Tried a bunch of stuff today. Didn't work out. I took 5 trades today. Daily stop trading signal came up in my head. Will due better tomorrow. My system has tight entries and I am fooling around with ticks that are precious. Its like the AT&T commercial, rollover minutes are precious don't throw them away. Ticks are the same way, don't throw them away.

Stats for today
5 actual trades(-4,-1,-2,-4,-4) = -15 - 2(commissions) = -17
1 No fill by 1 ticks ( documenting this to help with entries)
1 passed on. (Mid band rejection)(I decided wisely)

Notes about today - I don't have enough defined rules for new setups. Jumped into them way to early. Going to scale back and just mark them for now, till I see them more clearly. Was aggressive on entries, didn't wait for right timing. I think this was due to missing first trade.

Billy

kylinbyl 

Notes about today - I don't have enough defined rules for new setups. Jumped into them way to early. Going to scale back and just mark them for now, till I see them more clearly. Was aggressive on entries, didn't wait for right timing. I think this was due to missing first trade. Billy

If you have clearly defined entry rules then you can easily measure your actual entries against them. Just don't confuse "clearly defined" with "overly complicated". I have seen some people have 20 step entry rules. Your brain can't handle that, you have to keep it simple. Make sure your rules are attainable (plausible).

Mike

Took 5 trades today. Ended up +3 ticks.

Stats for today
5 actual trades(-4,-4,+4,+7,+2) = +5 - 2(commissions) = +3
1 No fill by 1 ticks ( again missed a trade)

Trade 1
First trade was against strong down movement. Went right against me. I think my stop was at 4 ticks behind last low bar. -4

No fill 1
No fill came when same setup appeared. I was willing to try it again. After uptick on 610, no enough orders to fill me. Touched it a couple of times but then took off. You know you will always get filled on a losing trade, but only sometimes on a winning one. Stops are dynamic. I decided to market order the rest of the day. Stop still goes behind some line. It was sometimes 4,5, or 6 after this no fill. Get in then see where it shouldn't go.

Trade 2
Trade 2 was in the upper area of the chart after a half hour upward run. Had my 2 bar break up, but not enough strength after that. Need to slap my hand as well. Didn't wait for trigger. Results would have been exactly the same, but that is no excuse.

Trade 3
Waited for uptick on 610 chart. Entered by market order. Filled at 1170.50. Went up to 1172.50. Exited at 1171.50. +4

Trade 4
Finally broke the mid band with 2 bars. First bar was not a clean break. Closed right at it. This meant be cautious to me. Waited for entry after double top then entered at 1170.00. Target was filled at 1168.25. +7

Trade 5
Just a 2 tick trade that was a possible reentry area. I will be honest, I got scared out of this trade. I saw numbers in the DOM that are not typical for this time of day. So I closed out the trade. +2.

Notes about today - I am going to try market orders a little more. If I am willing to get in the trade, that means the RvR it there. I move the stop anyways to where it shouldn't go. They are dynamic use them that way.

Quick update today with no chart. I am traveling and traded the morning session with a cellular modem. Latency was ok at 136ms. I used 25MB for an hour and a half. DOM responded well and charts didn't seem to lag. I had five charts up and they updated great. I was connected EVDO-RevA.

Stats for today
3 actual trade(+3,-4,-1) = -2 - 1(commissions) = -3 ticks

Notes from today - I have the ability to trade away from home. Nice. Need to setup my laptop with updated indy's and charts. Laptop had old 233 tick chart. Actually helped my entries by glancing at MACD from that timeframe. Waited for dot to be in the band. SMI indicator on that chart was interesting as well.

I haven't kept up with the journal to well lately. I have not been to happy with the numbers lately. So I have spent a couple of days trying different things. I need to keep track of stats so I will document my last couple of days numbers.

Stats for 10-22-10
5 trades (-3,+4,-4,BE,-6) = -11 -2(commissions) = -13

Stats for 10-25-10
5 trades (+4,-2,-4,-4,-4) = -10 -2(commissions) = -12

Stats for 10-26-10
6 trades (BE,-5,-5,+6,+2,+1) = -1 -2(commissions) = -3

As for today I am going back to basics. What I mean by that is trading one chart. I still have multiple charts open, but I trade off of the longer time chart. Having a short on the longer time frame and a long on the smaller time frame has messed up my analysis process. I only looked at the smaller time frame chart for short term support once today. Using the small time frame chart is only for help in entries.

Stats for 10-27-10
4 trades (-3,+11,-3,+2) = +7 -2(commissions) = +5

Notes for today - Missed alarm but still got some good opportunities. Moved down to a 1597 tick chart. So far i like it. Added SMI indicator to help with visuals seeing a possible trend change.

Posting when you have a bad day is hard.

But not posting when you have a bad day is idiotic I mean that in the best possible way and not aimed at you, just in general

In other words, its the tough times that people need to work on the most. If you focus on just not losing, the winners will come.

So for posting on a bad day. That was the hard part, now all you need to do is ensure you've learned something from the experience and then tomorrow is a new day. Focus on not repeating the same mistakes and you'll have made real progress.

Mike

Big Mike 

Posting when you have a bad day is hard. But not posting when you have a bad day is idiotic I mean that in the best possible way and not aimed at you, just in general In other words, its the tough times that people need to work on the most. If you focus on just not losing, the winners will come. So for posting on a bad day. That was the hard part, now all you need to do is ensure you've learned something from the experience and then tomorrow is a new day. Focus on not repeating the same mistakes and you'll have made real progress. Mike

Couldn't agree with you more. I have been mad at myself for not posting. I need all the numbers to evaluate the month. Now the good thing is I was taking the time to figure out what is wrong. I believe I am looking at to much stuff. I had added several indicators on multiple charts and I was trading off each chart. My goal is to just look at the MACDBB and price moving through S/R lines. I have also switched down to a 1597 tick chart. It is very tempting when you see something new to add it and see how it can help, but then contradiction creeps up between things.

Had a break even day, but a couple good things came out of this session.

1. Went short, then got stopped out. Same trade 2 bars later. Got right back in. Didn't dwell.
2. You need to hold a trade till it tells you to get out.

Stats for today
2 actual trades(-5,+6) = +1 - 1(commissions) = BE
1 No fill by 1 tick (documenting this to help with entries)

Trade 1
2 bar break of small and large triggers but not mid band. Next bar was equal close. Was going to take trade at first touch of small trigger(1140) but didn't. Move up couldn't break supertrend first time. Second touch I took. Went 4 ticks in right direction. Moved stop 1 tick up. Could have moved it 2 more because I knew it had to break supertrend to continue.

No fill 1
Break of the mid band. Just a couple bar to early. Stop hit -5

Trade 2
2 bar break of mid band. Took entry at small trigger(1182.50). Beginner trader. Made 6 ticks, had money back from last trade. Closed position. Bad part is in my mind I was thinking it was going to go to the lower Keltner channel.

Notes about today - BE day and still feel good because I can see the possibilities. As always just need to grow into good execution.

Billy

1 trade today for + 4

Stats for today
1 actual trades(+4) = +4 - 1(commissions) = +3
1 No fill by 2 ticks (documenting this to help with entries)

No fill 1
I was trying to be really cheap and get it at the trigger line. Also it had not broken through the large yet so there was some cautiousness there as well.

Trade 1
To be honest I was preparing to go long because of the two bar break up and a SMI rejection. Waited for the bar to close and started to get SMI cross signals. Went short with small stop, came within a tick of stopping out. Exited because it couldn't initially break mid band. I was watching to get back in if it did. Moved down 8 ticks so fast that I wasn't chasing it. Still trying to gauge when to hold a trade. +4

Notes about today - Feeling better that screen time is starting to show better trades to me.

Billy

Week1
10 trades (40% winners/60%Losers) for -4 ticks total.

Week2
10 trades (80% winners/20%Losers) for +17 ticks total.

Week3
18 trades (33% winners/66%Losers) for -30 ticks total.

Week4
18 trades (50% winners/50%Losers) for -7 ticks total.

Week 3 was my toughest week because I added indicators, which in turned I believe confused me. I don't think I hold trades long enough so I want to work on that for November. I would also like to focus on trying to obtain a +8 tick average for each week. I need to set a small goal that should be obtainable. I think trades are getting easier to see now. Doesn't mean they are right, just that there is an opportunity to trade at that location. Also am going to do weekly reviews to help reinforce bad tendencies.

Billy