My Name is Michael. I trade the MES/ES on NinjaTrader. This is my story.

Like a lot of people I started looking at trading right around the time that Game Stop started blowing up, and like a lot of people I got on the Reddit and the Facebook groups and started to read what all the fuss was about. Initially I had the thought that I was going to take 500 bucks and buy whatever shares I could just in case it "went to the moon" and as I waited for my first broker to settle the funds I deposited, I read more online content. One post caught my eye.

I wish now I would have copied and kept that post so that I could be verbatim, but the essence of the post posited that there were a lot of people getting into a game they knew nothing about, and had the gall to talk about the game online like they did. This was a AH-HA moment for me, for I realized that I knew nothing about the game that I was about to play. I didn't end up investing in Game Stop, instead I started looking for a better way to invest my money.

It wasn't long until I found mere mortals could trade other things, instruments like futures. After watching a butt-load of YouTube. I remember vividly the the rush that I felt when I watched this one YouTuber getting his butt handed to him by the ES, telling me to just stay away, and another one scalping 3 or 4 points a day with his elaborate traps and candle stick patterns. This was my second AH-HA moment.

What proceeded has been nothing less than a full frontal meth-like fueled blitzkrieg of the internet to obtain the sacred knowledge that will level me up to full blooded traderhood. If you choose to read this journal, I'll take you on the ride.

I can't imagine you'll find another like it, and therein might be its value.

You have the enthusiasm, my only advice would be to take it slowly and start trading sim in a realistic fashion, ie mimicking the number of contracts and risk you will take with a funded account.
If you can make some profit there consistently for a while, not just a few lucky days, then start trading real money as small as you can.

Not meant as a dampener on your spirit, but the Gamestop blowup was only a few months back so you haven't had much time for practical experience yet or to have settled on a trading methodology, style, timeframe, product that suits you.
There is loads of time to make money once/if you gain consistency, most people never make it that far because they are too impatient and start too quickly so losing what small amount of capital they had to start with.

Either way, I hope it goes well.

My name is Michael and I am a currently coal miner.

I used to be a welder. Really, welding is an art form itself, it takes years to master, and if I'm really honest with myself, I'm a mediocre welder at best. I lost my welding job in 2015. It was stressful time, but like so many things in life, change happens, and sometimes its for the best. I took a temp job at this mine in the processing plant and found that I enjoyed the work.

One of the duties here in the plant is loading coal into trains. The tasks requires one to sit in a booth and push a button which opens a chute at the bottom of silo full of coal so that coal can flood the train car beneath it. When the car is full, you push the button to close the chute. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Its way harder that it sounds. If you mess up you make a huge mess. Everybody who's ever done it has messed up at least once. For me, learning how to load trains literally changed the way I fundamentally think. I had to learn to focus solely on loading while I was loading and clear my mind of any other thoughts. I learned that I think about a lot of dumb sh*t a lot of the time, and how to stop that when I wanted to.

What does this have to do with trading? Its the skills that I acquired welding and working in a coal mine, among others, these are my edge, and mine alone. I think its the same for everyone, that we already have the best tools for conquer the markets already in us. I have found that trading to be a nuanced affair. I wonder at those that those that preach of the mechanistic approach because its so contrary to how I trade and my results in back and forward testing. But for all that I cannot question another's trading paradigm. We all look at the same markets, yet interact with them each in our own way. Trading it appears, is highly subjective.

What I did not expect in when I set out to learn to trade, is just how much I would learn about myself. The market does not pity a fool, nor will let you profit from your self delusions. I found that I was in fact, painful as it may be, a coward, too afraid to take chances, trust my trade ideas, and early on took losses because I set my stop loss too tight to avoid loss. Early on the market punished me for my cowardliness. I soon realized that if I wanted to be profitable , I would have to make DEEP changes, and it was all up to me.

My personal motto has become- The only truth I know for certain, is I don't know what I don't know. Perhaps the most valuable commodity that the market has yet yielded is a chance for me to better understand me. I think that this is the primary reason that so many fail in trading. True personal growth is hard.

I am Michael, and this is how I see the market.

When I say market, I'm specifically talking about the MES/ES. I've only to this point focused on these particular futures. Its the first instruments that I saw on YouTube that I thought could fulfill my wants. Had the first video in the que been NQ centric, I might have started there. That's fate for you. I think that mathematically the NQ is actually more profitable, and should I master the ES, the NQ where will I go next. At this point in time I am unaware of any other instrument or market other than the index futures where a person can double the amount of capitol risked in so short a move, i.e. x number of contracts moves one point. Those other markets may be out there, but this is where I have chosen to make my stand. I am one of those kids who took apart his toys to see how they work. As an adult I still look to see how the parts interact to make the whole. If I was wordy AF I would call this approach something badass, like 'holistic reduction', but really its just what I do. My current understanding the market stems from this kind of reasoning. Here's what I'm thinking.

The only thing I know for certain about the MES/ES is that the price will move higher and/or lower, and everything else is merely a probability. Trading thus becomes an exercise in determining at what time will the price move, which direction, and how far will it go. The success of a trader MUST depend on taking these factors into account.

I will post more on this shortly. Right now I have to get ready for yet another fun filled night shift in a coal mine. If your curious as to why I've hit it so hard, living & breathing futures near constantly, in so short a time, this is your answer. I revere those I work with. I enjoy to an extent the work related challenges, but I have no love for the servitude.

Its never been about just the money. Its about freedom.

How I see the market continued...


Love and Rockets sang exactly how I feel about the market in their seminal classic "No New Tale to Tell"

You cannot go against nature
Because when you do
Go against nature
It's part of nature too
Our little lives get complicated
It's a simple thing
Simple as a flower
And that's a complicated thing

The nature of the market is to facilitate trade. The price both rises and falls. and all you need to do in order to profit is go with it, because you lose otherwise. Its a simple thing. simple as just correctly choosing higher or lower, but the markets a complicated thing.

Or does it really need to be? The answer will always be- are you making money, and for how long?
May you make more than you lose my friend.

I can only control my side of the interaction between the market and I. To know that its moving is enough for me to proceed with a plan to profit from it. I understand that there is risk in that, and I'm ok with that. There's risk in literally everything. I also know that often greater risks lead to greater rewards. Part of being an adult is knowing how much risk to take on.

Next, the trade plan.

I am Michael Roth, and this is My Trade Plan.

Do you realize that if you take a penny and double it every day for a month you will end up with over a million dollars? I didn't know this until recently. Interestingly it was around the same time that I found about trading futures. Maybe its serendipity, but what became clear to me around that time was that the compounding effect as shown by the penny example very well could be a reality in futures trading. As with everything, time will ultimately tell. This is what originally got me excited about the futures, especially the indexes. Fast forward to the present, now that I have spent a great deal of time figuring out the basics, stuff like which platform to use, what broker, and the not-so-basics, stuff like what is the daily range of the ES, or what strategy should I use, to the esoteric, like why am I holding myself back, why am I scared, I'm getting very close to making my run first attempt at trading for real.

The cornerstone of my trading plan centers around consistency and compounding. A one point trade can be worth anything depending on the number of contracts traded. If a person consistently took just one point a week he or she would be for all practical purposes- profitable, and if that person kept adding it all back into their brokerage account sizing up their position accordingly, then that person would become even more profitable still. This is the base logic behind my plan, but instead of taking one point a week I will be aiming for 10 to 40. So why that range?

If a person where to consistently make a measly 10 ES points a week, mind you that's just 2 points a day, and compound that by doubling the number of contracts on a monthly basis, That person would have grossed just over a million dollars in just under a year. Is it possible? absolutely. Is it probable? From all accounts thus far it seems unlikely, but we are talking about taking TWO FREEKING ES POINTS A DAY. That's the thing. 2 points a day, five days a week for 44 weeks. That my friends would be consistent AF. However, I don't see myself talking points in exactly this fashion. Due to my style and strategy, and time constraints, in order to maintain consistency, the plan is to measure point taken on a weekly basis with the goal being 10-40, the scale being 10 good, 20 better and 40 best. Initially I will be aiming for the 10 points a week, and will stop trading when I reach this goal.

To validate the plan idea I will take it live against the MES for one month. If I'm able to meet my goal weekly goal for 4 straight weeks then I will transition to the ES in month 2. If I fail to reach my goal but am still profitable for the week I will set my time horizon back one week in regards to contract sizing, and if I am not profitable for a week I will drop back to a single contract until I once again reach my 10 point goal on a weekly basis.

That's it. That's the plan. Do I really think I'll make it to a million? Possibly. Its just 2 points a day away.

Trade results from today. Had this been the live account I would be 307 days away from being a millionaire. This short journal entry is to establish the methods that I will be tracking my trades on a daily/weekly basis. On trading days I will be posting trade performance recaps, and I'm thinking I'll do a weekly review. I'm starting working on how I will track individual trade today, & I'm finalizing strategy.

compounding doesn’t work so well once you start making a few thousand a day, much harder to keep going larger especially if you are not used to making that before you started trading

Second day of prepping to go live with THE PLAN.

This looks like some more back and forth than it really was, and even though it looks like a winning day, it really isn't. Commissions on the MES would have made this a small loser. I've been bedazzled by @icedfrosty 's zombie candle strategy and I keep trying to use it. The problem is, I don't know how to use it! In time I hope to reach out to him and probe the secrets of the Zombie Pack and Tick hunter because they look like they have some really well thought out trading mythology behind them, but is WAY different than how I trade right now. Part of what I love about trading is the learning and doing of new things. I think that this can be a double edged sword- both leading to and taking away from profit. Lessons for today are stick with the game plan because its a good plan and should prove profitable. Also its OK to experiment, but do it in its own place and time.

My strategy needs a little more polish and use before I go live so I will be working on that next.

michaelroth 

Second day of prepping to go live with THE PLAN. This looks like some more back and forth than it really was, and even though it looks like a winning day, it really isn't. Commissions on the MES would have made this a small loser. I've been bedazzled by @icedfrosty 's zombie candle strategy and I keep trying to use it. The problem is, I don't know how to use it! In time I hope to reach out to him and probe the secrets of the Zombie Pack and Tick hunter because they look like they have some really well thought out trading mythology behind them, but is WAY different than how I trade right now. Part of what I love about trading is the learning and doing of new things. I think that this can be a double edged sword- both leading to and taking away from profit. Lessons for today are stick with the game plan because its a good plan and should prove profitable. Also its OK to experiment, but do it in its own place and time. My strategy needs a little more polish and use before I go live so I will be working on that next.

Happy to chat about the secrets of the Zombie Pack and TickHunter...if you would like a walkthrough...just reach out...