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With the trade criteria outlined yesterday, I jumped into the 1st trade I saw today just after the open.
I closed manually just before the full 10pts, but it actually hit 10pts just seconds later.
Question:
What does everyone look at when deciding to close a profitable position before the target?
This is awkward but shortly after the loss, another setup appeared. I didn't take it, but it did go for +10pts.
This setup can alternatively also be viewed as the opposite of the lesson from the previous loss. Hmmmm...... Perhaps better to just ignore both this winner and the previous loser?
Lesson: In previous setups the peaks of each leg were within 1 point of each other, but in this case it was a little more. Going to make this a soft criteria as long as the rest of the setup is strong, don't want to miss this trade again.
Edit: Very similar to the setup from yesterday, screenshot below. Peaks are roughly 30 minutes apart. Will be looking to take these in the future
3rd and final trade. I closed out the trade early because of my toilet paper hands and recoup previous loss but the trade did continue moving towards the profit target.
Looks like at 4pm there's some auto closing of positions.
Question: Does anyone know if Ninjatrader requires full margin after 4pm or is it after 4:15pm?
Lesson: Configure NT to auto close position at 3:59 and 55 seconds
Final trade today:
Yesterday's closing trade also rapidly approached the 10pt profit target and saw a sell off at 4pm with auto close. In the future, I'm going to find my balls and not close these positions manually until the auto close at 3:59:55, or the stop is hit.
Every time the trade is manually closed, it hits the full profit target. Every time I hold out, it doesn't and gets stopped out. Today is the perfect example.
Can anyone recommend what they do to deal with this?
Trailing stops?
Other indicator?
Feel the market?
I "felt" the market today, and closed the profitable position before the target... and it was the correct move! Although i was filled with fear and this is probably luck.... feels like I'm learning something from last Tuesday, but probably not...
Is it just me, or is there something to trading the open/near the open that seems very predictable?
Like if you look around 9:30am EST everyday, it looks to me like there is a very repeatable pattern.
It is hard to put into words... i tried typing it out but reading it back sounds stupid.
Expanding on the triple support/resistance, the price moves until the range of the 2nd bar from the previous peak, then reverses. The same thing happened Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Today! For the profit target, either 10pts or watch for reversal when price enters the range of the 2nd bar of the previous peak.
Today:
Wednesday:
Tuesday (should have closed out early or reversed at 9:37, but similar triple resistance with pricing reversing at the range of the 2nd bar from previous peak):
Monday (ignore my shitty trades, look at 9:45 instead):
Accept the randomness of every moment and learn to live with uncertainty. The main job of a trader is to manage risk and the uncertainty that comes along with that.
If you hate it, stop -- you can't make money in the long run doing something you hate.
"Feeling the market" is certainly important for many people, but it looks like you may want to incorporate some structure. Looks like you are just zooming in, looking for the pattern, and firing away. That's okay to some degree, and anything that makes money is great, but you'll eventually see that the market changes, and if you have no context to frame it in, you will have a difficult time adapting with it.
Hi Josh, I suspect you are right and made multiple Josh inspired adjustments.
To live with the randomness and uncertainty, I've changed the ATM to this:
This ATM is no longer a 5:1 risk reward, but ends up being closer to 2:1. It requires 2 contracts, and typically the loss is around -$300 or a gain of around +$700 or something in between.
To incorporate some structure, I've downloaded the supply demand zone indicator from nexusfi.com
Next, I've decided to only trade 9:35am - 10am EST. (less over trading and more time for happy personal life)
At open, I do not guess if the market is going up or down. Instead I'll look at the supply demand zone indicator. If many zones, than this might be a range open where it bounces between the red and green zones. Otherwise, might be a trend day where at open it just takes off in one direction.
For a range open, I'll wait until it bounces off one of the zones (typically in the first few minutes after open). Then around 9:35 - 9:40, it bounces again in the real direction the market will breakout through.
The ATM is very helpful here because if I go into the position at the wrong bounce, it often will reach the 5pt profit target to at least pay for the trade, before reversing.
Reading the above list sounds a bit like gibberish, but it makes sense to me!
Anyways, here are the trades from this week, for a +65 tick total.
6/15 Monday - range day, did not pull the trigger on any trades but would have worked
6/16 Tues - Trend open, no trade opportunities (need to study these more)
6/17 Wed - Took the 1st bounce at 9:30, breaking my rules for not waiting, and lost. Slapped myself in the face for not waiting until the 2nd bounce around 9:35, and entered another trade after the next bounce, which this time did workout
6/18 Thurs - Waited patiently for the 2nd bounce, and it was the perfect timing! However I closed out the position early because it was near a red zone and started reversing.
I've begun reading through Big Mike's journal, and will link posts that I find helpful and want to come back to here.
Initially starting this journal, I was hoping someone would look at my charts and tell me they've already tried it or tweaking something in the ATM would be the secret to becoming profitable. Obviously that is not going to happen. Thus I don't think there is much value in documenting the daily PnL or showing the chart. Perhaps if there is something special to show, or ask a specific question then there could be value in showing the chart.
Concepts From The Daily Trading Coach by Brett Steenbarger (:
- Identify what you did BEST yesterday
- Set a POSITIVE goal, based on your strengths, for today
For me, an example of this would be "Yesterday, I did a fantastic job of only taking with-trend …
This post resonates with me right now. Over the years, I've always had a daily $ profit target... and predictably ended in blown up accounts. It is too much pressure have a daily $ target.
So instead, I'm going to say that today I did a fantastic job at being patient and waiting for my entry.
My goal for tomorrow is to have the patience to do the same thing again.
