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Eclipsemf's ES Journey


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Eclipsemf's ES Journey

  #41 (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

Got in a good profitable trade this morning so start this month off good! Made 87.50, I have set a target of 2.25 points but I saw the market getting stuck on a resistance level so I dropped my target one tic below where I thought it would end up and got the max out of that trade that was possible. This brought back some more confidence and am looking to put October behind me.


October results in addition to Septembers not just Octobers alone.

13 Days traded
13 Trades 3 Wins 7 Losses and 3 Break evens
Win Percentage 62.50%
Avg Win 85.00$
Commission as a 37.67% of profit %
Total Net Points 12
435.84$ profit at a 3.63% return on investment


As you can tell this was a very bad month of trading! Over all it was a down month with very few high points besides some good learning experiences. A lot of my early bloated numbers came back down to earth and then some, maybe a little too far if you ask me. I know this is all part of the business and I am going to continue to progress with my plan executing it as best as possible!

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  #42 (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 a loss this morning, I was working on a good setup I just jumped the gun a little on it completely my mistake. I was looking to get on to the reverse of the morning after the long sell off. I saw a pretty good amount of resistance at 2014.75 and was looking to get in if the market could close above that with in the first 6 minutes of the setup. I got in just assuming it would because what looked like a lot of buying pressure. It didnt end up closing at that level until the 9th minute bar which would have made the setup invalid. I ended up getting stopped out on that bar. The market never showed the real strength I needed. Back again tomorrow.

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  #43 (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 went to simulated trading today because I have realized the market isnt going back to how I had based my old method off of so I am now working on a tweak to it that I had on the back burner. Pretty much a simple Hull Moving Average set up. Trying to scalp 1.5 pts with a stop also at 1.5 pts. So far is has been going pretty good today was the worst day so far at 4 wins and 2 losses by 11. I think this will work well I just need to get used to trading more than one trade a day. My old one was just starting out taking the first trade of the day but this new way I will need more than one to make enough to keep advancing at a good pace.

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  #44 (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 am only going to be posting every couple of day for the next couple of weeks just because I am going back to the drawing board. I see the market isnt going to be going back to how I want it to be for a while if ever. So I have come up with a new tweak to try to stay relevant. This is a much much simpler method which is just based off of an RSI and 1 moving average. I dont have a hard set of rules yet but I am running a small trial and error run till the end of this week. I will then define that set of rules of what I think will work the best and continue to paper trade that next week. I am taking the entire week of Thanksgiving to go on a vacation. If the results from this 2 week trial with this tweak are sufficient for my liking I will be going live that following week.

In hind sight I would like to have a little more time to do tests but where this wasnt a full blown restart I think I can get a good feeling on whether this will work out or not. The only problem I can see with this for me is taking more than one trade per day, which I will have to do to bring in good profits. Yesterday I pulled in 150$ worth of profits and today I lost that right back! HArd to make money on a day like this when its in such a block of consolidation.

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  #45 (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 am now 2 months in to my career as a day trader and i have gone through quite a bit of market diversity over this time. This is still absolutely what I want to do even with the trials and tribulations in this small period. I have been doing a lot of research on different Future contracts because I feel like the /ES has just changed to much for me to implement either of my trading plans with such small stops in place. And I dont wanna change that at all because I want to conserve capitol and not blow through it and call it my "educational period".

I came across the /GC and just made another forum post here...



If you guys could go comment on that and help me out any way that would be great! Everything looks very good in that for me as far as set ups and what not. I am going to continue to monitor it here for the rest of the week to see if it is something I should start back testing and what not. The only thing I am concerned about is that the commission and fees related to it is a bit higher than the /ES.

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  #46 (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
Thanks Given: 1,542
Thanks Received: 448


eclipsemf View Post
I am now 2 months in to my career as a day trader and i have gone through quite a bit of market diversity over this time. This is still absolutely what I want to do even with the trials and tribulations in this small period. I have been doing a lot of research on different Future contracts because I feel like the /ES has just changed to much for me to implement either of my trading plans with such small stops in place. And I dont wanna change that at all because I want to conserve capitol and not blow through it and call it my "educational period".

I came across the /GC and just made another forum post here...



If you guys could go comment on that and help me out any way that would be great! Everything looks very good in that for me as far as set ups and what not. I am going to continue to monitor it here for the rest of the week to see if it is something I should start back testing and what not. The only thing I am concerned about is that the commission and fees related to it is a bit higher than the /ES.

Welcome to the life of a day trader

I made the transition to day trading in 2009. Hopefully you are not making the same mistake with TDAmeritrade that I did; as I noticed you are using TOS and TDAmeritrade. I paid 20,000 in brokerage fees to TDAmeritrade in 2010 before I realized that I should get a reduced rate. Rather than negotiating I moved some money to Interactive Brokers for a reduced futures trade rate. That December I received a call from one of the VP's telling me that I could get a reduced rate. Well they should have told me about that $10,000 or more earlier. Needless to say they called me because I have stopped actively trading with TDAmeritrade. I kept my accounts, but have transferred funds to other accounts at other brokers to get better rates. TOS is a good platform, and I actually blame myself more than TDAmeritrade, as if I had done my homework I would have known this going into day trading as a business.

For various reasons I went back to trading SIM for over a year and have just recently gone back to trading cash. ES trading looks very easy, but as you are learning is a lot different once you start putting your hard earned dollars at risk.

What would help you in getting a better response here is to post pictures of what you are talking about. Since you are using pictures plus indicators may help others to help you. Also what hurdles you are facing. You have started a journal and that is an excellent way to start.

Lastly on the ES volume analysis I can't say that I totally agree with you about your volume analysis. I track both volume and flow fairly closely, but I am sure there are others here that do even a much better job than I do. There are seasonal variations in the ES volume flow and to me they look like they have been holding fairly closely to their normal seasonal fluctuations. Also yes it is annoying that a lot of the trading in the ES seems to be done on the GLOBEX, but in reality is it that there is more on GLOBEX or as we mature more as traders that we start to look at GLOBEX and its overall impact on trading.

Trading off 3min and 5tick charts is fine, but what are you using for your upper timeframe and trend analysis for trading? Trying to trade even the chop in the market without some indication of trend or belief of trend is a tough game to play.

Wish you the best in the future.
You are definitely in the right place.

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  #47 (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 an extended vacation and was to tired to trade yesterday with the vacation just rapping up the night before. I went live trading today and proved that I still had excellent discipline even when taking almost a month off to kinda recuperate. However I chose to enter the market at the wrong point today! Entered around 10:30 because I saw it didnt wanna close above 2061. I entered in at 1959.75 and ended up only taking 1 tic out of the market so basically a break even. No frustration very calm through out the trade.



bd92154 View Post
Welcome to the life of a day trader
Wish you the best in the future.
You are definitely in the right place.


Thanks for the reply! I will end up negotiating my fees with TD once I get going and trade full time consistently which I hope to do with in the comping months. I like having the lifestyle and the flexibility when needed but also the demand this brings, I like being challenged to the point where most people would give up, but I cant its not built in to me. I will succeed.

I will be starting to post pictures of me set ups and charts, hopefully with in the week. All my outside work is slowing up for the winter season so I will be able to start trading more and getting more in depth with research.

I think my volume analysis would be off just because I have not been watching the market for a very long time and have not fully picked up on the markets "moods" through out the season. The more screen time and people like you helping me out I will pick up on them over time and I have found ways to trade them already that I feel comfortable so I will be able to adjust much faster next time around.

Lastly the hurdles I am facing are all mental hurdles I would say. I have 2 methods of trading that I have back tested and show very profitable results if traded to the T. I am very good at the entry portions I just struggle some times holding the position as long as I am supposed to. I also cant seems to take every trade or more than 1 a day as after the first trade I either dont want to loose more money or blow away any of the profit I just made. If I could get over this fear I know my account would be much healthier. I took one live trade today but I had 5 set ups with 3 of them being big (2+ point) winners and 2 being break evens at the very worst.


Just a small edit I also look at the 15 min chart for the trend, but running with the 5 tic chart also I sometime get caught up in a small pull back because the chart moves so fast. I think I really need to just stick on the side of the trend when make trades instead of going counter trend some times. I am going to go back to all the live trades and see if they were trend or counter trend and do some sorting on what I should do in regards to that!

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  #48 (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

Just to follow up with what I had said in my last post, I went and looked at all the trades I took when i was live trading since September 15th.

Wins:
12 Were with trend
3 Were reverse trend
1 No real Trend

Break Even that would be nothing more:
2 Were reverse trend

Losses:
2 Were with trend (both were on large pull backs)
6 Were reverse trend

So with that incredibly small sample size it looks like I should just stick with on trend trades!(go figure) I will continue to do this with my back testing results to see what more I can come up with.

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  #49 (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

My original intention of this journal was to keep myself accountable for my actions as I progress with in this field. I have kept it pretty well updated but I want to take it one step further to make sure I keep my self in check. I traded this morning and took a 75$ loss and realized where I was making my mistakes. I had originally made a set of rules in my business plan but over the weeks with the market changing I tweaked the plan to make it "fit" the market but some key components and details got lost. The main one when I reset my Hull moving average default is 16 periods where it was set for the past month instead of at 10 where I had back tested it at. I have made some changes which are added to my rules of engagement.

My next post coming up with in the next hour or so will be my FULL visual of the 2 main charts I watch and my Rules of Engagement based of off those charts. I feel like by doing this and having them out in the public for everyone to potentially to see I can share my entries and exits much easier.

I'm not worried about people taking this and tweaking it trying it out in a paper account what so ever. I actually encourage it all I ask is you please give me feed back in return so I can help make this better as well. I have many Ideas on things I want to do it this but I want to make sure I get this basic method down before I get over complication it. And it very well could be past that already.

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  #50 (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


My computer set up is with three monitors.
Monitor 1 is my graph of the 15min chart
Monitor 2 is my TOS main screen with my buy options, time and sales and active trader window.
Monitor 3 is my 3 minute chart

I will first describe my 15 minute chart.
2 indicators
Hull Moving Average (Close,10,0)
StochRSI (10,80,20,HULL,CLOSE,14,3,1,SIMPLE)

The Hull moving average is what gives me the signal on the overall trend at the larger time frame, I do not use this to find my entry or exit points just as an overall up or down trend finder. When the Hull changes colors I know the trend has just changed (Light blue is up, purple is down)

The StochRSI is just here as a reference but no trade is based strictly off of it but could stop a trade if the 15min Hull and that are disagreeing.

Now to my 3 minute chart.
3 indicators
Hull Moving Average (CLOSE,10,0)
MACDDing (10,23,8,EMA)
MomentumDing (10,CLOSE)

The Hull again confirms the trend on a smaller time frame which must be in conjunction with the larger time frame (15min) If they are both going in the same direction look below and check the final 2.

MACDDing must be in the same direction as the Hull is. Green for positive and red for a down trend. Not much more to say here pretty basic.

MomentumDing must be on the correct size of zero to enter the trade. If MACD is green then momentum must be above zero, and vice versa. Now this part is kinda redundant but I have seen over time that MACD can fluctuate around the zero line and the Momentum usually doesnt so I like the added reassurance.

IF all of these conditions are met I try to get and entry at a quarter or three quarter point instead of a whole or half point. No real reason for this just something I have kinda stuck to over the past months.

Now for the attached picture i listed 1-4 on it and will just quickly go over what each section means. This is from a trades set up yesterday.

1) 15 min chart. Hull switched to purple (downtrend)
2) 3 minute chart. Hull switched to purple (downtrend)
3) 3 minute chart. MACD confirmed red (downtrend)
4) 3 minute chart. Momentum below the zero line (downtrend)

Enter trade.

Exit strategy has been a fixed 2.25 point profit with a 1.5 point stop loss but those may no be changing as I look in to a few things more but as of now thats where they stay.

Please let me know if you guys have any thoughts on this, and please feel free to be as harsh as needed! I have thick skin and I know if I cant take criticism I cant get better, thanks for your time in reading this!

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