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I am a new trader, fresh meat. Not me I said. I am going to make it.
I started my journey into trading in Nov '11 seeking a better way to make money than my custom woodworking business. I read a few books and had at it. I didnt think SIM would help... "I needed to be in the market!"
I opened my account on Dec 14 with $7500 and had some good days and some bad days. The problem was that I was having more bad days than good, and I had a special knack of turning a good day into a bad one, and turning a bad one into a worse one. My method was MA crossovers....no more. After trading the account down to $5025 I realized I really sucked at trading.
Then I searched for the holy grail. Indicator after indicator, adjusting my charts to this and that. Argghhh
Then comes the study, Martin Pring's Technical Analysis Explained, Kirkpatrick's Technical Analysis. and more. Al Brook's books are tempting me at the moment. The only thing holding me back is the fact that he describes a method of trading off of 5min charts and I have just gotten used to reading tick charts(or so I think)
I started SIM trading and set my account to 5k, then had to reset, then had to reset, then had to reset. Man this is getting frustrating. I will not fail at this.
I decide to take a live trade on 2/16 because I dont want to have my real account dwindled down to nothing from fees. I bought at 5:35 after the econ reports came out. Heart pounding, hands shaking I jump out with 5 pnts and turn off the screen. I have to make breakfast and take the kids to school anyway. Im back at 7:45 and see I would have been up some serious points....aaaahhhhh. I see consolidation, is it a rectangle?, it breaks out and I buy 1 car and ride it for 45 pnts. phewwww. Now I have a month or more to prove I can do this in SIM.
I am dedicated to learning this craft and have the luxury to be able to put the time and dedicated practice into it. I know that if I continue to fail then one day I will succeed.
My wife is a successful realtor so Im learning this and being Mr Mom. That means my time is divided and most days will only trade from 8 to 11:30 (-8GMT Pacific Standard Time)
Im trading 300tick bar chart on the YM, also looking at the 1000 tick bar to confirm the pattern (fractals) and the 60min chart.
Im looking for triangles, wedges, flags and pennants, pipes, horns and other intraday chart formations. Im not using any indicators.
I will post my charts and trades starting tomorrow.
Just added a chart of today's PA. So many patterns...so little time...
If I really want to see a pattern I will see it even if it isnt there.
This morning I broke the rules. I was trying to trade, make breakfast, and kids lunch. What the heck?
Thought I saw a triangle and bought the breakout. Oh No it sure didnt act like a breakout and formed a pipe reversal and retraced the few points I had in profit within a few bars of my entry. Did I hear the signal to exit? I sure did.Did I head that signal? I sure didnt. I watched and told myself "hey It is still forming and it still has a good chance to breakout" so I stayed with the trade and got stopped out for -20 pnts.
I was thinking about what I did as I drove home from dropping the kids at school. trying to fit a square in a round hole came to mind.
Trade 1 - buy breakout of supposed triangle. Long at 12941, got many exit signals which I ignored, stopped out at 12921 for -20
Trade 2- looking for anything to trade and buy what I think is a pipe bottom. long at 12929 sold at 12918 for -9
Trade 3- Now this looked good but I was mired in negative self talk after 2 bad decisions. So I delayed the entry to sell the break out of a descending triangle. Short at 12910, I get exit signals as a wedge consolidation forms, I thought it was a flag at first and decide to hold for a breakout to the downside the consolidation continues and I watch the profit evaporate and finally cover a few points more than BE.
Trade 4 and 5- A nice breakout of the wedge Long at 12913 but I fail to receive the exit signals the market is yelling at me as it forms a channel consolidation area. There is a breakout of the channel and I reverse at 12927 and cover at 12916. I make back most of my mistakes from earlier. +35
I end up -10 for the day.
What I learned today.
1. Have Patience. The patterns will come, dont force it.
2. Recognize when I am wrong and get the heck out of the trade.
3. Be very discriminating with the trades I chose to ride. see number 1
4. Pay attention to what the market is saying. If it says its time to go then go. Do not wait to see if I can get close to what profit was there before it started to reverse.
Dont put anything else on the chart. Thats a really big plus if you can learn to trade naked. Leave the other stuff alone. The only thing you may consider is levels like daily highs and lows.....or perhaps other levels you've marked yourself.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Thanks for the input Panda. Reading your journals has been very inspiring.
I got very interested in patterns after reading Technical Analysis by Kirkpatrick and Dahlquist. The majority of chart stats were attributed to Tom Bulkowski who has compiled volumes on charts patterns. Mostly individual stocks though and not futures and not tick bar charts either. I'm not sure how all the patterns listed in Bulkowski's work translate to intraday patterns in Emini futures though. I do know that I see the patterns and the breakouts and want to trade them.
I just watched Suri Duddella's Trading Chart Patterns webinar and will be ordering book shortly. I really liked what I saw of the method in the webinar and think it clicks with how I want to trade. So then maybe Ill add the ABC indicator from Suri and possibly the CMI. One thing I dont really understand is the reasoning that market internals can disagree with what the price is actually doing. He states that he only takes a trade is if the market internals (he has them all combined in his CMI indicator) agree with the breakout. How can the price breakout without the market pushing it?
Very embarrassed today by my lack of skill and discipline.
Trade 1 - A consolidation area resembling a triangle was forming after this morning's nice move. Man I wish I could trade earlier.
It looked like a valid break out of the formation but I hesitated and lost about 4-5 points on the entry. With the late entry and the smallish size of the formation in mind I set a 10pnt target. As the price approached the target I reasoned that if it could break below 940 I could make a little more on the trade so I moved the target down 8 pnts. Hello Mr Greed. Welcome back. Well as you can see it never did hit my target and I got out at BE.
Trade 2- I really think I can see a pattern and maybe I cant. Well after trade 1 was a bust I needed something to do besides pat myself on the back for not losing money on that one. I looked for another set up.
Another triangle and breakout? It is and got thrown back into the formation and out the other side and grabbed my stop which was placed just on the otherside of the formation.
Trade 3- I had no reason to take this other than I was feeling bad about trades 1 and 2.
Today Im down 24 pnts.
Any input on Suri Duddella's pattern trading book?
Last night was contemplating my existence and started reading up on P&F charts. Very interesting.
This morning was the usual get up and hurry to get the kids off to school. Get back and plop in front of the computer and try to ignore the wife getting ready for work and reminding me of all the things I will still forget to do today. Oh it's a wonder she puts up with me.
Screen up and TS loaded with my tick charts and all I see is price shooting up. "should I get in? no I should wait...The price consolidates as the Dow heads back to the 13000 zone. What is happening? I have no clue the charts arent talking to me today." The price action looks like a mess and I start playing around with the charts to see if I cant find something easier to read.
"What's this? Momentum bars? alright lets check it out. Cant be any worse than the tick and range charts today.
I load them up and set them to 1 range and it looked like a 1 tick chart....way to busy
Tried 2 range then 3 and settled on 3.
Wow! That looks nice...hey wait a second. look at all these patterns that didnt show up in the tick and range charts. OMg a break out! should I take it? Oh shit....oh shit. look at the support at 975 just under it....dont be such a chicken."
Ok set the entry just under 975, its filled
set the target at 965 then moved it to 960
stoploss set at 990
Target was hit....kewl +14
still down for the week but not by much.
Gotta get the house ready for family coming into town. we are off to Disney Land, Mon-Wed. So I will have to miss GDP day...Darn.
Maybe the hotel will have Wi Fi and I can get some early morning practice in.
