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IMHO I think your journey will end and succes will come when you finally realize that using other peoples systems and books don't cut it. The answer lies only between you and the market you trade. Each market has it's own distinct personality and until you get down to really dig in and become one with it's character the more successful you will become.
I couldn't agree with you more on creating and perfecting my own system. I am still in the process of perfecting it. The only books I read now are on trading psychology. IMO that is 90% of the game and I know that I have a lot to improve with the psychology side of my trading performance. Making personal changes with oneself is more difficult than anyone can imagine. I have been the way I am for 48 years now and to change the way I feel, think and believe with external information takes time, perseverance and practice.
I really appreciate your feedback and welcome more from anyone willing to provide positive and constructive feedback.
My goal for the day was to take no more than 3 to 5 trades today and for now on. I wanted to stop by 12 noon EST to workout before lunch at 1:00PM. I started out this morning with a beautiful CT trade at the 1144 resistance level. Executed the entry perfectly and stayed in the trade to hit both targets. Good way to start the week. Not to mention that both NY Jets and Giants won impressively yesterday. Sorry!!! So I only need one more trade to hit my daily objective. Then the down trend came and went from being +3 pts to -7 pts on the next 3 losing trades. I'm not a good trend trader. I had removed the EMA indee over the weekend. I like my charts clean. I draw trend channels, but could not find an entry to save my life. I re-populated the EMA and I see that it can help me with making trend entries. So I guess for now it will stay on my charts. I like taking CT trades off of extremes but didn't work for me today. Even a B/O area at the LOD didn't work out for me.
I would really appreciate any feedback anyone can offer that may help on trending days and how you find your entries. I know for me it's a psychological thing for me to go against certain levels where I normally take CT entries. I believe I have the right concept of things and look at volume, Dom and T&S when we reach those levels, but that to me is a science in itself. And I am still learning to read it all. I traded on Sim today because I was just not totally confident on Monday's. Something to work on. My trade journal is in the attached excel.
Ryan, the question becomes -- did you have a bad day because your method simply didn't find any winners? Or was it a bad day because you poorly executed on your method?
Answer that first, then identify very specific things you can do to improve in that area. Max of two or three items on the list, to focus on every single day, then at the end of the day grade yourself from A-F on those two or three things. The grade is derived from the EXECUTION of the specific item you wanted to improve on -- not from the end or net result of the trade or day.
I think I understand what you're saying. But I believe it is my job to read the market context correctly to have a better understanding of the O&P of my CT trade. So, if everything points for a market continuation then I need to read that and either do one of two things. Stay flat until the market has the O&P to reverse or go with the trend. This only comes from experience.
Although my strategy is a CT trader. Again, I need to be flexible so to speak and look for opportunities for trend trading.
Today ended up worse than yesterday. But a valuable lesson was learned or at least I hope so. I took several ss CT trades and by the time I understood the context and realized that the weak bounces off the HOD was saying the sellers were too weak for this market to go short it was too late to get back in the game. At most the bounces would only provide a 1.5 winning trade and that depends on entry and exit. Looking at the 5 min chart price never broke the EMA enough to take any short trades. So what happened? Why didn't I see this long before the end of the day? PSYCHOLOGICALLY I was biased and afraid to fight the HOD. I had 1144 and 1152 as resistance levels. And when I saw hesitations with PM I entered short.
I wrote down my thoughts and self talk when I was in some of my trades and here are some of what I was thinking and feeling.
1) I was predicting the market, ss biased because of gap below. Had some regret for taking trade.
2) Scared when price jumped 2 ticks against me and the T&S spinning with volume increase.
3) PM seemed favorable jumped back in with confidence.
4) I knew the trade was a loser, but just let it stop me out.
After some personal observation I believe that there are a few things going on with me. At least for today and maybe other days as well.
1) I believe that I have to be right.
2) Emotional fear
3) Given up, don't care!
If anyone is seeing something that I am not observing then please constructive feedback is welcomed and needed.
I always start my day around 7:00AM EST, but never really traded pre-market before. I was reading a few journals this morning and saw that a couple of guys had made some profits on the CL. So of course I take a look at the CL market and its moving better than the ES. I see a support level and reversal bars so I take a long entry, but didn't realize the strategy was setup for trading the ES. So before I could move my targets I got filled on the first target for 3 ticks. I was able to move the second target to 10 ticks and was closed in less than a minute. The trade had another 10 ticks or so. You can believe that I will be watching the CL market every morning for now on. I often wondered how many traded pre-market and what was the best time and market to trade after hours and pre-market hours.
I don't know how many days I would have a nice winning trade on the first trade only to take the next 2 or 3 losing trades. I'm starting to believe that if the first trade is a nice winner then I'm done for the day. It must be greed for the reason I keep on trading. After the first pre-market winner on the CL I wiped that profit away and then got it back after 4 more trades and then the 6th trade killed it and ended up making $16 for the day. Why work harder to make back what you lost or even less when you can be done if the first trade is a decent winner?
I may have to trade at different times to fit in my new schedule. I had a job interview today and I would say my chances are fairly high that I will get the job. It's a marketing and inside sales position, so I will be working during RTH. Maybe after I get comfortable and manage my time I can take my laptop to work and watch the market and look for only high opportunity setups only at extremes. It has been a year since the close of one business and selling the other. Money is going to run out in about 8 to 9 months and I don't want to put the pressure on myself to try to make an income from trading at this point. the other hard part is working for corporate America again. I haven't worked for someone else in years.
I have only been trading the markets for a year now and need more time and experience before trading full time for an income. With my determination and perseverance I know that I will be a consistent trader in the near future. My DNA won't allow me to give up.
I ss off the unemployment news after it hit 1159 which was 1 point off the resistance level for a +3 tick and +1.50 point profit. So now the question is from yesterday should I stop for the day? Because the next 2 or 3 trades could be losers and wipe the profits already made. Well, I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Maybe only make a trade off of extreme levels. Watching this market now rally to 1163.75 it looks like it may be a bullish trend day or are we maybe getting setup? I am going to be very careful with my setups.
I am learning to have more patience with my trading and be more selective on what setups I want to take. There was a level I wanted to go long and price came withing 2 ticks, but I waited. I saw the size on the bid side of the Dom and new the market would get there. Which was 1152, executed the entry perfect and stayed discipline to stay in the trade long enough to hit my second target. Even when price struggled to get there I got filled right to the tick before price came back to the down side. Maybe I got lucky, who knows. Price struggled to get to 1152 with the three previous attempts so I went Long and got filled at 1152.25. Kept a tight stop, one tick below the low because I already had two winning trades and wasn't going to risk more than a few ticks. Once price hit my first target I moved my stop to B/E -1 tick.
I think that I'm getting a better feel for watching the Dom, T&S and volume. And to be honest its a lot of work and very exhausting. But worth the outcome and early finish to my day. So I'm just going to watch and study the market for a little and then read. Excel spreadsheet attached below.
Saw a high O&P setup at a support level and DB and I just pulled the trigger with no hesitation and walked away. I let the trade cook win, lose or draw. I kept a tight stop which was one tick below the low for a six tick stop loss. And got out before the unemployment news. I will post my spreadsheet journal later in the day.
