Did not trade September 20, 21, or 24; 5-day weekend taken off for family event.

I do need to develop a method to review missed days. Tape? Sim replay? or just chart reviews?

1 winner, 4 losers. Net -$48.

Trade 1 was a bounce off the EMA21. Maybe could have made a few more pennies, but trade went about as expected for how price played out.

Trade 2 was looking for a pullback to the point where the down trend would continue off of the prior lower high. But when I saw price bounce off te EMA21 I thought I might have a complex correction, which was not valid since the recent low and broken the prior low, but price had also bounced off of support from a prior day. I was worried I had shorted into support, so I bailed early. Saved a few pennies.

Trade 3 was getting long off of the next bounce off the EMA21 based on concerns I had seen in the Trade 2 set up. Price was not going much further. I was also not respecting the dashed beige line, which was a multi-day trend line down, which was not far away.

Trade 4 was a bounce off the EMA21. It was close to support, which had been breached. Once price bounced off support at 10:27, I bailed out for a partial loss.

Trade 5 was a test of support at $158.50. Ended up jumping out at BE after price was lethargic for 15 minutes after the bounce. Would have been nice to be short for the break, but I was already 5 trades into the day. Shut down trading to void over trading, per rules.

2 winners 3 losers. Net $116.

Trade 1 was a test of support from the prior day. To me it felt countertrend, so I was defensive/quick with my exit. Turns out it was the best trade of the day and could have run... I bailed on the first retrace.

Trade 2 was a test of prior day's resistance. I was probably giving too much heed to the multiday downward trend represented by the beige dash line. Was stopped out in less than 3 min.

Trade 3 was a little more reasonable test of both prior day's resistance and the trend line from the last few days. I thought I had something at 8:30, but price came back quick just 9 minutes later. Exited at BE after taking heat twice.

Trade 4 was nice and patient. Waited for the retrace to the EMA21. Price went sideways but never took much heat. Price finally popped and a trailing stop was taken out for the best trade of the day.

Trade 5 was a bit of a jump. I was surprised how quickly price pushed off the EMA21 on lots of volume. So I got short. I was stopped out 3 minutes later.

1 winner, 3 losers. Net $226.

Trade 1 was based on a triangle. I was biased by the small gap up, thinking buyers would support $159.25. There was 1 trade of 100 shares below my stop which I ignored as price quickly went back up. The bid went fishing below my stop throughout the trade, but never printed after that, until it broke. Stopped out.

Trade 2 was anticipating the upward channel that had been established from prior days, but the push up was on so little volume, only a hand full of trades, so I jumped out at BE.

Trade 3 was a little closer to the trendline from prior days. I also saw a headline cross about Spain's budget being better than expected and the S&P jumped, so I pulled the trigger. The lag was a few minutes, but offers kept getting lifted. A large bid chased a small offer all the way up . I had thought about getting out at $1 profit for 5R, as price was approaching resistance from the prior day. I held through the second pullback. The next push up was the largest yet. I got nervous about a spike, as price traded through my first-drawn trendline I bailed out. I should have traded off my usual trading stop. I left 3R on the table due to jitters. I should remember that in strong uptrends, price will lose momentum over time and break various trendlines that have to be reset to flatter lines. My plan was to jump back in on a retrace to the EMA21, but it never made it back. I had no other plan to get back in.

Trade 4 was a pullback to the EMA21. Gave up at BE after half an hour and not far from the market close.

2 winners, 3 losers. Net $182.

Trade 1 was a failed breakout below a recent multi-day low at around $157.20. Price had been weak for the first hour of trading, selling off almost $3. But around support the offers started getting lifted in large chunks of 4-10 round lots. I got long just after price traded back above support. I was leery of trading countertrend, so I was defensive on my exit and was targeting only a small gain. Bailed on the first retrace for a small profit.

Trade 2 was a little late. I saw another run of offers being lifted in big chunks, so I got long again. Took a lot of heat. Had one chance to exit at BE and let it pass around 8:18. Price never cleared the recent swing high of $158.19 set at 7:03. I was seeing evidence that this may just be a pull back in a continuation of the downward trend. Once stopped out, I jumped into trade 3.

Trade 3 was a flip out of position a few pennies lower than my exit just moments earlier. Price was flat for 6 bars. At 8:51 there was a higher volume push down, and I moved my stop to BE. Was stopped out a minute later. This put me on watch to be long again - possibly trading a range.

Trade 4 was after price broke out above local resistance at 158.12 and 158.19. After the pull back I got long. Was patient with my stop. Ignored my target at $1 (5R in purple), but was thinking about getting out after price crossed above a recent swing point of the day at $159.19 (green dotted line). I was surpised at how light volume was on the move up. I was a little panicky when price was whipping around at 10:10. It would sell off on 3 or 4 round lots, then size would step in and lift offers. Then sell of on 3-4 sales. I sided with size. As price approached $159.40, which was a congestion of high of the day and top of my channel line, I ratcheted my stop tighter and was out at $159.30, $0.16 better than my initial target, and a good exit for the next hour.

The doji at 10:48 was interesting to watch on the tape. Price made a second push up and it just hit a cieling. A whole series of trades went off at $159.45 on the offer and didn't budge. Then quiet, then the sell off.

Trade 5 was supposed to be a failed break out. Should have waited for the second entry, but probably would have been caught at 12:18 without anywhere to really go. Full stop out, short trade. Should be reluctant for an end-of-day short after a strong move up.

I changed the chart a little. In the past when i had a day that I didn't trade (like July 4), I would leave it blank, but it would count towards one of the 20 days in the trading "month". I went back and cut out all the blank days, so going forward the end of a week or month may not be on a Friday. This will also alter the statistics that I have reported for the month, but I will work on those later, hopefully this weekend.

Nice EC, good job.

Mike

Below are my daily trading statistics for the last four months. When I excluded the "blank" days from my history, it ended up pushing two draw downs into the "August" month, weakening the stats there. Previously I was hitting about 5% or $1000 gross per month. Now each month shows a little more variance.


This was the best month so far, largely due to my losing days being smaller. I had fewer full-stop days (only 3 vs 7-8 in prior months) and some losing days were only a couple dollars. Not my best winning day month.

These are daily statistics. I am working on trade-level stats right now, which I have only kept for the last month or so, so I have to recreate a little history and cross check it vs the journal here.

One thing I will be curious to see is my long/short bias. This last month definitely benefitted from some long-biased trades. In fact my long/short mix has been around 58/42. In the attached graph, you can see how a long bias helps over the last month. However based on a preliminary sample, my overall mix is closer to 47/53, skewing short. Once I have the trade-level data finished, I will put up some more analysis. Also interesting from the attached chart that groups VFC's daily chart by my "months" is how the lower volatility periods are the lower profitability months for me (namely #1 and #3). You don't always get to choose the conditions you trade in.

Hey,

Just found your journal. Congrats on hanging in for the long haul, and for stringing together winning months. I know the game never really ends, but it sure looks like you're on your way.

best,
RK

4 winners, 1 loser. $384 net; 3rd best day on record. 4th consecutive positive day.

Trade 1 was a trap. I walked straight into it. The trade was far a way from the EMA21. I entered on the break above the high of the previous bar and was taken down quickly, as deserved.

Trade 2 was the trade I should have waited for. Nice pullback to the EMA21. I was a little concerned at 7:45a when price failed a second time to push higher, leaving two lower highs (albeit very close together). At 7:57a when price failed to push higher again, the offers went fishing higher but nothing got hit. So I sat inside the offer with a limit sell and got out close to the purple trend line drawn off the previous highs.

Trade 3 was a breakout of a prior channel from the day before and a first pullback after breaking through $160 support from prior days. Pretty even push down for an hour, then a quick spike up came to take me out at where I trailed my stop.

Trade 4 was surprisingly close to my last trade. Price had formed a pullback to the EMA21. I didn't want to miss another move down. Was surprised how fast that next bar moved. I thought about getting out on the target of the last trade, since this trade was just a continuation, but momentum was strong that first bar. Even stayed in past my target for this trade (small mistake in hindsight). Price dragged along $158 for 15 min, then started moving up. I bailed on the break of a channel.

Trade 5 was taken after two high-volume pushes down that failed to challenge $158 again. Got long the next bar. Had a good run up. I got nervous about a reversal after price bounced off recent resistance at $159. Given how strong the move up was, I should have been more patient for a complex correction, but probably only would have gotten $0.10 better.

I thought about shorting at 11:45, but I had filled my five trades for the day. Would have been a mediocre trade.