6/16/15 Tuesday
Live Trades: 1 loss
Day’s P/L: -$79.02

Once again I found the markets slow and difficult to read. Follow through was spotty. There were opportunities but they were interspersed with a lot of failures. Too much risk for not enough reward.

Trade 1, NQ: -15t. Played an opening bell fake out to the downside. The market decided to go to the upside. The reversal was immediate and decisive, giving me no time to reduce risk. Full stop, I guessed wrong.

It was tempting to try and make up for it but the markets were not cooperating. There is no need to press on a day like today. An account can get chewed up. There will be plenty of days to “go for” it. Just be patient and wait for them to come.

Marker results were bad again. My good looking stats are taking a hit:
3 losers

I almost didn't post charts today it was so uneventful but decided to for posterity. Maybe FOMC tomorrow will shake things up.

6/17/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 4, 1 win, 3 losses
Day’s P/L: -$195.27

Another extremely frustrating day that was full of potential. The good news, I traded. The bad news, I seem to have an uncanny knack for entering trades that go virtually nowhere, and passing on trades that move so quickly to target it’s a joke. Today was more about the trades not entered as those that were.

Except for the NQ trade entered a little late, I am perfectly satisfied with my entries. They fulfilled all criteria, were generally with trend, and had potential. Like the trades Monday and Tuesday, there was no follow through. The struggle is continuing to trade after a couple of losses, but that is what I have to learn to do. I took two early losses that moved a grand total of 2 ticks in my favor. Naturally, this made me a bit gun shy. So, I then passed on two CL trades that went 80 and 100 ticks respectively, with nary a retracement. There were other opportunities passed as well but that’s enough beating myself up for now.

Trade 1, 6E: -12t.

Trade 2, CL: -10t.

Trade 3, NQ: -17t.

Trade 4, ZN: +10t


Marker and trade results:
2 wins
4 losses

6/18/15 Thursday
Live Trades: 0
Day’s P/L: 0

The last few days have cast some doubts on the effectiveness of my method under current market conditions. Though every day presents some opportunity (today it was NQ and ZN), the markets are tending to be slow and sluggish. As an example, an 800 tick chart of CL is only covering 1/3 to 1/2 a screen worth of real estate, whereas at other times it could be counted on to cover a full screen or more. This means fewer opportunities and less follow through for a momentum trader like myself. A good deal of patience must be exercised waiting for just the right opportunity on just the right instrument of the day. Otherwise it is just guessing and hoping.

I have no doubt volatility will return and the way I trade will once again be fashionable, but until then I will continue to exercise caution. Unfortunately my overall skepticism carried over to the instrument of the day in NQ which had a nice run. Somehow I will need find a way to separate the real opportunities from the sluggishness of the other markets.

I put in more real time markers today to see how it would go. Marker activity was not bad today in spite of the slow action:
3 wins
3 losses
3 BE

Tap In 

As an example, an 800 tick chart of CL is only covering 1/3 to 1/2 a screen worth of real estate, whereas at other times it could be counted on to cover a full screen or more.

I don't trade CL so I don't know if current volatility is normal, but since you're using tick data be sure to check this thread: MDP 3.0, is [AUTOLINK]CME[/AUTOLINK] migrating to a new data comm protocol?

When CQC migrated to MDP 3.0 I thought that volatility was slow but it turned out it had to do with the data feed.

Malthus 

I don't trade CL so I don't know if current volatility is normal, but since you're using tick data be sure to check this thread: MDP 3.0, is [AUTOLINK]CME[/AUTOLINK] migrating to a new data comm protocol? When CQC migrated to MDP 3.0 I thought that volatility was slow but it turned out it had to do with the data feed.

Thank you for this. I was not aware of the change. I use Sierra Chart data so I have asked them when they plan to implement.

6/19/15 Friday
Live Trades: 1
Day’s P/L: $75.12

One trade on ZN. Once again it was a tough day for price follow through. In addition to the one trade, I placed 7 markers. The results were not very good.

Trade 1, ZN: 5t. Took 1R profit to get a quick winner to start the day.
No other trade areas felt right.

Marker and trade results:
5 losers
3 BE

Tap In 

6/19/15 Friday Live Trades: 1 Day’s P/L: $75.12 One trade on ZN. Once again it was a tough day for price follow through. In addition to the one trade, I placed 7 markers. The results were not very good. Trade 1, ZN: 5t. Took 1R profit to get a quick winner to start the day. No other trade areas felt right. Marker and trade results: 5 losers 3 BE

Good job on your live win. This is better than some of the wins where you bail after 1 or 2 ticks.

Weekly Summary 6/15/15 to 6/19/15
Live Trades: 7, 2 winners, 5 losers
Week’s P/L: -$202.16

Starting balance for the week: $3092.41
Withdrawals for the week: $0
Deposits for the week: $0
Ending balance for the week: $2890.25

Beginning account balance from first live trade on 3/10/15: $3000.00
Total Withdrawals: $0
Total Deposits: $0
Total Gains/losses from 3/10/15: -$109.77

Of the 7 trades:
2 made it to 2R or beyond
Only 2 made it to 1R

As for Marker and trade moves, it was another rough week:
5 moves of 2R or more
18 losers of -1R
6 BE

I am a little concerned about poor performance of late. Part of the problem is that the markets have been very slow, with a lot less follow through. It has been a lot choppier, with more trend changing in the short term. This has produced a lot of failures that don’t even make it to 1R. Often these failures are precursors to a pending strong move in the other direction. With every loss that I took this week, had I entered the first set up in the opposite direction after the loss it would have been a winner. Maybe these opportunities are the safest option at this time.

That said, it seems that every day has at least one market producing. I need to concentrate more on recognizing these markets early.

The other issue is that I have been a little more cavalier about placing real time markers, and trades for that matter, in an effort to test the limits of my system. This combined with low volatility has produced inferior results.

Until volatility picks up I will be concentrating more on picking my spots carefully, finding the market that is more active for each day and looking for opportunities that follow failures.

Malthus 

I don't trade CL so I don't know if current volatility is normal, but since you're using tick data be sure to check this thread: MDP 3.0, is [AUTOLINK]CME[/AUTOLINK] migrating to a new data comm protocol? When CQC migrated to MDP 3.0 I thought that volatility was slow but it turned out it had to do with the data feed.

Sierra Charts transitioned to MDP 3.0 over the past two weeks. I did some testing with past tick and volume charts and compared them to recent tick and volume charts, and determined that MDP 3.0 made no material difference to the charts that I use. The reduced activity on the charts is simply the lower volatility of recent times.

Through this exercise I came up with volume charts that match up to the tick charts I use:

CL: 800 tick = 900 volume
GC: 400 tick = 550 volume
NG: 200 tick = 300 volume
NQ: 600 tick = 1000 volume
6E: 500 tick = 950 volume
ZN: 600 tick = 3500 volume

I have not determined whether or not to switch to volume charts. I'm not sure it really matters in the way I trade. I may explore the idea of altering the values of the charts and initial risk and targets to align with volatility.

Thanks for bringing up the subject.

6/22/15 Monday
Live Trades: 0
Day’s P/L: $0

Another very slow day. Opportunities were few and far between, though one could find a few if they squinted. The best set up was on ZN. I really should have taken that one. The rest were iffy and would mean taking too many chances to catch the winner. Save it for a better day.

Wish I knew in advance how long these doldrums were going to last. I’d just go on vacation!

Marker activity:
2 losses
1 BE