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houston, tx usa
Experience: Beginner
Platform: tos/NT7
Trading: es,zb,cl
Posts: 4 since Nov 2015
Thanks Given: 1
Thanks Received: 0
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Hi,
My name is Hayden. I have been trading futures since April of 2015.
I originally planned on trading stock options, but I got intrigued by futures and still have the bug.
I started out trading /CL with no indicators, just a 1 minute chart, followed by a morning re cap of weekly, daily, and hourly charts looking for trendlines and channels to keep in mind while the price moved. I was also doing somewhat of volume analysis, but not advanced by any means. I traded somewhat sideways during this time, I was trading one contract and would have on average 45-70 cent profit days. However, I had no idea what a stop loss was so my loss days would be about the same. I was trading on Thinkorswim, so I had the time & sales open as well as Active trader looking at the orders, trying to teach myself order analysis.
After about two months of sideways trading, I dont know why but I decided to give cotton a try. I traded Cotton No. 2 futures the same way as oil, just now with fibonacci retracements/levels. I did fairly well, would average 25-40 cents a day with from what I remember on 3 contracts.
However, I got into a bad short trade and had about a gut wrenching loss. This made me look into money management, and I began using stop losses on my trade.
During this time of looking for ways to protect my butt, I read through a book about Elliott Wave and also Hurst cyclical analysis. I started using a tight stop loss and a free Hurst Channel indicator I downloaded from indexswingtrader blogspot. These hurst channels were very interesting, some days they worked great and some days they were a complete money trap. I started to trade at a profit when I used these on Oil, on a 15 minute chart. My biggest single intraday profit was around $1.20 on one contract.
I was graduating college around this time (in July) so i took a break from trading since I would be moving soon. I was so intrigued by Hurst analysis that I ended up buying Sentient Trader.
Whenever I moved (after graduating college), I didn't have enough money left to put down full contract margins (also Sentient Trader took a nice hit out of my trading capital.) So i signed up with ninjatrader to use the intraday margins.
My first day back to trading believe it or not was that day in August (or was it september?) that the S&P (well all of the markets really) had the 8:30 AM flash crash. I tried to catch a short on the correction up, but was too early and got stopped out. The following week I was a very nervous trader, and was trading the /YM and /ES for only 1 point profits. I ended the week with about 10 points in profits on these tiny trades with 1 contract. From what I remember, I was using RSI and the Hurst channels.
I dont know why, but I got tempted by oil again and it's lucrative volatility and got my ass handed to me with a quick and upsetting loss.
This made me realize that I had ventured completely away from actually looking at price, and now I was just looking at these stupid Hurst channels and RSI. I decided Hurst analysis was a little b.s. and stopped using it. What I didn't like about it was that a follower of Hurst can explain away the chart just like an Elliott Wave theorist ("Oh, if price reaches here it is a category _ trade of the FLD, if not then wait for more price to occur for better analysis. And we are expecting a X day trough soon.....") What I didn't like about that was that the market could have a correction, which it always does, and then you could say 'there was the X day correction' however, no one can agree on what day (20 day. 10 day. 40 day. 80 day, etc) trough it actually was. It just doesn't seem very logical since you don't know how long each cycle will be until after it happened, giving you a horrible entry and huge stop loss.
Next I tried what every trader has tried, MACD, triple EMA crossovers, Bollinger bands. I moved to trading a thicker market, so I traded the /ZB. I would be running a nice profit for the week, then lose it all on friday.
Now, I am sick of all these lagging indicators and am trying to go back to trading a naked chart. Ideally, I don't even want to be trading off the chart but rather just looking at the order book. I am very intrigued by the tools Jigsaw trading has to offer and will most likely purchase a lifetime license. I just became an elite member here so I could get Gomi's Cumulative Delta indicator. I really like how that indicator is based off of volume. I am trying to get that working with NinjaTrader 7 right now...very frustrating. Coming away from ThinkOrSwim where everything is right there has been a difficult transition since everything is already set up (broker, data, clearing, platform, one stop shop), but in my opinion ThinkOrSwim is just not as powerful as a program as NT or multicharts. Thats not saying you cant make money with it, but since they use their own data feed, a tool like Cumulative Delta is just simply not there. Plus, their order book (Active Trader) doesn't show the actual executions/market orders/orders being pulled & spoofed.
I am taking a break from trading now to learn to read the order book and understand the tools at jigsaw trading (once I purchase them). My goal is to no longer use lagging indicators, except for Cumulative Delta.
My ideal trading methodology would be to look for major trend lines and channels on daily charts, and then when the markets open just go off of the order book. I believe understanding price combined with volume and the spoofing games that come with it is all you need to watch to trade profitably on an intraday basis. I believe that Intra-day trendlines appear faster and more reliably on the order book (or volume/market profile) which is why I am trying to get away from even using a chart.
Trading has quickly become something that I love and am passionate about, however since I am not profitable yet (just sideways) I really need to take a few weeks or months off to un learn all the stupid crap i tacked on along the way (lagging indicators and such) I am 22 years old right now, and this is something I hope to become profitable at so I can enjoy a life of speculation and trading.
Some of the Books I have read (I would love suggestions):
Trading Commodities and financial futures
Boy Plunger
Reminisces of a stock operator
Pit Bull
Mastering the trade (didn't really like it)
Mastering Hurst analysis
The profit magic of stock transaction timing
Following the trend (rather dry, in the process of finishing)
Market Wizards (I bought this book because Paul Tudor Jones is my hero, finishing this book currently)
I apologize if my post is disorganized.
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