Day 2.2

Its the second day of my second trade epoch. Yesterday was rough. I've decided to pay homage to this so that when I do become a successful trader I will know in which age it was that I bested my demons and thus finally conquered the financial independence level in this game called life.

So today- it was... interesting. Here you can see where it was that I do what I do. I started out by trading the MNQ (#1.) around 11:00 AM @ 14985.50 to the upside. My reason for taking this trade was that I observed that price kept rejecting off the days open. After the second reject I felt confidant price wouldn't go lower so I took the trade. I took quite a bit of heat. About mid trade I was thinking about either getting out at break even or possibly throwing in the towel for the day, taking a $20-40 loss, but I dropped down to the 30 minute time frame (#3.) and started to see some bullish momentum in the MES, so just before noon I traded MES.



The chart that you are looking at show's where both of these trades where just before noon. Just after noon all four indexes made a significant impulse move to the upside. Because of the volatile nature of the move when my profit level exceeded my daily target I exited both positions. In truth there was still some upside potential to this move, but when this candle did close, it also made a new low for the day.

**Note to Self** Take your daily profit, go home.



If I could trade like this forever I would be some kind of trade God, but I know that its not realistic to expect these results all the time, but that doesn't mean that I cannot make this kind of performance what I strive for.



This may be the beginning of the second epoch, but it was built upon foundations built in the past. How I did what I did today was utilizing some VERY conventional strategy and methods. I think what I keep looking for in my trading is reliability. I may be that conventional is reliable. There is something deep in me that insists on bucking the trend, something dark and rebellious. I'll have to ...work with this going forward if I'm going the conventional route. If I must be rebellious, then let me rebel against the convention that only few ever successfully learn to trade. Let me buck that trend.

The first and most important decision I have to make when I'm trading is whether I am going to buy or sell. How am I going to make that decision? Following market swings must be my first step in determining market bias.

michaelroth 

Mabey this is how I trade, at this point I'm having more questions than answers. What I do know is everything that I have tried so far has not produced the consistency I would need to feel good about moving forward..

"Trying things" will never lead to consistency.

Consistency is achieved by doing one thing, one strategy, over and over until it becomes second-nature.

You have yet to try a strategy based on how markets actually move, that is, legs, levels, and momentum.

I would recommend completely stopping everything you are doing and "re-starting" with the absolute basics of support/resistance/levels/legs/momo.

Build a foundation on top of something that works, build the consistency over time.

michaelroth 

How I did what I did today was utilizing some VERY conventional strategy and methods. I think what I keep looking for in my trading is reliability. I may be that conventional is reliable..

Regarding my last post, notice how when you tried "conventional strategy and methods" it seemed to work?

Stick with what works, FORGET everything else. Seriously, act like you've never heard of trading before and start from the basics.

Your questioning of what all is going on is nearly proof enough that you have a shot at success as most are incapable of critical/rational thinking.

I wish you the best.

2.3

I took this trade at 11;30 on the MNQ because of what I am perceiving as a failure for bulls to push the price any higher than 150000. I am taking some heat right now and am worried by a few things. Worry #1 is that the sequence of candlesticks is wrong. in the last for candles we have UC,IC,OC,OC indicating that this is market indecision. Worry #2 is noon timer fuckery by the giants. I placed my profit target at VWAP because I I have observed that often times we return there by the end of the day, making this trade a reversion to the means play.

When this trade ends I'll finish this post with a wrap up.

2.3 wrap up

I closed out of the above trade when the price exceeded my daily profit target. This is the third day that I have hit my profit target, all in under an hour/day of trading. This is good, because I'm working nights, 12 hour shifts. I got home this morning at 6:00 AM, slept. then woke up the last 2 days in order to trade. These are the kind of trades I will have to make in order to be able to work and trade. I might pontificate more on this tonight, but I am going back to bed- a skill in itself.

For later pontification

This is my trade performance for week 2.1. There is a good chance that I'll have some things to say about it later, when I'm away from my computer. I'm going back to bed.

2.4

Here's what I learned today- take the win, its ok. Like most of this week I went to bed at 6 AM and woke just before noon to trade. After a pretty quick look at the charts I sold MYM on the basis that all the serious buying was done for the day. I subsequently sold MNQ and MES on the same premise, and it was working. So what went wrong? Its simple, I stayed in the position too long. There was a point in these trades where I hit my profit target for the day, and there were ample opportunities to get out in profit along the way. Am I mad about it? Hell no- because I knew what went wrong, it was something I did, and therefore its something that I can fix. Actually, a lot of things went right today.

What went right. #1. Each trade that I opened I set an appropriate stop loss in the correct location and obeyed them. This was something that I have struggled with. What changed is that now I am better able to analyze market swings. Its a new skill for me and will require a little more practice, but I think its also one of those things that when you finally see it, you see it. #2. I read the price action correctly. I was, for a time, in line with the market, rather it was my execution that failed today. #3. I followed my trade plan and practiced proper risk management. This is the big one for me. I can 'take' loss as long as I can justify it. I could write a book about this one, but for now I'll simply state that I don't get too emotional over things when I know what's happening, rather its the unknown that I fear.

Any of you watch the last video I posted? I have, like 12 times this week. The concept it outlines is what is now driving my primary trade condition, which is AM I BUYING OR SELLING? This is it in action.



I don't see myself marking up my charts quite like this in the future, I might go as far as to mark the swing highs & lows. There are still some details that I need to clarify for myself before I can confidently say that I have a strategy, but for the moment I feel confident that I'm now pointed in the right direction.

Today I lost the battle, but I still won the war. Today's losers amounted to $105.31, but I'm still up $92.55 for the week. This make this the best performing week I've traded thus far. My trade plan states that In order for me to consider myself a viable trader, I need to see a net profit of 10 points minimum ES or equivalent weekly. What I am actually aiming for is 40 points a week. Anything in between 10-40 I will consider successful trading, and anything over 40- desert. So by this metric, this week was a success at 18.51 points for the week.



The final take away from today and this week- There is the possibility that I can 'learn on the job'. What I mean by this is that I do see myself transitioning to live trading sooner than later. In my mind I there a just a few details now that need clarification. I'll have to make a list next. All in all it was a great week. I can barely type right now because I just did my first workout of my adult life. If any one out there is interested in adding fitness into your trading regime, you might want to look at getting the X3 bar- I did. I'm Looking forward to one day soon both my account and body getting swole.

8.24.2021

Not a lot of trading going on here. This is my 4 day shifts at work. Up at 4:30 AM mountain, off at 6:30 PM. Eventually I would like to find something to trade "off hours", I'm just not there yet. Because trading is a priority, a lot of my other activities are in their way trade related. These last 2 weeks I've started a rather aggressive weight loss/exercise routine. For me right now, its all about the discipline. I have to go to work, for now.

Plan my work, work my plan

SO, its 8:46 AM here in Wyoming. I am most likely done trading for the day, for the week in fact. My plan was to trade 8 o'clock candles if I was able to determine the bias. I started trading at at around 7:45. I like what I saw happening with the MES and MYM so I bought them just before 8:00. When it turned 8:00 there was MASSIVE volatility, but after seeing that it wasn't going to take out my stops, I let the trades ride. I came back and these 2 trades had hit there profit targets. That puts me $140.46 for the day and week, making this my best week ever. Here's how my charts looked-





Right now all 4 index's have blasted through yesterday's highs. Had I been managing these trades I think that I could have made a lot more money, but that's the thing- its always if I had just done this or just done that. So with that in mind, I am very happy with today's result. Also, because in order for me to become a successful trader, I have to learn how to manage all aspects of life, it would now be wise for me to wrap this up and do some chores so that my girl stays happy. Right now my priority's are trading, my girl, fitness and chores. Lately I have done a pretty good job of not only balancing them, but making respectable gains in all.

Later on but soon, probably this weekend, I plan to upgrade my trading plan using a template provided my convergent trading. I recently watched a video by FuturesTrader71 that made some good points, things that I want to incorporate into my trading. Things that will get me out of SIM and on the road. So, yeah, that's where I'm at. There is literally 100 things that I would like to add here but that would take forever, so I'll just pick the best 2 from this week and leave it at that. The first is this, EVERYTHING is a wave, and everything has a cycle. I think this is the fundamental truth of reality. I'm really big on identifying fundamentals and building off of them to get a better understanding of what's really going on. The second is this. The human body is 'hackable', and if your struggling in life, there is a HUGE benefit in getting your house (your body) in order. I have found this takes WAY less time than I had imagined. Finally, below is the trade performance for the last 2 weeks. These numbers are looking good to me so right now I feel good about the direction my trading is headed. That's it for now.