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For my first post here (been lurking, learning, applying for a bit now), I would like to start my trading journal. I have been trading for almost a decade in the stock market. I learned about trading while serving in the Marines and the discipline has served me well. In 2008 I became an investment advisor and promptly squandered my savings and having to them rely on my g/f (now wife) for support until I quit that and got a regular job making decent money and getting us out of debt. As such, my accounts were decimated, but I love the market. In late November, I found the emini's (ES) and have been saving for starting live, hopefully come late January, early February. Zen and the small trade account thread has provided some great info and I'll continue to read it.
In December I was defining my rules, making mistakes and seeing where I was failing and where my success was and what precipitated my profits and how best to recognize them.
In December, none of my shorts were profitable and half my longs were. Trying different indicators, making mistakes, and just general unfamiliarity was the key. By late December, my rules are more defined and while my shorts were still negative, I was profitable.
Over the holiday weekend, I finally defined (and wrote down) my entry/exit points with a ZLEMA, volume indicator, ease of movement, bollinger bands, and S1/2,R1/2. In review of many people's comments who do trade the ES, my target is not the 4 point move, but the 4 tick move and capitalizing on that, buying the bid when I can and selling the ask if possible. On January 4th I started back in the esh1 and thus far, here are my results. Please remember I do this in addition to my job and cannot always watch the markets but do what I can when I can.
1/4/11
Net profit: .75 long. No shorts made
Gross profit: 2.5
Gross loss: 1.75
1/5/11
Net profit: 1.5 long. No shorts made.
Gross profit: 3.25
Gross loss: 1.75
I'm feel confident of my rules and the PnL reversal has shown the effectiveness. I'm not out to break the bank every day. My goal is to acquire 1-2 points a day.
Today I took a trade and rode it too far, trying to get a multi-point move when it reversed on me, instead of taking what it gave me and ensuring a 1 point gain. I have applied my trading rules on my shorts and have garnered thus far a 1.25 point gain. Still negative from my trade that I let run into the red and am still down a quarter point on the day. I have no doubts I'll be able to pull that out in the next few hours, potentially with at least another point and a half.
I am missing the morning moves, however, with me not getting into the office until almost 10am Central time. Once I adjust that, getting in around 8:30am, I feel I will be able to capitalize much more on the time in the market I have been missing
I think NT7 just error-ed out on me. Anyone else had a problem with NT7 showing the incorrect results of trades?
I rode this recent ES move up and pulled out a healthy 1.25 point gain, closing it out to ensure a profit. I'm making too many trading and not letting the runners run, but my focus now is small gains.
Bought at 1268.75, sold at 1269.25
Bought at 1269.25, sold at 1269.50
Bought at 1270, sold at 1270.50
My daily report now shows 6 shorts (when I only made 4), 2 long trades, when I made 4, and a loss instead of profit. Interesting....
Done today with a gain of a quarter point on the last trade. Late churning prevented the run-up....I think. The indicators I use were showing the same trend as a previous one today which had a 2-3 point run, but this one was limited in its gain.
Bottom line though, the indicators and strategy worked, as with the errors taken out I had a 4 point gain today with all the losses accounted for. [IMG]http://j.imagehost.org/view/0994/nt7-2[/IMG]
Some advice on sharing the images. Just hit print screen after you have your trades marked up. Then just crop and upload on any post using the (while writing a post) paperclip above which is next to the smiley face.
on starting a journal.
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