xelaar 

I had a decent trade in DAX today, but overall it is a compacted range, nothing to see, move on.

Just out of curiosity, where did you place your stop on this DAX trade, what's your preference for stop placement trading DAX with these new charts?

8970 on the white chart at that green dot (where it says -6 / 8971) looks like a small previous low, It also falls below the previous green bar on the black chart for a possible stop loss. Would you say this is okay for this type of trade? Otherwise 8964 seems quite far away at the last low on the black chart with 15 ticks of room for the stop considering the R:R in relation to where you took your profit. I'm just trying to understand this a little better, thanks.

Itchymoku 

Just out of curiosity, where did you place your stop on this DAX trade, what's your preference for stop placement trading DAX with these new charts? 8970 on the white chart at that green dot (where it says -6 / 8971) looks like a small previous low, It also falls below the previous green bar on the black chart for a possible stop loss. Would you say this is okay for this type of trade? Otherwise 8964 seems quite far away at the last low on the black chart with 15 ticks of room for the stop considering the R:R in relation to where you took your profit. I'm just trying to understand this a little better, thanks.

These trades are momentum/tape reversal entry based. I try to adjust stop to local price action and level within few ticks. This trade had a stop of 10 ticks and stop was just below WVAP. First target is by default 15 ticks and second target by default is 40 but I sometimes move first target to reflect market structure and price action, momentum, and second target is always adjusted to conditions. But in any case I target from 2 to 2.5 to 1 reward to risk initially but might cut it shorter if I can't see strength in the market. Or I can improve it by reducing risk and locking in some profit.

Cut myself short on the runner, but a good trade nevertheless. I have to learn to trust momentum in DAX, it might not be very fast but it can be very very stead. DAX trading can be most profitable.

End of month flows today, very apparent in DAX. Not trading in Combine today and tomorrow too. Come back next week.

Also, I have decided to make a new plan forcing me to take trades more carefully and resemble live trading conditions. So I will start simulation next month with just one DAX contract, one Crude contract and 2 YM contracts. I will only go for 1 type of setup instead of mixed bag, and will work with a stop around 10 ticks and going for 2 to 3 :1 RR.

Back to the markets after a 4 days long pause. Today I have started a new simulation using much more stremlined and simplified setups. This simulation is intended to provide me with data necessary to analyze my expectancy, drawdowns, to run my Monte-Carlo before going live.

I have decided not to go live partially with not fully prepared and tested plan, so I will stay the course with testing for the remainder of the year and go live in January.

I have not traded Combine today. I still need to trade 5 days and rack in 2500, but I must do so before Nov 14, so not much choice of days left. I did not get my setups today anyway.

So here is my trading playbook for today.



I have came up with a new format for my trade log, more orderly and assuming two part trades, which makes things much more usable for analysis.

I won't be posting my trading screen shots anymore, as it is irrelevant in most cases. This blog is about accountability and this is where I need to work more. I will post a video summary of live trades recorded during the day from time to time.

I keep my screen shots and build a playbook of setups and typical outcomes, which will reinforce the basis of my trading. Sometimes I lose a tune after some pause and this should help me to return to the zone faster.

1 trade in the combine today

Wow, one trade, almost 2K profit, nice catch... So you need to make something like 200 per day for the last few days, correct?

Pedro, it's already done, I did over 2k today on the move after ECB surprise announcement, over 1.5k past the target. Just need to trade 3 more days.

xelaar 

Pedro, it's already done, I did over 2k today on the move after ECB surprise announcement, over 1.5k past the target. Just need to trade 3 more days.

Congrats Alex, great job as usual !

So you just did it again...

Daytrader999 

Congrats Alex, great job as usual ! So you just did it again...

Thanks. We shall see if anything better will come out this time around. But the difference is I am not planning to dedicate all or most of my effort to trading it and just use as auxilary trading, taking on level-based low maintenance trades without complex ATM strategies or trade management. I will continue my work on collecting stats for going live in January.

The only change I have come up with so far I will be dropping Dow out of equation, it's too alien to me, and it starts to move something like 2 hours after US Equities open, too late for me to trade that on regular basis. During this time DAX comes back to live again for another two hours, and this will be my main focus. So it will be DAX, GC and CL only.