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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets


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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets

  #2391 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011



That is the best magic I have in that 88 area as of today.

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  #2392 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

Bruce Kovner

"Michael (Marcus) taught me one thing that was incredibly important. He taught me that you COULD make a million dollars. He showed me that if you applied yourself, great things could happen. It is very easy to miss the point that you can really do it."

Started this thread
  #2393 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011



researcher247 View Post
If you decided not to sell that high--was it in your trading plan to sell pullbacks higher off of that significant swing-trade number? Just asking--'cause I read your analysis in real time.



I may have more answer here. I did not decide NOT to sell it, I had decided to possibly sell it, or if it broke significantly above, and I had some other things, I might buy it there.

I am considereing allowing the swing campaign to take entries at any time, but I do not understand those times. All I have going for me at that moment in time is a chart pattern. But during the day, you also have reaction, and that tells a part of the story that I put weight in. The trading plan rule is that "I will use volume analysis to gerate an entry". So technically I could trade it If I wanted to plant my flag in volume, even at midnight.

But the plan also requires me to "utilize as many perceived advantages as possible and prioritize confluence" I have confluence, but at least "think" I understand daytime volume beter, and only becuase in relation, I probably have 1000 times the hours watching between 8am and 4pm as I do all the hours combined outside of those times. Yes, I watch at night often, but just look at volume through unproven eyes. So, not my rules, but my current beliefs in how to use those rules correctly, often puts greated and lesser strengths to my interpretation of the validity of a trade signal.

Way to emotional? I think that sometimes, but when I am focused, I have days where I tell a friend the entire script for the day and/or week, just because she happened to walk in while I was trading and it is the only conversation I am capable of at that moment, and then an hour or day or week later, when she comes back in, bingo. Script followed.

I breathe in that 8am - 2pm window, as if it volume replaced my oxygen. Or, I do when everything else is unobtrusive. When I get serious lately, I shut my phone off, I close my doors, I get a platic jug to piss in even occasionally (I drink many bottles of water per day). I am on that market, and sometimes never make an entry. Seriously.

And I will sometime push my chair back 5 feet and watch, put on some music and watch, turn the music back off and watch... I am saturated at that particular moment, but very calm about it at the same time. Kind of calm, like the stillness that exists in a sniper.

Some times I come out of that and become "trade ready", and will often post that when I do. That means, wrong or right, I see something. It fits at least more than one criteria, an typically 3 or 4 things, like key area, volume reaction, daily motion, local SR, news reaction, minor chart pattern, range reversal action, Key OB/OS... But something that I believe in just happened or I believe is about to happen.

SO, in one big freaking circle back to where I started, I am rarely "trade ready" at 4 in the morning. And THAT was when all of the optimum conditions occured for that particular trade. I screwed myself by sleeping, again.



The reason I started the swing campaign, is that I see this happen a lot, and it does happen often enough during the hours between 8am and 2:30pm. I may some day change my rule to be strictly math based, or set it to win by having a small stop and wide target, or both. I have taken tham at night, just get stopped out more than I care to. I like to get out before it hits. If I am wrong, I am wrong. I expect to get in within no more than 15 ticks of my entry, and I look for loser to 10, but my stop is defaulted to 20/20, and then I drag it to as much as 50 ticks sometimes, so I can absorb a quick spike in highly volatile conditions for instance, but closer to 20-25. What gives me reassurance in those cases, right or wrong, is volume. Not just the amount, but how it moves and flexes as it manifests. You will see many examples of the chart here, but not something that I can truly distill yet to a written rule. "This bar greater than 2x the volume of that bar but 1/2 the size; and; average volume must be no less than x"..."

But then it gets weird. Today had that volume bar I mentioned I would trade 10 times out of , well 11, because today I did not like it. It was good for maybe 15-20 ticks, but I am not sad I missed it.

So, rules about volume get complicated. Background and other markets and overall trend kind of read into it, but not in a way that I have had any success in writing down. I can't even prove that what I believe is better than another option. I only know, that is how I see the market.

And I am forcing myself to trust myself, because I have watched myself over a long period of time, and I see that I make some good calls sometimes. The fade buy a few days ago with the 8 contracts? "Trade Ready". I called that trade in real time for an hour before I took it. Means nothing regarding win or lose, means everything in deciding to find out.

But with a lot of strikes agsinst it also. Trade Ready has various accuracy, some feel like they are great, others I just move. But I also saw that area as a possible point for a turn, not that much different than 93.25 has been for a sell recently.


I need to come up for air. But it was good to type that out, and I just starting going with it. Sorry for the mess Hedvig.

What was your question?

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  #2394 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


researcher247 View Post

My swing target is 88.50 to 88.25 final target (for at least 4+ weeks now).


So now, I will trade you for that dollar you owe me...


If you were swing short in CL, at what point would you get out if you were wrong?

Started this thread
  #2395 (permalink)
 
Deucalion's Avatar
 Deucalion 
Calgary, Canada
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Multiple
Broker: Multiple
Trading: Multiple
Posts: 428 since Aug 2009


GaryD View Post
So now, I will trade you for that dollar you owe me...


If you were swing short in CL, at what point would you get out if you were wrong?

I have been swing short on QM for a while and adding to it. Not that worried about taking some heat on QM, The trend is strong on CL, it is not showing any signs of life as compared to indexes (at the moment). CL has punched through support like butter, I intend to ride the trend until the DX shows me otherwise.......which would mean 86 or 80 on QM/CL)



I did not add the stop "where I was wrong" level, becuase it is not a level but the pinbars on CL and DX. So its action I am looking at. But a simple (and telling one is this)......Sellers showed up here. A solid close above that is telling.




I am a sucker for any tidbit that says human trading is better than machine trading.......https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304791704577418363843211828 .......I will take anything out of context on this.....

  #2396 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

I opened somthing...

Crude is a spike motion market. If you take a swing, where do you put your stop? Ata a prior pivot? What does that prove? Volume was there in the past. Last week, last year, yesterday?

I want to trade where they are now. That is the best shot I have at getting 10 for 1. I won't fn hold for teh 10, but that is a different issue. The entry is often flawless.

I scalped. As if my life depended on it. Screw indicators, watch volume.

Meanwhile I did chart analysis until the was no black background, just a solid tapestry of colored lines and fibs and all kinds of BS.

For 5 years.

My pursuit, in one word. Synergy. What that means I will never really know. So I the only choice is to keep heading in that direction.




And so, I enter that trance between 7 something and 2 something every day I can, and I stare at charts way too long after everyone else has gone home, or out to dinner, or visit with friends, or play with kids, or watch a movie, or any of that. My breaks are reading books and watching trader interviews. lol!

But I will fuse what I have gathered into a single trading plan. It is tough, selecting things to keep or leave behind. And at the same time wanting to step up in size.


So... I hang out here to keep myself on a leash, so to speak. My plan includes I have to allow someone else to monitor my trading. If I am the only one dealing with it, it is easier to go down a wrong path.

Here on these pages, I toss out what comes to mind in that space, and then read it sometimes after. I get to become someone who reviews my behaviour, later when I am in a different mindset. Some days I see I was out of touch. Some days I see what I should have done. Over and over and over. I can see what the chart looked like, what the SR was, what the volume was, what events were going on, months after I took the trade.

My thoughts as CL went to 112 were classic. "This thing has to turn eventually". Well, that was not the best trading I did this year. But I can see today some of what I saw then "in real time" just by going back a hundred pages or so.

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  #2397 (permalink)
 researcher247 
Chicago, IL
 
Experience: Advanced
Posts: 437 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 289
Thanks Received: 773


GaryD View Post
So now, I will trade you for that dollar you owe me...


If you were swing short in CL, at what point would you get out if you were wrong?

Here is my exact position as of now.

I am short from 102.63 {20%}/I am short from 99.74 {20%}/I am short from 97.70 {40%}/I am short from 95.41 {20%} all rolled to July as of now.

I am short 5 sets of bear credit spreads.

I am long 4 separate put options.

This is a highly compressed downtrend stair-stepping down coupled w/fundamentally 'bearish' sentiment adding wind to the bearish sails.

I am wrong with a breach of a long-term moving avg. on a particular volume chart I use.

Each push down I am covering a portion of my puts and @short-term cycle tops (within this downtrend) I am selling naked calls while putting back on my puts.

Anything above 95.73 in July CL means I am no longer anticipating 88.255-88.50 by end of May.

The main cycle work I am using for this May 'volatility' cycle in CL is both a set of

a) top-down indicators that work in an 'additive' and/or synergistic function (helps me confirm cycle highs and lows)

b) Planetary orb and spatial analysis along with non-linear geometrical forecasting {think brad cowan or myles wilson walker and you are correct}

If we hit 88.25-88.50 by next Friday I cover everything and take a portion of those shekels and take a 2 day trading holiday up north from here at a place called Mackinaw Island, MI {no cars allowed there} and I will be playing my craps method at the casino's just north of the island.
------------------------------

peace

hedvig

  #2398 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


GaryD View Post

But I will fuse what I have gathered into a single trading plan. It is tough, selecting things to keep or leave behind. And at the same time wanting to step up in size.



I'm on a role and dragging this out with both hands...

Here's an example of what to keep or leave; A few days ago, @greenr asked me the obvious, why the F not just get your 10 ticks and go home? Good question, ask myself that at least once a day. The answer is; There are sometimes better things to come, and the more you learn where those places are, when those things occur, the better your reward is to your risk. In my opinion.


I can take almost any reasonable strategy and make it profitable, if I make the risk bigger than the reward. But, you can also do it on certain concepts by haveing the reward larger than the risk by many times. I prefer to grade my trading by max win versus max loss, average win versus average loss. My sweet spot is about 60% accuracy, and as close to 2 to 1 as I can be, or better. That is roughly what my mind delivers. Think about that.



AND... (I never know when to quit), THAT my friends, is what I mean when I say "Backtest Yourself".



Started this thread
  #2399 (permalink)
 researcher247 
Chicago, IL
 
Experience: Advanced
Posts: 437 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 289
Thanks Received: 773

You wrote: "My sweet spot is about 60% accuracy, and as close to 2 to 1 as I can be, or better. That is roughly what my mind delivers. Think about that."
----------------
That is a sweet spot to hang your hat on. Grind that out over time and grow your business without ever taking a large loss and you should be good to go.

It's a process and this journal continues to assist you in your goals as a trader.

peace

hedvig

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  #2400 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011



researcher247 View Post
You wrote: "My sweet spot is about 60% accuracy, and as close to 2 to 1 as I can be, or better. That is roughly what my mind delivers. Think about that."
----------------
That is a sweet spot to hang your hat on. Grind that out over time and grow your business without ever taking a large loss and you should be good to go.

It's a process and this journal continues to assist you in your goals as a trader.

peace

hedvig


The point is, I had to watch what I did more than what the market did, and then go back to watching the market. And, base my trading plan and trading style around what I do correctly, and what I do wrong.

Started this thread

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Last Updated on May 23, 2014


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