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Strange day today. It's cloudy, rainy and we have a holiday in Austria. Not a single car or human being out there and I feel like this day doesn't even exist. Missed one trade in the morning that I should have taken, because I just overlooked it. Peeked one second on the chart and and declared it "insignificant". Should have better declared myself "lazy".
Also realized that I have to always keep the same scale-range on my big-pic chart, because that's also a source for perception mistakes.
Noticed some of those "instant dumps" today. I remember when they occured the last time this was the beginning of the end. Gotta keep an eye on them if they're trying to tell me something or if they just occur randomly.
Moved stop 5 times
Win: +16.25P / +65 Ticks
Prom-Queens
No fresh entry and didn't even looked for further ones. Zero motivation for anything today and already the entire weekend.
Moved stop in Trade #5 and Trade #7
Got out of most of the dirt with my MES trades, but lately they started to work almost all too well again.
Now, gotten a bit smarter I'd say probably a bit more than half of the decline were emotional mistakes. But the market also started to go more sideways, which chopped me up quite a bit.
This market-phase will come again, that's for sure and I have to accept those losses that come with it, but also trust my gut a bit when it's maybe better to stay out and not trade every mediocre signal.
Another challenge will be going back up to 3 contracts again, because the next time I go up, I gotta stay there. Won with 1 and 2 contracts in the MES, lost everything with three contracts. Won again with two contracts in the MES and gave back again with my prom-queens.
Slowly but surely it's time that it starts to pay off a bit moneywise!
Stayed out of the market. Did a quick drop after the open and stayed above the previous significant low, but I noticed the tight, kinda sideways stacking price action that already started to a degree in premarket and that this is where I gotta stay out. Then dropped a bit, but is just one of those low-range days, where there is nothing in for me.
Prom-Queens
Exit Trade #8
10min
This was also one of the cleaner hourly-charts. Interesting is also, that chart #3 which looked the most clean and perfect, performed almost the worst even after I got stopped out, whereas some of the more "sloppy" charts seem to perform quite well.
I think I declare too many charts I'm looking at for trades, too fast as not suited. In the end it's likely more just the plain number of trades I execute and not even so much the exact way the charts look.
Probably I can expect from about 5% of the trades to work out very well, maybe 10% mediocre and the rest just those typical annoying junkers. But it starts to sink more and more into my brain that trading just isn't meant to be fun, it's actually work!
Yesterday's sideways market continues. Not going to force mediocre shit here. Noticed 2 or 3 instant dumps after the cash open today and also in premarket it showed signs of not favoring my setup with unusual straight drops and moving with "no substance behind the moves"
Prom-Queens
More motivation today scanning through charts. It's amazing how I found a lot of charts that appeared to be worth a trade today just because of better general mood. I have to also remind myself that the reason for those trades is testing and getting a feel and not for making profit.
Entry Trade #9
Big picture
10min
Entry Trade #10
Big picture
10min
I do thought "Man you're buying right at the top of a straight spike, that appears just foolish", but on the other hand especially in these trades the entry is just "for the sake of entering" and this thing spiking straight while the overall market is chopping sideways is probably a good sign of inherent strength of this ticker.
In trade #6 it paid off leaving the stop on the long leash, but mostly they are just all going sideways today.
Appeared to start to have direction in the late premarket. Thought about giving it a try, but decided not to under the thought "I don't have to be the first one in it". After cash-open it broke above the previous day's high and I got in for a continuation of the spike.
Big pic
Moved stop once
Loss: -2.75P / -11 Ticks
Trade #92
Re-entry still under the same assumption of continuation
Big pic
Blasted me out with 3 Ticks slippage into an out of nowhere dump. After that again sideways market. Maybe tomorrow something for me.
Moved stop once
Loss: -2.50P / -10 Ticks
Prom-Queens
Entry Trade #11 (Re-entry of trade #8)
Big picture
Still above the lows.
10min
Entry Trade #12 (Re-entry of trade #1)
Big picture
10min
Should have re-entered already earlier, but have issues of keeping track of all those tickers. Right after the open I traded the MES and got executed in 3 stocks almost simultaneously. Accidentally bought additional shares here when I wanted to put my stop in. This mistake actually pissed me more than a loss. Noticed that I came slightly into "brain overload mode" with having to deal with too many things all at once.
Entry Trade #13 (Re-entry of trade #4)
Big picture
10 min
If I remember it correctly I didn't want to re-enter here earlier because it made a slightly lower low, but then again a higher low, so I'm in.
Moved stop for the 2nd time in trade #5. This also had a pretty large gap-up today and is still spiking further
Trade #10 from yesterday where I entered into into a "foolish spike" had a nice gap up today which it is holding for now.
Also moved stop in trade #6 for the 2nd time
8 trades on the line at the moment, which is close to my limit of still having some sort of overview what each one is doing. But the good thing is, it definitely prevents from overanalyzing or even thinking of doing spontaneous shit.
Moved stop once
Duration: 6 Tradingdays
Result: +0.89R
Wondering if I should have followed tighter with my stop. For now I'm more on the side of wanting to give them more room to breathe. At times pretty difficult determining which one the actual trend is I'm trading.
Premarket trade. Broke above its high with a noticeable, quick spike yesterday, so I entered speculating that the sidways phase could be over and it starts to trend again.
But it didn't. 4th day without making some kind of range. Very, very slow today
Big pic
Moved stop once
Win: +1.00P / +4 Ticks
Prom-Queens
Also nothing special. This is the Friday before the Memorial-Day weekend. Maybe that's part of the reason why it seems that there is just nothing going on today.
Moved stop in trade #8 for a few cents
Conclusions after 2 months trading the MES and sticking to my method as honest as possible
I'm slowly starting to gain confidence into what I'm doing and I think that I have an edge that has a good probability to keep working over the long run. Of course this edge looks in its entirety not exactly what I would like it to be, but I just DON'T GIVE A FUCK anymore!!!
I'd like to trade more often, I'd like the gains being more evenly distributed, I'd like to have 100% clear rules when I make a trade and when not, but that ain't gonna happen.
Yes I confess, I was the guy who tracked the volume of each of the first 3 one minute candles after the open in penny stocks and yes I've tried to build mathematical formulas based on the weirdest percentages I've measured out of charts and this list goes on and on.
Whether you're a perfectionist or you're a completlely slob, those are both bad qualities and the market will force you into building a better balance.
When I got into trading I thought about wanting to become the best and wanting to make big bucks, but I had no idea what this really meant and assumed that both are the same.
The market is an imperfect, uncertain and uncomfortable environment and that will never change and if being the best means being perfect, that won't happen because it's not in the realm of possibilities of what is achievable in the market.
It is a constant state of kinda when you jump from a bit higher hight from a springboard into the pool. The feeling when you are in the air and you are glad when you finally land in the water and have back control again.
In trading you have to live with just being in the air!
I could go on for the next 10 years trying to find ways to avoid that state and to make my trading "more complete", but I would feel like a donkey chasing a carrot in front of my head and just never getting it. And while chasing, I probably could have made already a bunch of "imperfect pain in the ass money".
I've had my first success now, since I started trading, in the MES and I'll stick to it. And my goal is not becoming the MES-jack and trading every frickin move it does like a hero, but sitting on my ass until I see a situation I think favors a trade for me and then do it. If I go deeper into my mind, the only reason for doing more trades and trading more different moves, is just me being scared of size and trying to get my risk more distributed between trades and still making the same amount of money in the same period of time. But that's not how it works for me. Some people are good at trading the same setup in a variety of markets, but for me it's not the exact setup, but the specific behaviour of the market I'm trading in.
So my goal for the next months is increasing my size step by step and keep doing what I'm doing in the MES.
And for my Prom-Queens, they keep me busy and are a good training for accepting imperfection, so I'll go on with them also in the same manner, but my main focus is definitely the MES.
They are my swing-trades in stocks. I'm trying to trade the same chart set-ups in a large number of stocks and look how they perform. I think there's a chance of getting into a nice trend every now and then and if so it would be interesting if it's overall profitbale and worth the risk of having a good junk of capital in the market at all times.
Another huge part is also to keep myself feeling productive when the MES decides to just go sideways day after day.
Did this trade under the thought that it dropped kinda too much for a reversal and shooting back up, but I also didn't want to miss it if it does.
Saw some instant dumps, so maybe this also lowered the odds.
Loss: -3.00P / -12 Ticks
Prom-Queens
Exit Trade #9
Big picture
10 min
Loss: -1.05R
Exit Trade #13
Big picture
10min
Loss: -1.0R
Going to let the remaining Prom-Queens play out, but won't open any new trades.
Not so much because of the losses, but because I think I understand such things as "profitable trading has to be boring" and "how much money you make is not a function of how much you trade" now.
In the end, it probably doesn't matter how much markets, or time-frames or setups I trade, just the right attitude is key.
