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Five A Day

  #81 (permalink)
 
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 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Ninjatrader Brokerage, CQG
Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
Thanks Given: 499
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ratfink View Post
Closed for +44 points ...

That's a number !!

p

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  #82 (permalink)
 
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 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Broker: Ninjatrader Brokerage, CQG
Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
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Hi Ratfink,

Thanks again for sharing your stuff. Please don't think that I'm trying to teach you (or anyone else) anything. I know that you've probably got that as we seem to share a sense of humour .. but I'll state it for the record (just in case anyone wants to help you out ! :-) ).


I have changed my trading 'style' (I use the word in a very loose sense) and am very much influenced by @Fat Tails and @Private Banker and @GFIs1. The tools they have made and the way they speak about the market make me focus on the big picture.

1. Scalping seemed like a good idea as it was "low risk" (meaning "small stops") and for a beginner it appeals because you just can't stand being in the market for too long. All those hormones play havoc with a guy's judgement. However in the end it is not low risk and you overtrade. You take waaay too many trades and rack up the losses whilst your winners are cut short. This isn't going to do it unless you are made of different stuff to me.

2. With the FDAX let's look at some facts. We are dealing with an instrument that has a daily range of 250 ticks. It is going to run > 200 ticks much of the time. Two hundred ! That is 2.500 Euros per car. So I say to myself - what the hell am I getting stressed about 10 or 20 ticks when I know that this baby is going to run for 200. Anybody that has traded the FDAX and taken either a 2 or 3 point winner or loser (!) and then watched the price move 100 points in the direction of your trade knows this. I changed my method because when that happens it hurts. A lot.

3. The fact is that as informed but unsteady traders (I am speaking about myself here - not anybody else) we are only really worried about the first 20 ticks ... and never the last 20. It's hard to take heat.


4. Making a method:
  • You really need to know whether you want to be long or short on a day or during a particular time of day. For this you need some sort of trend filters. There are many but Pivots and Market Profile offer many that will give you an and take into account the whole day. This means that you will look for areas on your chart throughout the day where you feel that most people will join in with you and therefore the price will move in that direction. Even if you are a little late to the party - understanding the big picture may help you take the heat.
  • S/R levels. Here is where experience counts for so much. There are just so many levels. I have a trading buddy that I chat to during the day. We are both trading the same instrument and both trading in a similar fashion. I look to the VWAP to frame my trades and he has a much cleaner chart than I do and draws S/R lines and channels manually and trades off those. We don't always see or act on the same S/R levels and don't even use the same timeframe charts but we are often in the same direction at the same time. The thing with S/R is that there are just so many timeframes, levels and indicators that none of them will be right all the time. I tend to just look at price movement that is speeding up or slowing down and then develop my sense as to whether the movement will be absorbed or whether there will be a continuation.
  • Entries and Targets. You seem to have a "comprehensive" set of inputs. When I say comprehensive I mean way too much for me to take in. If it works for you and if by 08:30 CET you can say ... "Right then, I'm feeling long for the morning" then that is fine. If by 08:30 or even 08:55 ... most days of the week any trader is saying "I'm not sure .. " then you have too much stuff in your head and you don't have a mental plan of how to trade the morning. At best you will do nothing or at worst you will go long when you see green and go short when you see red and leave the rest to the fickle gods of Entry and Stop-Loss.
  • The big lesson for me on the FDAX is that if you are not careful you are often going to take a lot of small (or medium) sized losses within a relatively small range. Just looking at our Helvetican friend GFIS1. He doesn't always get the direction right but when he does he let's the instrument do the work. This is not the ES. The thing is going to fluctuate and the big picture is that sometime between 09:00 and 12:00 it will have moved 180 ticks and then it will do it again between 14:30 and 17:00. Yo might have been right 10 times on the direction and still never made a penny because your R:R is not attuned to the market movement overall.
  • I learn a lot by live trading (mostly how stupid I am) but also a lot by SIM. I think that applying TST style Combine strict criteria to yourself is a good thing. Train on the SIM and when you can kill it and trade some of those 100 tick winners then move on to live. Have a TST style max drawdown and go back to SIM when you get killed. Only go back to live when you have corrected the behavior that caused you to get killed when you were live.


Anyway - I see that you got +44 yesterday - that is a nice number. How many trades ?

@PandaWarrior once tuned me into an important statistic that I like to monitor. Total points gained vs Total points risked.

If a trader risks 10 points per trade and makes 10 trades a day - that is 100 points. If the same trader made 12 points at the end of the day ... well ... that is out of balance. It's just a statistical accident.

I'm looking for that balance. With an instrument like the FDAX you need to let it run to stay in balance.

Keep punching !

p
p.s. When I say "you" ... I mean "a trader" .. not Ratfink !

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  #83 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
Market Wizard
 
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Hi @podski, Great post, always good to get input like that, thank you.

I do have a lot of stuff going on and have also been overly focussed on short fast trades, that is something I am working on reducing. The whole journal thing is something I have found most revealing (terrifying in fact), and I have to extend a massive thanks to @Big Mike for that and this whole amazing site and all its participants (in particular 'Cool Hand Luke'...)

I have not been a big fan of VWAP type stuff, for reasons mentioned in a different post I made elsewhere this morning, all bands have serious flaws - but I remain open-minded, that is a sweet chart you added here, thanks.

Technically (from Fibs/EW/Volume/Internals) I usually know where the market is and what it wants to do regardless of what the majority of buyers/sellers want it to do, 95% of my serious Work In Progress issues are character flaws - all mine.

Regarding yesterday, the +44 was just the one trade in the previous post, so not bad, had it not been Fed day I might have left it overnight as my EW and ES levels were bang on, as evidenced this morning. I took a dumb -20 on the one before that, but that's ok it was simply a dumb trade, which got my rag off and got me 4 lessons written down.

For the month so far I am up +38% but am being deliberately aggressive in a small account with usually 4% 10 tick stop trades to see if I can handle the pressure and discipline in this journal. I will probably reduce that to 1 or 2% with 20 tick stops as soon as 30-40 point core trades begin to dominate over the scalp mentality.

We will see what it looks like by the end of the year.....gulp, the technicals and the plan are fine, the issue is simply moi.

Cheers and Thanks!


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  #84 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
Market Wizard
 
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No trades yesterday, a day full of legals, car stuff and visitors, shame with that trend, saw two sweet setups that I should have hit but was always in-between stuff so it had to pass. In previous years I might have jumped on it but in previous years I might also have tried to buy a low when in fact the day was clearly a hold short into the close so I'll happily settle for no account damage and a great family party instead.

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  #85 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
Market Wizard
 
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Half play day today, working on revised broker platform layout, stayed away from core trades on Swiss boss advice, couldn't resist the scalps though, frustratingly rough start with 3 duffers but then hit 4 champs, finished +11 for the day. That's fine, good mouse/platform/grafting practice and, after 3 weeks of the journal discipline, trade risk size now down to 3.3%.

Small beans compared to all the big trend hitters I know but it doesn't matter, more important (for me at this stage) than hitting the big winners is that I now know I can coldly recover from losses. I now know I have a high signal to noise ratio in my approach and bigger runs will come once I get more of the eyes<->head<->jelly<->finger issues sorted.

Have also resolved to take a strong approach to the account, if I can double it then I will fund it to match, no additional funding going in otherwise, I really want to continue to aggressively test and bash the S:R as well as continue to slowly improve the R:R from both position size and swing size aspects.

Best to all for a good weekend, after a week of roughed-up and changing character markets.

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  #86 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
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ES still trading shorts under its larger extension, looks to want 1560-62 unless 76.50 and 81.50 are first taken out upside to re-open a look for long side pullbacks to test the 1625 area.



Dax has put in a nice Swiss flush and trying to find a foothold, who knows today or maybe turnaround Tuesday, but mood has changed for the time being. I missed it while a computer decided to disconnect. C'est la vie.

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  #87 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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Paintbox also looking for similar 60ish area unless wedge gets broken first, horizontal line goes back to the end of the first quarter. While we're in a short term bear mood though surprises can tend to happen to the downside, so good evidence of trend breaks required.


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  #88 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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Finished +12 points for European, missed the morning trend and taken out of scrappy chop again so it'll do. Chucked another chart (no more tick charts left now) in the process.

From 53.75 thinking ES needs 65, 81, 91 to break active extensions and even consider pullbacks for longs, otherwise trend remains solidly down. (Unless of course stealth turnaround and squeeze induction towards 1620.) It is currently wobbling in middle of possible wide 40-60 support zone so could well drift or lift with Europe done for the day. Internals still suck though, so tomorrow (often turnaround Tuesday) might be a safer play if wanting a lift.

Will be many coasters but starting to look like a lot of fresh air under some of the longer term charts, perceived support zones might not have anybody home so validation getting more important.

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  #89 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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Thinking tough spot, ES break 92 pullback/squeeze up to 20 or lose 70, 64 and flush down toward 40. Hmmm, vola.

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  #90 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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Posts: 3,633 since Dec 2012
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Analysis from the previous post seems to be bang on, no change in the last hour, not much point messing around until its all decided. Silly meddling executioner chucked -9 away on the Dax, tomorrow beckons.

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