One trade for today. Got a fairly good entry, could have been better, I didn't think we would get a full pullback to the midline of the OR. That is always a good entry point and that is where I should have had my order.

I have plotted 1 divided by /dx to show the direction of the dollar. I plot 1 over dx so I can see it in the direction of the dollar since they have an inverse correlation. My reason for exiting was solely based on the drop there. Anytime CL and DX go in the same direction one of them has to give. I didn't want it to be cl so I exited.

As always my stop was 20 ticks

I'll be in the redwoods in California all next week, I may or may not have any service where I am at. If I do i'll try to find some time to trade if not I'll be back Monday the 19th.

Almost no time to watch the market on this trip, I did however have a day today to place a couple of trades.

I got in on the first one too early, could have pulled it off with a profit but held too long not watching price action.

The second entry was off the OR mid-line which panned out nicely. I pulled it off and am done for the day. There are probably a few more ticks in it but thats all for me.

So a little bit of background on me, I work a day job and am able to watch the markets on and off during slower times of the day. I get some good morning time in but am not actually watching the markets the whole time but am looking at it for a second and then onto other work related things.

Today was a bad day in terms of not being able to monitor things closely. I got a good morning trade in and then the next entry went really bad, I accidentally clicked the x on my stop loss and closed 1/2 of my bracket and didn't know how to put in a stop along with a limit to re-create the bracket. So I moved my limit order down to have it fill but the market never made it to it and then sold off hard. I of course wasn't watching it right during that time and that accounts for the bigger than normal loss today that could have easily been avoided. Lesson learned! I took another small stop out and didn't quite recover today.

Never be in the market without a defined stop to get you out in case something goes wrong!

I am halfway though Markets in Profile right now. It has been a good read. It doesn't give a ton of application examples, mostly just states that you need to put in hundreds of hours of looking at profiles before you will get good at it. I will have more to say about it in the next few weeks once I finish it.

Its always easy to spot trades looking back on a chart. You never know how far a move is going to go or how close to your stop it might approach. The best you can do is place your entries based on your trading plan and hope that your edge works out.

Today was no different. I captured a few smaller moves but failed to capture the larger swings. That is where alot of the real money is in trading, its just hard to stay in when you have a good move in your favor.

Today we had a nice breakout of the OR which continued upward until it was met by the daily and weekly pivot as shown in the chart. From there we sold off way beyond where I thought we would, even below the OR which made for a crazy volatile day. I was up alot more early on and then gave a bunch back at the end. I'm hoping to get better at this. My goal is trading 1 lots to end the day having captured 30-60 ticks in the profit.

I had a really bad start to the day and just couldn't get on the right side of the market. I got stopped out right at the top of the opening range and got a bit frustrated. The market ended up breaking down but I of course wasn't it in it as much as I would have liked.... Feeling a bit frustrated right now. Ended up profitable for the day but I should have been so much more ahead.

The psychology of this game is sometimes overwhelming. A few small losses and you can't get in or you can't hold onto the big winner that presents itself. I need to work harder on getting good entries, and taking profits at the right locations.

gsl8r 

So a little bit of background on me, I work a day job and am able to watch the markets on and off during slower times of the day. I get some good morning time in but am not actually watching the markets the whole time but am looking at it for a second and then onto other work related things.

Do you set alarms for levels aor time or are you primarily looking at the charts for visual triggers?
As in if you are doing something for work, you are within a certain level you go back and look at the charts.

KahunaDog 

Do you set alarms for levels aor time or are you primarily looking at the charts for visual triggers? As in if you are doing something for work, you are within a certain level you go back and look at the charts.

I'm talking about work as in my day job, not the markets. I am only able to watch the markets a patchy amount at best which just isn't sufficient to do spectacular as I would hope..... One day I'll get there.

For now I would love to automate my system or automate triggers or even alerts. It is just so hard to automate any levels that I am looking at since my system isn't a moving average, or macd type of a system. I follow the ACD methodology. When we have an A-up confirmed I am looking for longs above the Opening Range (OR) on pullbacks. I could write a system that said buy if the markets goes above the OR but that most likely wouldn't be a very good entry and then where is the exit? Once that initial trade has passed then what would the system do? I would love to have something automated beyond just alerts but for now its experience and screen time that has shown me what to do / not to do. I'm working at getting better at reading the markets.

So for now its visual triggers and experience to tell me when to buy and sell.

Really trying not to get eaten up today.... I end up getting eaten up. Here is how today ended up going.

I noticed in the morning OR area that we were going to have an up day. I try to get a good entry long but struggle. I do get a good trade on my 2nd try. Then after that we get the pullback down and I try to get long 2 times. Then thinking i'm wrong and the market is going to fall the rest of the day I end up with a short bias, when initially I was right with my long bias!

Days like today I wonder why I'm a trader and trying to make a buck at this game..... All I needed to do is keep my original bias of being long and I would have had an awesome day but instead it ended up being a loss day.

I'm still playing with market profile and looking at it from my reading of Markets in Profile. Not getting a ton out of the book but I'm only halfway through it. Maybe more will come towards the end.

That is all for now.

Frustrated with trading today. I have some good weeks and some other not so good weeks. Today I missed the entry long in the OR and just struggled after that happened. Why is it that I can be so right some days and so wrong other days!

Questions I'm asking myself right now:

• Keep trading?
• Is crude really the best thing to be trading?
• Should I change up my methods?
• Why is this so hard! You think your getting somewhere and then get slammed

No chart for today, just some frustrations with trading.