Crazy day today....Got started with a nice winner, then 4 losers back to back....3 is my quitting point...But, I had been calling the direction right, just bad execution on the entries. Talked it over with my trading partner. Decided to try one or two more trades provided they were excellent entry setups.

I got two, the first one did not really have a logical place to put the stop, so I guessed. I got stopped out. But at the same time, I recognized the real entry, same direction as the last one but this time with a real stop location and it was the second move....as they say, the second mouse gets the cheese!

By this time, I was down $604.00, this represented most of the profit I've made in the income account in the last 8 trading days since I started it. But the last set up was a high probability trade with some serious downside potential. So I used a 30 tick target, once it got going, I moved it to 40 and then to 50. The trade stalled out at 40 and I got nervous so I closed it out with 37 ticks. My biggest trade ever if I remember correctly. This got me back profitable for the day. 30% win rate....ugly but effective.

Then, the trade moved another bazillion ticks in my direction....I left more than half the trade on the table. I guess I don't know how to feel about that. On one hand, it feels great knowing I got the call right. On the other hand, I should have held out for more. In the end, it was a winner, my biggest ever, and I am happy. Besides, who knew it would run so much...

One more day in the experiment and I am moving to cash. At this point, unless I get really stupid tomorrow and blow out the account, I cannot lose money this month. Even with 3 stops in a row, I am still profitable for the month.

I will add it all up and post the month's stats tomorrow.

Trading a small account is hard but doable......I have proved it this month....at least on sim. Next week with cash, we will see....but I am confident.

aztrader9 

Crazy day today....Got started with a nice winner, then 4 losers back to back....3 is my quitting point...But, I had been calling the direction right, just bad execution on the entries. Talked it over with my trading partner. Decided to try one or two more trades provided they were excellent entry setups. I got two, the first one did not really have a logical place to put the stop, so I guessed. I got stopped out. But at the same time, I recognized the real entry, same direction as the last one but this time with a real stop location and it was the second move....as they say, the second mouse gets the cheese! By this time, I was down $604.00, this represented most of the profit I've made in the income account in the last 8 trading days since I started it. But the last set up was a high probability trade with some serious downside potential. So I used a 30 tick target, once it got going, I moved it to 40 and then to 50. The trade stalled out at 40 and I got nervous so I closed it out with 37 ticks. My biggest trade ever if I remember correctly. This got me back profitable for the day. 30% win rate....ugly but effective. Then, the trade moved another bazillion ticks in my direction....I left more than half the trade on the table. I guess I don't know how to feel about that. On one hand, it feels great knowing I got the call right. On the other hand, I should have held out for more. In the end, it was a winner, my biggest ever, and I am happy. Besides, who knew it would run so much... One more day in the experiment and I am moving to cash. At this point, unless I get really stupid tomorrow and blow out the account, I cannot lose money this month. Even with 3 stops in a row, I am still profitable for the month. I will add it all up and post the month's stats tomorrow. Trading a small account is hard but doable......I have proved it this month....at least on sim. Next week with cash, we will see....but I am confident.

Thanks for the forum, I find it very interesting. What system do you trade? I cannot seem to find it in this forum.

Thanks

jgreene 

Thanks for the forum, I find it very interesting. What system do you trade? I cannot seem to find it in this forum. Thanks

Well to be frank, its not really a system so much as trying to trade with the trend and using a couple simple tools to do that with. Its also a culmination of a year and a half chasing the holy grail. I just happen to be a believer in fib trading and just found this thing that works for me. There are some nuances that must be learned by watching for a while....
The real success is not in the system or method, but between my ears. I believe you must learn, own and understand your method before you will trust it enough to trade it. In my case, I finally do. There is a whole story behind why I trust this and not something else but that would take all night to explain.

I use the dynamic fib lines located in the elite Big Mike's Day Trading Forum - PayPal Donate download section, the nexusfi.com (formerly BMT)CMA in the download section and a custom shorter term MA set to 11. I also use the standard ninja OLHC with all but the open set to transparent, standard ninja prior day HL, the rangehighlow indie, the nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) chart label for convenience and a 6 range bar on CL, TF, 6E, 4 range on ES.

Hope this helps....PM me if you want more detailed info....I may write this up in detail at a later date but not until after I'm making real money using it....then there will be some credibility behind it. Until then, its just talk.

The download section has a video with it to explain how to use the dynamic fibs and some of my previous posts have charts with them on it.

Hello and goodbye. Hello to cash trading, goodbye to comfortable sim trading.

Last day of the month and I had the jitters and jackhammer heart. I know its because Monday is live trading. No other reason. Well actually thats not true. I also had the feeling I had finish strong today. Make plenty of money. Prove I was right....good indication to not trade right? But I kept at it. I suppressed that and decided I just needed to trade well.

I read in a post yesterday from Big Mike that when he has a bad feeling about a trade, just get out, red or green, just get out. I did that today. That saved my bacon as I was wrong a few times, I managed to get small profits on some of those and small losses on others. Overall, my winners won out and I made money.

7 total trades, net of $338 of my last day of trading.

So here are the final tallies of trading this $1000 account. These include both the income and wealth accounts. I stopped trading the wealth account a couple days after beginning the income account. This was to focus more on daily bread than growing my account as fast as possible. I figured I need to eat before I get fat.

Number of trades: 152
Number of winners: 88
Number of losers: 65
Average winner: $149
Average loser: $132
Win rate: 59.58%
Lose rate: 40.41%
Average ticks per trade: 3.262
Total net profit: $4038.00
Final balance of account: $5038.00

What were the major challenges?

1. The biggest one was the revenge trading day. That set me back $1800. It was almost like starting over.
2. Avoiding chop, I am getting marginally better at this.
3. Holding trades to completion.
4. Exiting a trade when I know I am wrong. Just need to punch out.
5. The need to be right. This is very strong. There is also a strong element of competition against other traders. Real or imagined, its there.
6. Patience for the right set up. Strong temptation to always be in the market. Getting better at this too.

What were the major successes?

1. Surviving the challenge intact
2. Finishing my first month ever profitably
3. Overcoming the revenge trading episode
4. Gradually learning to be patient, let the trade come to me, take it at the right time. Work in progress
5. Finding out I can trade for more than 10 ticks if needed.
6. Last but not least, the satisfaction I feel knowing I did what I set out to do. Finish this thing with integrity, transparently and I was consistent in my chart set up, my work hours, my journal, and most of all, the daily conversation with my wife.

Next month, I will continue this thread with live money. I will post my trades of course but not my account balances for obvious reasons. I will however, post a weekly profit and loss summary so you can at least see how the profit picture looks.

I will also continue to post my charts and daily debriefs. Hopefully this time next month I can write a similarly positive report.

Until next week..................

Good luck next month and every month thereafter.

AzTrader,

I am extremely proud of you and this thread! No miracle cures, no holy grail, just hard work, determination, and relentless pursuit of your passion. You learned from your mistakes, you listened to others and took advice and made tweaks. Even on days you lost money, you learned valuable lessons and you applied them. You didn't walk in circles, you pressed onward and broke the mold, continuing your development and that all led to making money.

I look forward to your live trading. I don't mean to be a bummer, but I would suggest that your goal be to not lose money in live trading (say over a 30 day period), instead of focusing on making money. Walk before you run

Mike

Big Mike 

AzTrader, I am extremely proud of you and this thread! No miracle cures, no holy grail, just hard work, determination, and relentless pursuit of your passion. You learned from your mistakes, you listened to others and took advice and made tweaks. Even on days you lost money, you learned valuable lessons and you applied them. You didn't walk in circles, you pressed onward and broke the mold, continuing your development and that all led to making money. I look forward to your live trading. I don't mean to be a bummer, but I would suggest that your goal be to not lose money in live trading (say over a 30 day period), instead of focusing on making money. Walk before you run Mike

Thank you for the kind words. My primary goal for the first week is to just try and have the same mental focus and stability as I did in sim. Anything above that will be a major win. I will also be looking to keep the losses small. My stats show I make 3.62 ticks every time I pull the trigger. That is a comforting stat.

After the first week, assuming I am still alive and have money in my account, I will begin to look toward slowly increasing the account. By the end of the month, I would like to have put at least $1000 extra dollars in there. That's $50 a day. I do think I can do much more, but I agree, the first goal is not to lose to much money or at least break even.

I will be trading exactly the way I have been trading, hopefully better but with the same system, etc. I also intend to treat my actual account as though it only has $1000 in it.

My money management will add cars only when I have enough money to withstand 3 full losses in a row at the new higher contract size and still be able to trade at the lower contract size comfortably. This means I will be compounding slower than I wanted, but its smarter in the long run.

See you next week.

It's good to have those stats.

They can keep you grounded, and can act as a reminder. If you have a bad day or two, you don't go jumping to conclusions about a changing market or method, instead you should analyze your trades and see how they compare to your larger sample of sim trades the prior month. If things are off, like average time in position, win/loss dollar ratio, win percentage, your MAE and MFE, etc etc, then you know its likely execution and can focus (like you said) on that.

Have a good weekend,
Mike

aztrader9 

Hello and goodbye. Hello to cash trading, goodbye to comfortable sim trading. Next month, I will continue this thread with live money. I will post my trades of course but not my account balances for obvious reasons. I will however, post a weekly profit and loss summary so you can at least see how the profit picture looks. I will also continue to post my charts and daily debriefs. Hopefully this time next month I can write a similarly positive report. Until next week..................

Great Stuff there Arizona,


Looking forward to reading further posts of your upcoming transition and again well done for tackling what you set out to do and have done.

aztrader I like the simplicity of your set ups, what is the violet line on your charts, a moving average? Best of luck trading real money.