This thread is not intended to be strictly about trading, because I get plenty of that. Tonight, drinks and party. It is Frankie's birthday party, with Martine and his family. Trying out my spanish, figured out that beer works better than muscle relaxers for my back. We brought Piper out late in the evening, after most of the kids had left. She did great, in her own timid way. She is slowly letting go of her fears. As am I.

I Had a fun talk with Melissa about why I am so into trading. Or not fun, but lighthearted. It is weird for both of us at times. She was upset with me a week ago, saying that I spend so much time on the computer, that is all I do anymore. But she is also working a lot and does not see that I am on the computer a lot less than before. It just depends on when she is home. If she does not go in to work until noon, yes, I am absorbed. And on the weekends. all the sim replays, always carrying a book around... She said she thought I was over the obsession part. And I explained it is different. It become a long talk about passion, feeling alive, pursuing dreams. The meaning of life. Ended without a real ending, just moved into other conversation, but the rest of the evening we were very close. Little kisses, or just her leaning into me when we were close.

I made my first video of trading yesterday, I used a market replay video, but treated it like it was live, just went about doing my thing, managing a trade. Cantasia eats a lot of resources, and so I am not sure I will use it live until I upgrade my machine. Which may be soon. I did discover that it would be a great educational experience for me to watch my own trading and learn from it, critique it. I was mostly messing with the zoom and pan feature in Camtasia, and the trade never reaches completion, but one way or another I plan to add it as a tool in my ongoing study.

Cool. It is not professional looking, but it worked.

Sunday, May 19, 2013


I rolled over to the July contract, used a 10 day merge, erased all the lines from last week and started pver again. While I usually have some sort of color coding defining preference of zones, the green zones currently mean nothing other than potential holding points. Green just happens to be the default color and there was nothing that stood out to define one any different than the others. It is hard to give one a higher rating than the other right now, as crude has gone into an extended consolidation, with corrrective behavior arguable from either direction.

The intermediate trend is up, and so any of the zones are decent candidates from where I sit this evening, but it is hard to truly define this as "trending".

The overhead area is probably the largest range I have lumped into a single zone, and really it isn't that useful for trade placement, but more as a reminder to myself that the entire area holds potential for resistance and false breakouts.







Friday ended with a Neutral day, in a minor uptrend with value rising, but still shows a non-committed market to me. Friday's A period had a very strong rejection as it tried to drive higher, but there was also a well-defined area of support at the minor trendline.






Given the current conditions, if I were a position trader I would not be short crude at the moment, but I would not feel confident if I was long...

Balance. Spent the majority of the weekend not looking at charts, not reading books... my wife had recently reminded me. Not in those words, but I am becoming more aware of change. Nuances.

I find these types of thoughts to be the most insightful to where I am psychologically.

My wife wrote a post tonight, her first. She would not do it on the computer. I had to pause her to keep up with pen and paper. Melissa's words on the desk. Lil Wayne, Nikki Minaj, and ... the symbol himself, on tv tonight. Melissa and I on the side porch, watching tv, talking about things... the innuendos of trading working through the conversation, but with some degree of uncertainty that is closer to living than not. Good night here, loving this.

Monday, May 20, 2013



Overnight price action was contained inside Friday's RTH range.






Syria continues to be a news topic.

WTI Crude Halts Three-Day Advance; Syria Starts Offensive - Bloomberg


And I have a list of Melissa's rules for trading that I need to get posted sometime today.


My back pain has moved to my right side and has me not sleeping well, and then napping at odd hours. Tired a lot.


9:45am edit: market opened in balance, very slow action and tight range so far. Open Auction is best guess. Still flat. Very sleepy and not feeling tied into the market yet.

net 83

I have a handwritten list the I put together from my wife last night. It is laying on my desk. But she has been strangely distant recently, and tonight I found out it has a lot to do with my passion about trading. Not sure how this will turn out. To me, I am finally embracing uncertainty, and trading better than ever before. To her, she is growing tired of uncertainty...

The target keeps moving.

As of today, still "unfair"

Becoming a trader takes incredible determination. It also requires balance. Those two are tough to keep in the same room for very long. I am getting better at it though.