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Papa's Trading Journal

  #81 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

Thanks Big Mike. I looked at Fat Tails volatility thread the other day and I am incorporating his timing.

Market was up big overnight for who knows what reason (first of month, President's speech, just glad to get out of August, etc). Lots of new today also. I try to give at least a 15 min cushion on news. There was an inside bar play on the 15 min CL at 9:30. I was biased to the downside due to the Keltner Channel position of the candle and when it closed just below the upper channel line, I put in a sell stop below the IB but not a buy stop above. I was stopped in, but I really did not like the price action at all. Just no downside momentum at all. Lots of quick upward spikes of 2, 3, 4 ticks followed by a slow decline....end result, I reduced the target and cut the trade. Waited until after all news. Didn't like the price action so just quit. Most likely done for the week.

Days like today are the hardest for me to trade. My use of the Keltner Channel gives me a bias in direction. When the market gets its hair on fire and just runs, this bias works against me. I am working on it. Most of the time, the bias plays in my favor but on big trend days it does not; sorting this out will help me quite a bit.

Something else I have noticed recently that does not seem to jive with my memory. Oil is moving in conjunction with equities. I seem to recall when oil went up, equities went down due to concern over increased energy costs, and vice versa. But now, if equities go up, oil goes up; equities go down, oil is down. Any one else notice this? Or is it my memory is faulty (that could be).

Anyway, if I don't write anything else this week, I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend.

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  #82 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

Hope everyone's Labor Day was relaxing. Now that the holiday is behind us, perhaps volume will pick up again. I expect the market will continue choppy in the near term.

Historically, September is the weakest month of the year for stocks, so the market typically goes down, but is this market acting typically? I have no idea what to expect tomorrow or any day this week or month. What I do know, is I am sticking with the inside bar method. I reviewed my results for July and August. I had two losing IB trades. When I attempted other methods, the results were not nearly as good. My efforts to expand my toolbox did not work as well as I would have liked, so I am going to be a one trick pony for a while.

For those that do not use NinjaTrader (I don't) I added a page to Big Mike's Journal Excel spreadsheet. This page will provide some basic statistics that a trader should know. It is not as extensive as NT's but it is better than nothing. I posted the spreadsheet in the educational section.

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  #83 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248


Market opened down from Friday's close. Waited for an inside bar setup. One appeared on the 10 min chart at 0930. Set my sell stop order and waited. Was filled and profit target quickly hit. Continued watching. Had a good setup on the 15 min chart at 11:00 but price was right on the lower boundary of the Keltner Channel so I passed on the trade.

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  #84 (permalink)
 
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 PandaWarrior 
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papa15 View Post
Market opened down from Friday's close. Waited for an inside bar setup. One appeared on the 10 min chart at 0930. Set my sell stop order and waited. Was filled and profit target quickly hit. Continued watching. Had a good setup on the 15 min chart at 11:00 but price was right on the lower boundary of the Keltner Channel so I passed on the trade.

What are you using for a profit target?

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
  #85 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

For the first contract (and I am only trading one now) I use 1/2 the range of the inside bar, minus 1 tick. Basically, I add 1/2 the range of the inside bar to the high and subtract it from the low. Since the entrance is 1 tick beyond the inside bar's range, the target is 1 tick less than 1/2 the inside bar range. When I add a second contract, that target will be the range of the inside bar, minus 1 tick.

Yes, I know this has more than twice the risk as reward, but over 2.5 months, the win rate has been over 90%, so the strategy is profitable.

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  #86 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

I have to confess that I did not trade well today at all.....boredom and overconfidence did me in. In the final analysis, it was an inexpensive lesson but it could have been so much worse.....

Market opened at 9am and just went up. I have no idea why and really could care less as to why. I have a method that I have confidence in and if I will just trade what I see, all will come right. But sitting here, watching candle after candle form without a setup, impatience starts to sit in. My mind starts playing games, seeing other setups, "missed" opportunities, etc and the clock starts ticking down to the end of the trading period ((9-11:45 for me) so I want a piece of the action.

At 9:51, I thought I saw an opportunity. Candles had been closing above the Keltner Channel band, but then price came back inside bands, and I figured it would make a run for the moving average.....I entered with a small profit target...it was hit but then price turned and ran higher.....I could have been run over. I should NOT have taken this trade even though it was profitable (I am only posting the 10 min chart, and the setup looked a bit better on the 15 min but none the less, it was not a good trade).

Feeling good after making some money, I continued watching for an inside bar setup, but none seemed to be forthcoming.....so around 10:58 I saw that price had made a lower low followed by a lower high and was heading down again towards the moving average. Why not pick up a few ticks....so I tried to jump on the train but found myself going the opposite direction and rapidly. As soon as you recognize the trade is not working, what are you supposed to do....that's right move your stop.....say it isn't so, but that is what I did. There is NO justification for that action, here or really any other time. I took an enormous (for me) amount of heat. My palms actually were sweating....I hate that feeling. I held on using the Keltner Channel as sort of a guide....I did have a cut loss point. Finally, price came back down to where I cut the trade with a "reasonable" loss on this trade and for the day. The trade management on this trade was terrible and without excuse.

I am at breakeven for the week (after 2 days) so I feel blessed in that respect. I feel terrible in that 1) I deviated from my "one trick pony" routine out of sheer boredom I guess 2) I moved a stop.....it is an old nasty habit that has cost me more money than I care to admit.....

I don't know why but Wednesday appears the toughest day of the week for me to trade. Maybe next week I will just observe it.......

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  #87 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

The last 2 weeks or so have been much harder to trade....don't know if it is the volume or what but I am having a harder time getting in synch....just trusting the system...

Today was a profitable day but I violated a rule.....first trade was a short after an inside bar off of the 15 min chart. Inside bar formed at 9:30. Market was showing all kinds of strength but price violated the bar low first. I took the trade but the price action really indicated the market was going to go up, so I took reduced profit. The second trade was a short at 10:11. The 10 min chart had 2 inside bars in a row (there was an unusual set of circumstances also, on the 10 min chart the 9:50 and 10 am bars were mirror images with same low and high, and on the 15 min chart, the 9:45 and 10 am bars had the same high and low. I interpret this to mean there was a lot of indecision in the market). On the 10 min chart, the 10:10 inside bar closed right at the upper Keltner Channel line. I put a sell stop below that bar low. Jeff's guidance was to put the orders at the extremes of the first inside bar, but the Keltner Channel influenced me to alter that, as well as the fact all the previous bars had support around 75.50. I set my profit target just above that price and it was hit.

We were now within 15 min of news...I should have stepped aside but I saw the 15 min chart break below the 10:15 inside bar and I took the bait....I sold at the low. With all the selling that had taken place above 75.75, I gave a wide stop. Just before news I expanded the stop and then lowered it. I continued to hold as the market just hung in the 75.65-75.75 area. Just before the 11 am oil inventory report, I expanded the stop. The market came down and hit my revised exit. But again, I reinforced why the rule was there in the first place...Look at the bar at 11 am.....it is not a time to be in the market.......

I am done for the week. We will be on a mini vacation at a local lake for the next couple of days. Overall a profitable week money wise, but even more so in lessons learned.....

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  #88 (permalink)
 
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 Jeff Castille 
Northern California
 
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papa15 View Post
The last 2 weeks or so have been much harder to trade....don't know if it is the volume or what but I am having a harder time getting in synch....just trusting the system...

Today was a profitable day but I violated a rule.....first trade was a short after an inside bar off of the 15 min chart. Inside bar formed at 9:30. Market was showing all kinds of strength but price violated the bar low first. I took the trade but the price action really indicated the market was going to go up, so I took reduced profit. The second trade was a short at 10:11. The 10 min chart had 2 inside bars in a row (there was an unusual set of circumstances also, on the 10 min chart the 9:50 and 10 am bars were mirror images with same low and high, and on the 15 min chart, the 9:45 and 10 am bars had the same high and low. I interpret this to mean there was a lot of indecision in the market). On the 10 min chart, the 10:10 inside bar closed right at the upper Keltner Channel line. I put a sell stop below that bar low. Jeff's guidance was to put the orders at the extremes of the first inside bar, but the Keltner Channel influenced me to alter that, as well as the fact all the previous bars had support around 75.50. I set my profit target just above that price and it was hit.

We were now within 15 min of news...I should have stepped aside but I saw the 15 min chart break below the 10:15 inside bar and I took the bait....I sold at the low. With all the selling that had taken place above 75.75, I gave a wide stop. Just before news I expanded the stop and then lowered it. I continued to hold as the market just hung in the 75.65-75.75 area. Just before the 11 am oil inventory report, I expanded the stop. The market came down and hit my revised exit. But again, I reinforced why the rule was there in the first place...Look at the bar at 11 am.....it is not a time to be in the market.......

I am done for the week. We will be on a mini vacation at a local lake for the next couple of days. Overall a profitable week money wise, but even more so in lessons learned.....


Hey Papa,

This morning was an especially tough morning because BOTH the Oil inventory report AND the Gas report were released the same morning because of the Labor Day holiday. As you know I prefer NOT to trade before the oil inventory report.

Jeff

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  #89 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

Jeff
I understand your point.....I have found giving a 15 min cushion around news has worked. I really am not sure why I allowed myself to get in that last trade....it was a mistake no doubt about that.....the response at 11 am when the oil inventory report was released is just absolute confirmation that it is not smart at all to hold a day trade over a major news announcement.

This week we seem to be making a big move overnight, holding some range in the morning, and then a big move toward the close. Yesterday and today I watched the 2pm breakout that you discussed in the All You Need thread....still has potential there....

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  #90 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248


Been away from trading all week due to illness/death in the family. Don't know when will resume; probably sometime next week but not certain.

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Last Updated on May 31, 2012


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