7-April
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Total Profit : 6 ticks (1 trades)
Entry Price : 109.14 (Short)
Reason for entry : Inside Bar on 5 minutes chart. Good breakouts through i/b in morning. So decided to scalp.
Profit Target : First Target : 5 ticks. Second Target : 10 ticks
Stop : 17 ticks (1 tick above i/b)
Exit : +5+1 ticks
Reason for Exit : Profit Target.
Quality of execution : Good entry as per my i/b rules. Moved second target to BE+1 after first target achieved. Little bit nervous during trade.

Beside this I did couple of SIM trades that gave me 50+ ticks and no losers. unbelievable.

I missed to post performance of Friday so doing it today.
8-April
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Total Profit : -20 ticks (1 trade TF)
There was an inside bar on TF 15 minutes chart. I thought it's a good opportunity because previous inside bar break was nice. But I did this trade in little hurry and missed support line seating below inside bar. I shorted and price moved up from support line resulting in my stop loss. I did two mistakes : (1) Missed to see support line. (2) My stop was bigger then profit target.

11-April
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Total Profit : 12 ticks (6S, 2 trades)
First Trade : 0 ticks
Entry Price : 1.1015
Exit : BE
Profit : 0 ticks
Reason : I missed a swing resistance break @ 1.1009. So I tried to enter @1.1015. But then soon I got scared when 6S started moving in negative territory. So I bailed out @BE.

Second Trade : 12 ticks
There was another swing line @1.1021. So I went long @ 1.1022.
Entry Price : 1.1021
Profit Target : 12 ticks
Stop : 16 ticks
Reason for Exit : Profit Targeted.
Quality of execution : Good. I was confident enough that 6S will reach atleast 1.1032.It went up to 1.1037 and then came back..

12-April
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Total Profit : -15 ticks (3 trades)
First Trade : -15 ticks (CL)
CL made a sharp move in morning. I thought it's a good opportunity to make quick profit. I decided to gamble. 107.00 was a major price mark. So I shorted @106.98 with 15 tick stop and 50 tick profit target. But CL was too quick to gamble. It took my order and hit my stop in a blink of my eye.

Second Trade : 0 ticks (6S)
6S was trending a bit in morning. There was a swing line @1.1142. But I missed to short, so decided to short at second swing line @1.1137. Profit target was 17 ticks with stop of 15 ticks. Entry was good. It wend up to +10 ticks but then it came back. I moved my stop to BE and it got hit.

Third Trade : 0 ticks (6S)
Almost same kind of trade as second one. There was a swing line @1.1157. But I missed to go long, so decided to enter at second swing line @1.1162. Profit target was 10 ticks with stop of 10 ticks. Entry was good. It wend up to +5 ticks but then it came back. I moved my stop to BE and it got hit.

13-April
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Total Profit : 1 tick (1 order, 6S)
Price action was awful today. I missed to short on a swing line @1.1180, so decided to short on second swing line @1.1169. 10 ticks profit target and 10 ticks stop. But 6S did not move for a while. So I exited at BE+1. I have noticed that when I try to enter at second swing line after missing first, it usually do not work well. May be I should look for entries on first swing line only.

18-April
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Total Profit : 15 ticks (6S, 1 trade)
After a sharp move up in morning, 6S started coming down slowly. It cut through 2 swing lines nicely. So I thought behavior is good enough to enter a short swing trade. I drew a swing support line @1.1131 and shorted @1.2130 with 15 ticks stop and 15 ticks profit target. 6S broke as expected and 15 ticks were targeted easily. I did one exception today is not to wait for swing line.

Hi Guys,
Sorry for not updating my journal for a long long time. This is mostly because of my busy work and family schedules. I have been on and off trading during this time.

I have not been successful so much with my live trading. But trading is something that keeps me interested and represents new challenges everyday and so far I am enjoying it. It has forced me to understand myself and it brings out biggest havoc inside me. I haven't made money but I have learned a lot about myself in just first year of my trading career.

My goal for starting this journal again is to keep me disciplined when I am trading and learn about my psychological patterns in trading and real life. Recently I have been working on an automated strategy. My initial discretionary method of trading works fine. But problem with that is it needs too much attention and analysis. My day job interferes with that and over time I have found that it does not work well with a full time job. In my next post I will discuss about my strategy.

-Safin

In this post I would like to discuss about my trading plan. I am trading CL using an Automated Strategy. But I am just trading in SIM mode for atleast next two months. I am not going to trade this strategy live until it's proven to be profitable. This strategy is not fully automated. Everyday night I study daily chart for CL and try to understand next day moves. If I feel that CL is ranging or in a chop, I would not trade next day. I keep studying CL chart several times during the day when strategy is running. If any time I see that CL is not trending or in a chop, I stop my strategy from running. Over time I have found that my strategy works best when CL is trending.

Now about my auto strategy. Although I am not going to share strategy code here, but I think there is no reason to keep it secret because it depends on my discretionary decisions.

Trade Rules
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- Strategy trades 5 minutes chart and look for inside bar breakout on CL.
- Profit target and Stop Loss are equal to length of Inside Bar. Hence 1:1 PnL ratio.
- Move stop to BE after 50% move in profit direction.
- Do not trade during news time and lunch times. This is coded in strategy.
- Do not trade around daily and weekly pivots. This is coded in strategy.
- Do not trade during choppy market. This is discretionary.
- Daily maximum profit goal of 40 ticks. No minimum goal. This is coded in strategy.
- Daily maximum loss allowed is 30 ticks. Strategy stops trading after that.
- Weekly profit goal of 40 ticks. Stop trading for the week once achieved.
- I do not trade when I am not ready mentally. For example during heavy workload at my day job, I would just stop trading because it affects my chart analysis.

Reason for using an automated strategy is to free myself from looking at the chart all the time and have less stress. It also eliminates fear of pulling the trigger or doing over trades. Although I review CL chart frequently during day time. But it's far less stressful.

Wanted to share my CL charts from yesterday and today. My chart template is inspired by Jeff's Three Setup. Yellow and white bars are Inside bars. When IB bar length is between 10 and 30 ticks, it paints IB as yellow bar. When IB bar length is more that 30 or less than 10 ticks, it paints IB as white. My strategy do not trade those. More than 30 ticks is unaffordable for my money management. Less than 10 ticks bar on CL is usually misleading. Pink dotted horizontal line represents weekly resistance (WR1). Yellow dotted line is daily pivot(PV). Blue dotted lines are major price marks like 89.00, 89.50, 89.75, 90 etc.

Blue bars are outside bars(OB). I don't trade OB.

I got 22 ticks on one IB yesterday. I missed entry on first IB bar because of fast moving market. Today I did not trade. I felt market was stalling prices and I usually avoid trading on Fridays unless market is trending with high volume. Also attached is today's chart.

PS: You can see labels like WINNER, LOSER etc on my charts. They are not real trades, but they tell if it was a WINNER in case I traded them. My strategy do not trade all IBs. Just the one that are not close to S/R or pivots. Gray background on chart represents news time or lunch time. Black background represents normal trade time.

Ok, I had some questions but read them in the post above!