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bwolf's ES Daily Trading Journal


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bwolf's ES Daily Trading Journal

 
 
bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564

Today went better. Added a new column to my daily tracking: Process Adherence (after missing a lot of stuff yesterday)

P&L Profit (P) / Expense (E) / Neutral (N): P
Trades: 13
Round Turns: 39 (ES & MES)
Errors: 4
Cost of Errors: -23 Pts
Process Adherence: 50%
Trading Rules Adherence: 20% (a lot of scalping on a day like this, not technically in the plan)
Risk Plan Adherence: 80%
Opportunities Available: High
Event Day: Yes (CPI)
Preparation: 8
Market Alignment: 7
Execution: 8




I try to update these every hour. Don't always post all here








I posted about this in last night's journal entry. It turns out CPI data release respected the levels after all.




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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564

Good day today.

P&L Profit (P) / Expense (E) / Neutral (N): P
Trades: 4
Round Turns: 15 (ES & MES)
Errors: 0
Cost of Errors: 0
Process Adherence: 100%
Trading Rules Adherence: 100%
Risk Plan Adherence: 100%
Opportunities Available: Low-med
Event Day: No
Preparation: 10
Market Alignment: 9
Execution: 10







Pre-market outlook. Also noted that today is VIX expiry, which can always throw a wrench in the works.







After the close update. The trade I had been eying and rationale for my longs played out (target 4158). My worst-case scenario would have been to hang in there for this if I had taken any heat on the ones I took. But it didn't happen. I was playing really safe and scalping in that direction, but didn't have it in me to swing today. After the hectic CPI yesterday, it was all about playing it safe today.



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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564


I'm gone for the long weekend. Also going to be testing something next week so I won't be posting.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564

This journal, most recently, made clear to me that I have not to date found a solution for maintaining my trading results within a range of acceptable risk / performance continuum. I do believe I have the trading skills and edge(s) to be profitable. However, I cannot apply a systematic set of criteria continuously without periodically reverting to nihilistic practices (about twice a month). Whether this results from a "subconscious" propensity to self-destruct or simply from the all too human heuristics and biases we now know so well, but cannot avoid in spite of knowing them, remains an open question. My current thinking on this is that I have simply not yet found the recipe for balancing my risk with my risk tolerance (low risk, complacency, boredom vs excessive risk, fear, anxiety, worry, stress).

I have reconfigured the various strands of my trading approaches several times, emphasizing different parts of my skillset, adding more skills along the way, trying out many different things, learning more and more, experimenting, circling back to prior trading methodologies, and so on. As process goes, I have an almost innate prep and process tracking system down from years of prepping, tracking, evaluating, and improving.

The part that I've struggled with most is behavioral elements in my trading, self-control after taking losses, or losing trades, focusing on the next trade, not the system as a whole, and simply not being able to stop at my daily loss limit. I also never really dealt fully with applying a consistent risk-reward ratio to my trades, whether applied strictly in bracket setups, or otherwise. Consequently, I have not had faith in any of my newfound approaches' ability to produce consistently profitable results over the long haul without some intervention to fill a hole in my P&L every now and again, and these always amount to high-risk excursions that infallibly result in the decimation of my account (or simply combine resets), just as a mathematical equation must ultimately bear out, even if it works 80% of the time. This isn't to say that any or some of the my trading approaches would not have worked. Just that deep down I was either too impatient, not fully convinced, or able to follow through. But in all likelihood, I have had too much risk on and not enough risk controls and while any of my approaches may have been fine, I have not been able to make them work.

As of late I was very focused on the ACD trade setup as I really like the simplicity of it, its effectiveness in keeping me on the right side of the market, and its consistent ability to produce results. However, I only trade ES and if to apply this trading methodology properly, it only really yields one to four trades a day absolute maximum (one, in most cases), and I started embroidering on it, creating my own setups with in the framework of the ACD trade system. This is fine, it just gets away from systematic trading and into the discretionary realm. Again, this too is fine if applied with proper risk and money management. But I guess the long and short of it is that it wasn't really fitting my ES trading and so I have been creatively trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I think ACD works better as it was originally practiced, trading with multiple instruments and finding the most fitting ones each day, the ones with the most volatility, and screened to match the ACD trade requirements each day.

For my size account, my need to be involved, and to have enough opportunities to create profit with small and appropriately sized bets, I have circled back to another part of my trading, that I am actually much better at and which set aside for a while, which is scalping order flow. I am coming back to it with an emphasis on trade sizing, risk, and money management. I am not going to get into the trading details here, but broadly speaking I work on a very small time frame (100 tick chart), also watching a 30 min footprint, volume delta, and all the stuff relating to order flow. I am not using Jigsaw right now, although I have had it for years. For those who know TRG, Jigsaw, and John Grady, it's all of the above, with some of my own proprietary technology in the mix. I spent a year and a half developing my own tool with one of the top order flow developers around to give me a grid view of order flow directional bias with diminishing volume at the bid / offer, trapped orders, delta flip, clustering, S/R imbalances, absorption, and so on. In the end, I think that nothing beats this just in terms of working within a very small canvas given my account size and need for many small risk-reward adjusted setups in any given session.

As far as my journal, I am not going to spend any time trying to get nice screenshots of trades, or put up any P&L. For the next month all I want to do, as an exercise, is see if I can follow my money management and risk rules. My trade sizing, when I start and stop between trades, when I size down after x number of losses, and so on. My sizing is going to be very small, I'm going to risk $50 to make $75 on each trade, whether trading ES or MES with whatever bracket setups I use for different market environments. I will be trading ATM setups as I am just not fit to flatten discretionarily. I totally get the notionn of not using tight stops because it can mess with your trades and I know it's really cool to be like that, but at the same time, I have personally never been able to manage risk like that. It just does not bear out in my reality (plus I get 55 - 70% of 1.5 R trades to work with hard stops, so no excuse for me).

So my journal will really just be about whether I was able to execute my process, my risk management, trade sizing, and to stop at the right place, without posting P&L daily as that just really messes with my mind right now. Ideally, I'll get to a place where it really doesn't matter. When I am profitable over the weeks and months and I can say honestly and believe through and through that I don't care about ups and downs, but that is not the case right now. Right now, I am just going to do the exercise of trying to implement perfect processes and risk management. I'll post the P&L results at the end of the month if it looks good (I should not care either way, but that's how I honestly feel). But I really think the P&L will take care of itself if I can work on my risk and money management within the framework of simple rules. I will trade to 3x my sought-after $75 per trade goal, so $225 (per account) per day, or 6 losses of $50 (net of wins), whichever comes first if I get to either within 2 - 3hrs of trading. That's basically it. Lets see how it goes.

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rezak's Avatar
 rezak 
Genova.Italy
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TradingView
Broker: retail prop firms
Trading: setups
Posts: 298 since Mar 2021
Thanks Given: 187
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bwolf View Post
nihilistic practices (about twice a month)

Only twice a month? I live by nihilistic standards, by fully understanding this fuckin world there is simply no other choice.
Oddly enough, that awareness has become with the beginning of the trading activity.
Trading is like waking up from the matrix, in a few words...

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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564


SomePsychoDude View Post
Trading is like waking up from the matrix, in a few words...

And there I was all the while wondering if androids dream of electric sheep.

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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564

In passing, I should add that I think my sickness is having to do something (not being able to do nothing), doing it and doing it, and increasing size along the way such that when a great trade pops out of the given day trading pattern I am not in a good place to take advantage of it anymore. Thus, in order to cover the unexpected plus fix and patch dents made up to that point, As I've said before (it bears repeating every day) I am trading way too big.

Today I was scalping 1 micro for ticks totally aware that my P&L was getting eaten up by my commissions but I didn't care. It's not about making money at this point. I just want to have fun and not blow up. Along the way I noticed that ES was ranging1 Stdev from VWAP. The first part of the day up and down from VWAP to -1, then it crossed above and went towards +1. After doing it a couple of times from VWAP to -1 it stood to reason it would come back to VWAP from +1 and range back up at least once. So as I am scalping 1 micro uselessly, but enjoying nonetheless, I tell myself 'here's a trade I can now do with 1 lot ES and it still leaves me room in case it doesn't go as planned' (it never does), but still within the framework of what has been going on all day.

So I shorted VWAP +1 Stdev (in actual fact I was shorting the VIX expected move by SPY, but it's very close to VWAP, just slightly above) and that went back to VWAP (I should say I meant to short 1 lot and accidentally put on two and went with it. But if I had put on two and accidentally put on 3 or 4 ... you get the picture. My mind is set on putting me in the hole like that, so everything has to be scaled down to begin with). Then back down at VWAP I took it long again, only this time it headed down to -1 instead of simply going up. It's okay, I stationed one scale in below thinking that given the PA a breakdown today was highly unlikely (plus the level was in a buy liquidity zone and bottom of the 5 min LRC), but it never actually got there. They front ran that one. I didn't because that's not the point of the trade. If I did that it would most likely start breaking down and head to -2 at least and I'd be scaling in on a loser. My scale in never got filled and it went back up to +1 and that was my day done.

Scalping 1 lot MES helps. If I happen to get some runners on 1 lot the idea is just to stay with that. I just want to have fun right now. Nothing else. Unless something clearly manifests. Like the VWAP range today. Every day has different things. Often there is just one meaningful trade during the day and it gets lost because I am in too deep somewhere else. I like the idea of waging war with 1 lot MES scouts first.

This is a true journal in the sense that I am just spouting off. It also shows me that I and congenitally incapable of doing one thing only right now or avoiding execution errors designed to hurt me. All I can do is start with a micro for the time being. My Lenten March is going to be 1 lot MES March (that inevitably turns into 1 lot ES trades along the way -- everything scaled down by a factor of 10).

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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564

Today I continued with trading VWAP levels -- mainly VWAP but other levels as they come into play, but mainly VWAP and I watch the VIX by SPY expected move and Stdev levels too, gamma levels, etc (screnshots only show my NT8 screens, not TOS & Tradinview where I have other stuff). But mainly structuring it around VWAP bands. 3 or 4 trades, I can't remember now. But multiple contracts and NT8 doesn't group trades and I can't be bothered to upload to Tradingview. This tells me enough. Tradingview is nice but not really necessary.

This is the evolution of the last one. 4 MES, added 4 when it went into profit and looked like it was done pulling back. But naturally, it went back down. Added 4 on the next level with another 4 just below in case it ran stops. It took the 4 and wend back up. Hit T1 and In the end, it stopped out on my trailing stop for the other two sets. Overall 23 ES points on the day and without any manic trading. As of now, I may head in this direction. I know, it keeps changing











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bwolf's Avatar
 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564

Globex trade on the open after the RTH ones posted earlier. This was trading it down on the drop and catching it at the bottom. Two separate trades. On the top one I had tried long and taken 3 small losses. Catching it on the bottom was at the 3rd Stdev which lined up with the 1st RTH Stdev (VWAP) and a confluence of RTH resistance plus a buy zone on the volume profile to the right. I started with 1 MES and scaled in up to 10 on the way down and scaled out as it went into profit.

This is still all really in the vein of the VWAP levels trading I'm liking. The small losses on the way up were close to the level where I thought it would turn around (about 3/4 of the way into the pivot zone that was above and just below the +1 Stdev VIX by SPY expected move leve)l. But yesterday it didn't care and went up strongly and so I felt it out but it was much weaker tonight. Getting stopped out 3x on micro support zones where it should have held allowed me to get short 2 ES above with more confidence.







Final tally on the day including RTH and Globex. If every day were like this everything would be fine. My win/loss went down because I scaled in with lots of micros in Globex and NT8 doesn't group contracts into trades (some on the scale-in lose but the trade is profitable). Still okay. R factor went up on balance.


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 bwolf 
Los Angeles, CA
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT8, TOS, Tradingview, BH
Broker: Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 258 since Aug 2019
Thanks Given: 682
Thanks Received: 564


Today pre-market the logical move was back up in the range of the bottom quadrant of that unraveling flag from the beginning of February through now, at least, even if it fails further. It played out but increasingly staccato on the way up. The first two trades were logical trades up, taking VWAP breakout then taking profit after the price rejector formed on the 30 min footprint, and get back in. Then it started stalling at the A / C levels up (ACD), which sometimes means a traverse back down to the A / C down levels. But I hung in there, getting back in after the deep pullback. The was UB at the top in the footprint so it made sense, although sometimes it'll leave UB, traverse down, and come back up later. But I went with the idea it would go up. My target was 3953 and if I were Adam Mancini I'd have hung in there, but I'm not (plus he either trades much smaller relative to his account size and/or has a huge account. I have no idea how he does 15 pt stops in this market and maintains a realistic R factor trading level to level). After that, I took one or two more on the VWAP level for rebounds, watching Stdev 1, where it was having trouble getting higher, then it was getting a few more in there that amounted to scalps. 2 R overall. (I copy to Apex accts from the Sim acct so I can always trade ES order flow even if I toggle to MES on Replikanto).










Looking at it later I see my AM scenario played even better than I imagined. I also noticed that it tooday's move could be significant, as it touched and retested exactly on the DSTL from the ATH and bounced off nicely.



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