NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





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


Discussion in Trading Journals

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one GaryD with 3,654 posts (2,215 thanks)
    2. looks_two josh with 135 posts (120 thanks)
    3. looks_3 researcher247 with 123 posts (170 thanks)
    4. looks_4 Big Mike with 112 posts (228 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one Big Mike with 2 thanks per post
    2. looks_two Deucalion with 2 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 researcher247 with 1.4 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 GaryD with 0.6 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 597,409 views
    2. thumb_up 3,683 thanks given
    3. group 141 followers
    1. forum 4,686 posts
    2. attach_file 1,117 attachments




Closed Thread
 
Search this Thread

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

  #2231 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

I have decided not to trade overnight given the current world events. It is one thing to wake up to a complete surprise , it is another to wake up to something I already know is a possibility. I do not know how to read volume in overnight action, and without it have no idea where the forces that move price are. While I might even be a better swing trader if I did not read volume so closely, for scalping it one of 3 main components for me. My desire for swing trading also includes the benefit of precise entry, so I am handicapping myself, espicailly when the sky is falling and I am wanting to buy.

The exceptions might be a breakout above a high, or a retest of the major low, if I happen to be watching. But I almost bought at 92.50 a few seconds ago, and lifted my hand off the mouse, as if I were preparing for a quickdraw in a western movie, then pushed the mouse away. I would be in now if it were a timeframe I excel in, but "this" price does not matter. advantage matters.

Started this thread

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
Exit Strategy
NinjaTrader
Futures True Range Report
The Elite Circle
ZombieSqueeze
Platforms and Indicators
NT7 Indicator Script Troubleshooting - Camarilla Pivots
NinjaTrader
New Micros: Ultra 10-Year & Ultra T-Bond -- Live Now
Treasury Notes and Bonds
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
61 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
39 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
26 thanks
The Program
18 thanks
GFIs1 1 DAX trade per day journal
18 thanks
  #2232 (permalink)
 researcher247 
Chicago, IL
 
Experience: Advanced
Posts: 437 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 289
Thanks Received: 773


GaryD View Post
I am curious whther Facebook will have any impact on the general markets? I have never paid any attention to high-profile IPOs, but there is even a countdown on a news website. With a zero event calendar, the markets will be free to move on it's own will, it is going to be a Friday, so volume could be light, and I have a strong belief (that will change if CL breaks 91.80 with any conviction) that crude is setting up for a good short squeeze. Will lack of news, the weekend, and Facebook be the recipe that ignites it?

Of course, a major run on banks would paint a different picture...



Facebook destroys lives!!!



Good work on planning/executing/journaling the process of being able to trade one market with two different approaches. Looks like you'll get some growth and results if you keep in it with relentless discipline and reflection and then quick and decisive action when necessary!

peace

hedvig

Thanked by:
  #2233 (permalink)
 researcher247 
Chicago, IL
 
Experience: Advanced
Posts: 437 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 289
Thanks Received: 773


In a few months you'll be nailing majority of swingtrades and will have a position at much favorable price points and you will then have the luxury of 'contemplative' trailing profit stops, etc...

I think you are having a good week that will build a base--2 steps forward 1 step back.

When you can go 4 steps forward and 1 step back and keep building that positive momentum; then you'll be on the right correct 'permanent' path.

Do it 100 times (swingtrades while still being able to scalp) and you are 95% ahead of the masses. If it takes 1 year to do 30 or so swingtrades you'll be well on your way.

peace

hedvig

p.s. good micro-journal comments throughout the day and nice r:r analysis along the way.

Thanked by:
  #2234 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


researcher247 View Post
Facebook destroys lives!!!



Good work on planning/executing/journaling the process of being able to trade one market with two different approaches. Looks like you'll get some growth and results if you keep in it with relentless discipline and reflection and then quick and decisive action when necessary!

peace

hedvig


I nearly know that I will. At times I believe I would be a better swing trader than a scalper, but only because I stay in the market as a scalper. I feel every little inflection, keep a good memory of reactions to various areas throughout the week and month. Today is an example. I had the bottom of the move down spotted on my chart around 7am this morning, then when price got close I stopped loking for shorts and just watched. While it may blow through over night, I was very aware of where volume had reacted before, and expected the reaction again, but did not trade it as much as anticipate it. Those little clues combined with higher timeframe analysis and targets should create some great R/R conditions, even with 40% odds.

The one catch is, can I be the person that does what needs to be done? Today also provided an example of the difficulty in that. I was up about 20 ticks, a normal 1-off target for me, and then up later over 40, a normal close target range for me, but I just sat there and took breakeven instead. Today did not bother me, I was up, had scalped until I was happy with it, and did not like the areas we were approaching for a short, so it was a good time to change hats. But let's say I started the day wiht my swing hat on. If I would have been up 20, then 40, and then givne it back, it might have started me off with the wrong minset for the day, frustrated with myself that I had let two great scalps get away. I could neearly live of those 2 scals daily, but I was "off my game", IF that was what I came to do.

The long trades I took were great countertrend scalps. 40 ticks coutertrend is a homerun in my mind. So having the patience and discipline to say "This is a swing, and this is a scalp", and then having the swing turn on me, but the scalp run forever after I am out, it will happen, and it will be a challenge to stay the same path when it does.

The thoughts offered by @Surly about using a confidence factor gave me some of the formula for what I am attempting to do, and your comments about exploiting the swing trading aspect, target and stop placement, also was a driving force in my decisions to play jeckyll & hyde.

And of course, you may have read already, I have been in a constant debate with myself about swing trading and my disappointment with my lack of patience and confidence to do it more than a few times a year. I cuold not count how many times I take a countertrend trade, because I believe that is significant S/R, scalp it because it its countertrend, and then it runs for 100+ ticks. At least once a week. My wife could tell you better than I could.

I love the scalping aspect, and even when I get my swing game on, I believe that without that I would be less effective overall. But for some reason, I feel I would prefer to trade, using your desciption, "f*cking size", for larger moves and scalp the smaller moves. The scalps keep me tuned in, they are almost the probing missions for the larger assaults. Or so I believe today. Obviously, being a profitable but still part-time trader, what I think I want to become may not be what I should become.

@greenr presented the obvious recently, like a 2x4 to the head (borrowed from @zt379), of "can't I get 10 ticks a day?" I looked at that and thought, "well of course I could get 10 ticks a day! What does that have to do with anything?" Oh man, I crack myself up sometimes.

10 ticks, yes, probably 9 days out of 10. Particularly with my stop larger than my target. And if not 10, 7 or 8. When I am up 7 or 8 ticks, all that says to me is I might be in the right trade. lol!

So why not just do that with 10 contracts and get over it? And I really don't have the answer. Because it seems reckless, maybe? I think he is in his 20s, I may be too old to believe in it? I thought that to. Maybe I am past my "prime" to be a high-risk taker? I don't know.

Maybe the fact that I lost 95% of my net worth in real estate leverage gone wrong, after having made respectable income for 15 years doing the same thing. When I started I was willing to put my only $20k down, to just to have the opportunity. Risk? What happens, happens...

Well, no, not actually what did happen, that was not part of the disclosure...

I want to make trading something I feel is like insurance underwriting, not gunslinging. I am getting there Hedvig. And not dreaming I am, or telling myself I am. I might already be there, if I only believed I were...

Started this thread
  #2235 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

There are a few traders I have read about that really caught my attention. Ed Seykota, Larry Williams, Paul Tudor Jones, George Soros, Steve Cohen, Tom Baldwin... but the one that keeps me from pyramiding at 1 contract per $5k was Mark Cook (and maybe Larry Williams). Cook described how he would take an account from $20k to $40k to $80k to $160k to... negative $20k.

More than once.

I think that keeps me from wanting to leverage up so hard. That, and my desire to keep what I have more than bet the farm. At least I can survive on the farm. May not be my dream life, and it is not that I no longer have magnificent dreams and goals, but in prioritizing what matters, losing less currently trumps gaining more.

Started this thread
  #2236 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


researcher247 View Post
In a few months you'll be nailing majority of swingtrades and will have a position at much favorable price points and you will then have the luxury of 'contemplative' trailing profit stops, etc...

I think you are having a good week that will build a base--2 steps forward 1 step back.

When you can go 4 steps forward and 1 step back and keep building that positive momentum; then you'll be on the right correct 'permanent' path.

Do it 100 times (swingtrades while still being able to scalp) and you are 95% ahead of the masses. If it takes 1 year to do 30 or so swingtrades you'll be well on your way.

peace

hedvig

p.s. good micro-journal comments throughout the day and nice r:r analysis along the way.


Today, when I switched gears, I don't know if you noticed how I told myself what I was doing. And doing it in front of the "world" made the words mean more. "I will limit risk but not profits", or something like that was one comment. An act, of sorts. A script I have been writing for myself, based on the beliefs I have formed out of trading experience. It is a true story of the future.

It's encouragement like you just posted, and from others who I have referenced in the past, that has made being active on futures.io (formerly BMT) a very productive experience as I find my way to trading full time. I mentioned that I don't know anyone locally who thinks trading for a living is possible, or even sane. My friends, attorneys, business acquaintances, strangers I talk to in bars... (that is my favorite topic) I had a guy call me just yesterday trying to get me to sign up for IT service for our office, and by the time we hung up we had discussed currencies more than computers! He traded Forex.

Thanks Hedvig.

Started this thread
  #2237 (permalink)
 researcher247 
Chicago, IL
 
Experience: Advanced
Posts: 437 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 289
Thanks Received: 773

No problem.

Funny, I never tell anyone what I do for a living. Especially girls (but you are married); I am single and a deviant (one only needs to read my journal on another site to recognize that).

Anyone asks, I say 'this & that'--if pressed I reply with "pimpin' and petty bribery" and if that doesn't satisfy them I tell them it would bore them to tears.

For guys a simple 'I buy & sell money' suffices and I change topic.

Though I talk with my trading partner everyday 2X's a day; so his left-brained analysis satisfies that need.

Go live near the CME or CBOT in Chicago and within a 5 block radius you'll be able to talk shop to boys and girls every day with 100's a day. That was my reality as a teenager. My father was a part-time CBOT trader though up to '85 when he moved to Eugene, Oregon and started his 40 acre organic farming business.

He was done with that daily grind. He still traded options heavily into 2002 and then retired completely.

peace

hedvig

p.s. Looking forward to a busy Friday; I anticipate a bullish stock market and gold higher and euro lower and crude lower; I don't predict though and will just trade the moves. That and I am probably wrong anyways. Doesn't matter--that's what our charts are for!

  #2238 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011





Started this thread
  #2239 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

One funny possibility; Facebook drops in half day one. lol

Started this thread
  #2240 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


I am looking to buy 92.20 area

Started this thread

Closed Thread



Last Updated on May 23, 2014


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts