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Eclipsemf's ES Journey


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Eclipsemf's ES Journey

  #51 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

There are a bunch of small things I want to look in to more this defined set of rules. When I started I back tested small samples of a lot of different time frames, set up ect. I came to pretty much what I had just posted and back tested it like crazy. I need to go further with a few more things to make sure I am on the correct path.

Other things:
Test with out Momentum
Test just trading off of the 15 min hull and 3 min hull nothing else to keep it simple
Try the 2 minute time frame
Fixed or trade by trade stop loss

Those are the four major ones as of now but I wanted to make this a different post so I can find it easy and keep it updated as needed over the next couple of days.

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  #52 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

I took two trades this morning one 12.50$ profit and one 75$ loss. I only attached the 15 minute chart today with the arrow as my entry point because it reminded me of one major point I over looked from my past. It looks like from the graph I jumped the gun on the first trade but I did not it had just pulled back but the second trade no shown would have been wrong because 1 rules I left out was I will no take a trend continuation trade from the pre market. That is something I have keep to my whole time trading and I over looked that this morning.

Over all was a very good morning minus the losses. Both trade I took both came in to the green at least 75$ (one 75 and one 100) but this bring up another point I need to address. When should I be taking profits? I went back to look at my losses and break evens to see if I was getting to greedy. Turns out as of now I am. 75% of my L or BE (minus the pullbacks period) would have put me up 62.50 (50$ profit because of the 1 tic slippage). Now I know a lot of people try for the large pull backs or swings and say it is very hard to maintain a 1 point profit, which I would agree. I am going to start taking profit off at 1 point though even with that said, and tacking one tic off my stop loss after looking in to it because that extra tic is not helping me stay in enough trades to make it worth the extra amount of loss on each trade that losses. I'm am going to just try for one point a trade, taking as many trades as I get set ups for in the hours of 9:30 to noon (as work allows). If I can sustain that for a month or so I feel like I will get the confidence to trade with 2 contracts in which I will let the second contract go as my runner which I already have the rules for that written up.

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  #53 (permalink)
 
bd92154's Avatar
 bd92154 
San Diego
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader/Think or Swim
Broker: TDA/Interactive Brokers/ Data Feed TDA & IBK ( Dropped Kinetick)
Trading: Stocks NASDAQ
Posts: 1,058 since May 2011
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eclipsemf View Post
I took two trades this morning one 12.50$ profit and one 75$ loss. I only attached the 15 minute chart today with the arrow as my entry point because it reminded me of one major point I over looked from my past. It looks like from the graph I jumped the gun on the first trade but I did not it had just pulled back but the second trade no shown would have been wrong because 1 rules I left out was I will no take a trend continuation trade from the pre market. That is something I have keep to my whole time trading and I over looked that this morning.

Over all was a very good morning minus the losses. Both trade I took both came in to the green at least 75$ (one 75 and one 100) but this bring up another point I need to address. When should I be taking profits? I went back to look at my losses and break evens to see if I was getting to greedy. Turns out as of now I am. 75% of my L or BE (minus the pullbacks period) would have put me up 62.50 (50$ profit because of the 1 tic slippage). Now I know a lot of people try for the large pull backs or swings and say it is very hard to maintain a 1 point profit, which I would agree. I am going to start taking profit off at 1 point though even with that said, and tacking one tic off my stop loss after looking in to it because that extra tic is not helping me stay in enough trades to make it worth the extra amount of loss on each trade that losses. I'm am going to just try for one point a trade, taking as many trades as I get set ups for in the hours of 9:30 to noon (as work allows). If I can sustain that for a month or so I feel like I will get the confidence to trade with 2 contracts in which I will let the second contract go as my runner which I already have the rules for that written up.

I have found it is better to have the option when one tick into a trade of closing for profit after subtracting round trip commissions. With TDA if you have not already renegotiated rates you have to get two ticks into a trade before making any money. This will make a big difference with your P&L over time.

I like your analysis and approach to all of this.
Thanks again.

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  #54 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

I took 2 trades this morning to cap of the start of my revived 1 point runs. The first trade was an absolute flop on my side. I completely overlooked my rules and got in to a bad trade, but because of this it made me add a new rule so it was not a total waste. Second trade of the day was around 10:20 which produced my 1 point profit I was looking for. Overall a loss on the day but I took 2 trade again for the second day in a row so I feel like I am getting some confidence even going through the bad times that as long I remain persistent I can make this happen.


NEW RULE:
Do NOT take a trade with in the first bar of my larger time frame chart. There seems to almost always be a pull back with in this period and I keep getting caught in back since the beginning of October and I had said I was going to stop trading in that period but that rules has been over looked.

Also over the weekend I did some major back testing and will continue through this week to finalize my trading plans and rules because I have found a few tenancies that I want to change to make it more profitable. I also think that if I am going to do this year round that I will need to switch my trading plans seasonally to stay very competitive by looking at some of the peaks and dips from the testing.

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  #55 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

Took 2 live trades today both with the trend but as soon as I entered in them the trend on my larger time frame almost instantaneously reversed on me. 2 losses on the day is the end result. That means my next loss would put me back in to the red! My account was over 7.5% in the green at the end of September and is now down to less than 1% kinda embarrassing at this point. And to make it all worse after I get done trading live for the day I go trade paper until noon, my paper account is up almost 50% in the same time frame!! Today was over 150$ in loss in the live market and i sign right on to my paper account because that was my max loss and pull in 200$ profit using the paper account on my first 2 trades.


I defiantly don't want to quit because this is my goal and i will be successful but I think its time for me to take a step back and go over things again make sure i am looking at everything correct. Because I know the plan I started with in the middle of September will work but when i hit hard times in the market in October and November I started changing everything to try to keep up with the changes. I did excellent with the paper account with these tweaks but I could never get them to transfer to real money. I have however learned a lot over these 2 months so I think I will just re evaluate that plan for the remainder of the year and push for a good start to begin the year with!\

And to add insult to injury my new sled I bought last year needs 1000$ worth of work that would have been covered under warranty 7 days ago if it had happened earlier! Chin Up


I also uploaded the dismal equity curve.

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  #56 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

I paper traded today took a 75$ loss to start the morning but pulled in a 162.50 profit shortly after on the same move. Not going to posy up pics of the trade today or until after the holiday season. I'm taking a small hiatus from the 12 to 14 hour monitoring research and analyzing that I have been doing to just give myself a little break so I can be refreshed and ready to trade come the beginning of the year.

On a small side note with Exxon at a 52 week high and a very good divined payout I am thinking about starting my long term portfolio by picking up a few shares of them while they are a little cheaper than they usually run.

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  #57 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

Well its been almost a half a month since I have posted to the forums not because of lost interest just talking a small break with out the constant watch of the market on the daily. 2015 is my year! I have all solid plans in place with back tested results and the discipline needed. Since I went live trading from September 15th to now I have changed a lot and have learned more than I could have imagined. I am now over the fear of loosing money, I went through a small internal struggle which put me at ends with my self. Money comes and goes in life and I truly believe that I can be very successful in this so if that means paying some money in to the market to learn then that's how it will go, I fell like what I am learning is nothing a formal education could teach me and it gives me great pride to learn myself and see how i devolve over time.

Nothing else today, Start up date again is January 5th which is the Monday of the first full week. I hope all that follow me will continue to give me input and things to ponder and I hope I can pick up new followers over the next year. To all, lets have a great year of trading!!

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  #58 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

I just wanted to do a little paper trading today just to make sure everything was ready to go on Monday. Just took the first 2 trades of the day based off of my trading plan and both were good wining trades. Felt very confident with the execution and the second one I help in for a longer period to get some more profit out of it. First trade profit of 75$ and the second 187.50$ for a solid 2 trade profit of 262.50$

I,m am going to start providing screen shots of every day i LIVE trade. I am going to provide this paper trade though so I can get the explanation out of the way real quick.

Yellow arrow is the entry point and approximate time. Right facing arrow is a Long position Left facing is a Short position.
Green arrow in the same orientation is a winning trade with the approximate exit and time
Red arrow in the same orientation is a loosing trade with the approximate exit and time

And on the 10 minute chart the black boxes are about the area where i got the trend signal with the entry target some where in side of that.

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  #59 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55

I had one set up I was waiting for this morning that I had found before the market had opened. Try to go short around 2036 when I get my signals. Got all 4 down trend confirmations around 9:40 but the market dropped to fast and I was not going to chase it, I had thought about getting back in it when it came back for that mini pull back and that was against my rules so I missed out on that huge 10 point move!!! No worries though. I had a potential buy opportunity come up around 10:20 but my larger time frame never showed the uptrend but my 3 smaller time frames did. I stayed out of that trade just like I was supposed to, good job me. Around 10:30 The three smaller time frames had gone back to agree with the larger time frame so I placed and order.

It was a quick in and out, could have stayed in for more profit but I am only trading with one contract so I am trying to be smart when i am taking profit with out a runner.

I provided the graphs with a little more on them today and I will explain. There are 4 additional lines on the 3 minute chart
Line 1 area I was looking to go short to start the morning if it closed at or below, which it did I just missed the trade
Line 2 was my target to buy back in but the market never go the strength to get there
Line 3 was the line I needed it to close above to consider the buy which it came close but never made it
Line 4 was where I needed the market to close below so I could try to go short again. This is where I took the 125$ profit out of the market.

Hopefully this explanation helps you guys see my train of thought better and I will be back tomorrow with another update!

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  #60 (permalink)
 eclipsemf 
Manchester NH
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TD Ameritrade
Trading: Small Caps
Posts: 90 since Feb 2014
Thanks Given: 31
Thanks Received: 55


From now on my daily journal entries will be done as things are happening and I will post it all when I am done trading, this way I can get how I am feeling and thought process ect in the moment instead of how I remember it.

To start the morning I had a small reversal signal that I didnt move on just because of the way the market opened up with the first 3 minute bars pretty much doing the exact opposite of each other. I had set 2 minor S&R levels just based off of the last high and low of the pre market around 2013.50 for the low and 2021 for the high.

Trade number 2 at 9:40 when I got the signal to go short. Took the trade at 2015.25 and pretty much broke even with just a 1 tic profit. Once the market broke through the previous low I moved it to break even +1 tic. The market never made it down any further and it was a good call because I would have taken a full loss on that trade if I had not done so.

Trade set up number 3 of the day was around 9:50 and was a buy signal, got in this trade at 2017.75 looking for a target of around 2020, I had over looked that the market had only closed recently around 2019 so I should have had my target there so I took another break even +1

Trade set up number 4 of the day was right after that at 10 on the spot, I usually don't like taking a trades right at 10 so I was just looking for a smaller quick move on this trade. Target was set for a 87.50 profit, got that and the market quickly ran back in the other direction which would have hit my stop loss before it went back lower.

Had a 5th trade set up around 10:15 but chose not to take it due to the market conditions and am calling it a day at 10:15 but will continue to watch till 11.

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:
I need to be more careful of my targets, I have been running fixed targets but today if I had just read the market a little better I could have tippled what I did ($112.50). But I feel like I have progressed a lot in watching the market and better understanding it, can fix some small issues tomorrow. Today was also the first day I took 3 trades in a single trading session showing that I am also becoming more comfortable with my system because I did not hesitate when going to place those trades. I will also switch my 10 min graph to my 5 tic graph when looking for those long running trades that have no S&R levels near.

The graph attached is just showing my 2 S&R lines i set to begin the morning and the three trades. This graph will also be very helpful when looking back because it really shows the importance of the S&R levels and previous highs and lows when regarding your stops and targets. I knew this but today was really that eureka moment with that.

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