 2 to 1 actual, even though I may start a trade differently n appearance, I typically close manually. Depending on other probabilities of course, I believe I would choose #4.


#1 you can intraweek compound if that is your game.

I prefer #5 personally after further review, but it all 'depends'.

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  #1609 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

Crude is retesting yesterday's low. If it holds, we will have a global and a local double bottom. This support zone can run down a little further and so I am still hesitant to consider a short-side breakout.

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/4vj84j.jpg[/IMG]

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  #1610 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/e66nse.jpg[/IMG]


Before this screenshot was posted but not shown here, CL just broke down into the 104.30s. It shows massively oversold on both the daily and the 93 minute, and 2000 contracts made up the push lower bar with about a 20 cent move.

The top of the major support wave is around the 104.20s.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/64z743.jpg[/img]

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Last Updated on May 23, 2014


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