Thanks! you would be correct. I have another journal I post personal thought and ideas in. This journal is the summary for the day. Some of the thoughts are copied directly out of my personal journal and posted here.
Having dual journals forces me to re-read my trading decisions thoughts and ideas for the day. Also, re-writing my detail notes into a summary has helped me have a few ah-ha moments.
Thanks for feedback!
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Note: lots going on tonight. Did not have time to go to in depth. I copied this from my personal journal today.
Today started out horrendous. I was not focused at all. I ended up loosely following my rules and after three trades I was 700 down. I managed to keep my cool and go over the rules again in my head and then spend the rest of the day getting back to break even.
Quite honestly I should have been one and done after my first trade had I let it run. Between last night and today i would have been up 40+ ticks which would have been a good day. The 3 trades where I lost my composure I have no idea what I was thinking at the time. I hope my analysis later tonight will shed some light on what I saw.
The last trade of the day I let it run to my target. I need to do this more often. I closed the trade panel and moved up my stop till my target was met or I was stopped out. I will be practicing this going forward. As i look back over the past couple of weeks I have seen many trades which would have netted a large tick count had i only let it run. I know its not as easy as it sounds but I am determined to get more ticks out of my trades even it means taking more small losses or BE trades.
Below are the trades for the last 2 days:
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I followed through from yesterdays post to let my trades run. I practiced last night with GC on the final trade and did the same this morning on CL. It was hard to let it run.
The first couple trades from last night were me being arrogant. The final trade was rule based. It was a direction change with a double top. This was a obvious trade and should be the type of trades I take all the time.
I have decided to start practicing at night because it takes the trades longer to develop. Perspective is everything; If I have to wait a hour or more at night for a trade to develop then waiting 15 minutes for a trade to develop during the day wont seem nearly as long. This will keep me from wanting to cut my trades off early.
The CL trade this morning was a trend line bounce on the open. It was a obvious trade. I felt a little nervous at first that price may change direction on Open but I kept my cool and placed the trade and my stop accordingly. A month ago I would have not been able to place this trade. Progress!!!!
Ok, confession time: I actually closed out of CL the trade early. This was my first trade with a 50+ tick move. I really wanted to lock in profits.
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I followed my rules and took the trade off the trend line bounce.
I let the trade run!!
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
None.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always gotten.
Celebrate because you executed your edge. Not because you won.
At the beginning of November I took some time away from futures.io (formerly BMT) to figure out what I was doing as far as trading concerned. Looking back I realize I hit rock bottom around this time. I was tired of not getting anywhere with my trading. I felt like I was running in place while everyone was passing me by. I needed to do something.
During the next 3 weeks I threw every ounce of energy I had to figuring out how to take the trade and trade it correctly. It was difficult. I had to throw out everything I knew or thought I knew and start over... To except I was wrong. To accept there is a better way. To accept I needed rules and discipline. To accept that it is what it is...
So 3 weeks in here is my progress report, before and after. I realize I have a long way to go and a lot to learn and this only represents 3 weeks and not a trading career but It was reassuring to see I am making progress.
Robert
BEFORE:
AFTER:
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I made a trade off the open today but got in too late. ended up -2 ticks. Went over to sim and spent some time trying to figure out how to trade a range day. I failed... The overlapping bars kill me every time!
I upped my practice account today from 50K to 150k. I will expand my thoughts on why I don't see a difference between a 50K account and 150K account, other than the psychological impact, over the weekend.
My trading maybe limited until after Christmas.. possibly new years. Still going to take trades just not as many.
Good trading everyone!!
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Many thanks for the feedback!! The hard part going forward will be not to fall off the wagon and back into bad habits. If I can stick with this until the new habits are hardwired into my brain then I have a excellent chance to make it to the promise land.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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No trading today. Had technical issues most of the morning and as the details of what happened in Connecticut came out I could no longer focus on trading. I am deeply saddened for the kids and their families. Having a son of my own I cant even a imagine...There are no words... My heart and prayers go out to them.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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By nature I am a very cautious investor. I want to know what I am getting into before jumping in. When I started looking at Top Step Trader and running the numbers I decided I needed a global view of all my options to make my decision. So I created a TST Risk Mgmt spreadsheet. The idea behind it is simple; Show how many trades I can risk losing per day before hitting my loss limit and show what the avg number of ticks needed per day to hit the profit target. I also wanted to be able add cushion into the avg daily tick total to make up for losing days. Below is resulting grid.
The psychological aspect of trading 150K acct is what makes it hard when there is the potential to lose 3K in a single day. To get around this I am taking a different approach; I am just focusing on ticks. If I can hit a 15+ tick targets on a consistent basis then what does it matter how many contracts I trade? It doesn't. Personally I am able to wrap my mind ticks much easier than a dollar amount because the tick amount is static and does not change whereas the dollar amount changes based on how many contracts are traded. Being down a 1000 bucks has more of an impact than being down 10 ticks.
This exercise proved to be quite useful in determine what account size to trade. It turns out it really does not matter. The account sizes are proportional in size except the 30,000. This means if you keep the number of contracts proportional then the loss limits and avg profit needed will also remain proportional. This really simplifies things. Now a trader can focus on creating just one trading system which fits into the TST trading parameters. Then choose a account size which fits your monetary goals. I like simple!! The Avg Tick Per Day needed for the 50K, 100K & 150K are 13, 13 & 14 respectively.
I did notice the numbers on the 10 day combines are more erratic and less proportional than the 20 day combine. The avg profit needed per day for the 50K, 100K & 150K are 18, 22 & 20 respectively. In this case the 150K account requires less ticks than the 100K account.
I have attached the spreadsheet for those interested. I hope this helps traders make a better decision on how to trade TST account. Please let me know if there are questions.
Tip
The Cells in Blue are what can be changed. Everything else is static or is formula based so don't change them!!
There are filters on the Starting Capital and Days columns which can be used to show consolidated views.
why not do a customized combine...this was accepted customized combine by tst for a trader on another forum (ET) (pasted below).
for 20 day combine, basically trade a minimum of 20 days, up to maximum trade days within 60 calendar days. this way u don't have do the whole minumum ticks per day and tailor your plan and method to tst specific. you could still pull off
16k in 60 calendar day period. this is what i intend to do...
there are other possibilities, like propose to start with 30k 20 day tst customized combine with parameter above as well as such that once you build up your cushion (i.e. 5k) and not take any money out, then increase daily limit loss or change something else, again to fit you own original plan.
cashish wrote something in his tread about people trying to develop their method and strategy around combine, and not try to customize combine to fit them.
just my 2 cents, good luck,
tihfa
"Quote from MichaelPatak:
Maverick-
Here is what we were able to get approved at this time:
Duration:
- 20-Day Combine (to be completed within 60 calendar days)
- ADD: Trade a continuous combine: ANY DAY WITHIN 60 calendar days, minimum 20 trading days, maximum up to the number of trading days within the 60 day calendar period.
Account Parameters:
$30,000 account / $500 loss limit / 3 lot buying power
Combine Objective:
Profit: $2000 AND adhere to the Scouting Criteria, with exception to the following changes:
Please indicate if you propose omitting, adding or editing any of these from your Combine objective requirements. Fill in the amounts, if applicable:
-Overall Combine Winning Day % greater than __50___ (standard is 50)
___2__ of the ___3__ performance requirements must be met for all products traded:
-Overall Average Win greater than Overall Average Loss
-Overall Average Win Duration greater than Overall Average Loss Duration
-Total Win % of _45____ or greater (standard is 45)
Thanks for the feedback! I am still in the process of determining my trading strategy. I may end up doing a custom combine, however, I need more trading results make that decision.
The original intent of this exercise was to determine what account size to choose. As I was developing the spreadsheet I had a couple ah-ha moments and realized I was looking at it all wrong. Its not about the account size its about the trading system. Build a system which can meet the TST criteria then choose the account size for your monetary goals. This is a lot simpler than trying to build a custom system for each account size.
I think the max contract size is deceiving and leads traders to trade larger than they should. This leads to failure. The spreadsheet proves you can trade small across all account sizes and comfortably hit the tick per trading day target and ultimately the profit target for the combine
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I remembered last week that I had a bar type called Channel Trend. I had played around with this about a year and half ago but could not get it to work. The biggest reason it didnt work is because I didnt know how to trade. I started playing around with it last week applied the trading techniques I have learned over the last couple of months. I started seeing entry opportunities based on trend bounces and double bottom breaks and second entries on a pullback. Most of time these run 10 to 15 ticks which is right in my target range. I have found the entries work in CL as well. Today was the first day I applied and stuck to just these rules and the outcome was awesome. I need more testing time to verify today was not a fluke.
The Price Action Swing pro indicator works very well with these bars. Identifying the HL, LH etc has helped with trade setups and help stay away from counter trend entries.
One of the better parts about using these bars is the ability to place stop entry orders. This has helped me get into trades which I would have might have otherwise hesitated or missed the entry completely. My condfidence with these entries is still not there. I cut most of the trades short today. Left 50+ ticks at least on the table.
Something else I have been toying with is a single trade per day. Currently have a 1 contract position in CL +94 ticks. The hardest part is determining a entry point and direction and making sure the stop is far enough out to let the trade develop.
I have lots of options on the table and I am getting more comfortable with my trading. My path to full time trading is getting closer which each trade I take. In the immortal words of James Brown; I feel good!!
Robert
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I followed my rules
I was totally relaxed while trading.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
Did not let the trade run to the target.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Today was a decent day. I messed up on the 1st trade and got in to late. Honestly, I shouldn't have taken the trade. I moved my stop entry lower, then when it hit the 200 sma and started to bounce I stuck with it instead of admitting it was not going to go any lower and exiting the trade. Second trade was break even.... 3rd and 4th trades were breaks outs of double bottoms. Hit my target on both. The final trade I got caught in a bear trap. My emotions kicked in big time. I decided to quit for the day since I had lost my emotional edge.
Robert
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I quit when I realized I lost my emotional edge.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
Did not exit the trade the 1st trade @ BE when I had the chance.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Attached is the weekly summary from 12-26 - 12-28.
I don't think I have mentioned this but one of the things I have done is added a trailing stop to my trades. I have reduced the stop loss from 15 ticks to 10 ticks. This has helped with keeping the total loss under the max loss of 10 ticks.
With the reduced stop loss I can raise the total number of contracts from 6 to 8 and and still keep within my risk management model. I am going to run market replay this weekend on some random days and compare the outcome based on 6 and 8 contracts.
I used a two target strategy for trading. First target @ 10 ticks with 4 contracts. Second target @ 15 ticks with 2 contracts. I still have not found the optimal setting for the targets. I am not a big fan of multiple targets but I really would like to catch some of the bigger runs on GC. This a catch22 for me...
If you believe the MFE, then a 7 tick target would have a net profit 1000 dollars more than I ended up with an additional 2 wins. Then again, if I would have let a few of the trades run instead of closing them out I would have hit the 10 tick target and had a 1000 dollars more.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Overall it was a good day. I made mistakes today but was fortunate enough to end up positive for the day.
I knew today was going to be a slow morning yet I played my targets as if was a regular day. If I had to do it over again I would have set my target lower and had just one target. Lesson learned.
I took my lumps on the second trade. I was trying to play the breakout of the 200 SMA. When I placed my stop entry order I placed it to close to the current price. As I was trying to move stop further away I got filled. One more second and the trade would have never happened. The second mistake I made was not immediately closing it out. I didnt want to be in at this price. I was holding on to "hope" that it would turn positive.
The final trade of the day I entered on the trend line break. The price went to within 1 tick of my first target and reversed. It reversed quickly so I had to close it out manually.
I am using a new tool to post charts directly to my journal. Thanks to @vvhg and @Big Mike for putting the time and effort in to make it happen. It is awesome! I will be able to post what I see in real time.
Robert
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I followed my rules.
I clearly saw my entries today.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
When I got filled on a trade at a price I did not want, I did not close out the trade. I let it go in the "hope" it would go higher. This cost me ticks.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Going to revise this a little. The second trade I should not have taken. It kinda fell into the criteria of a breakout but really didnt have a good setup. This was a bad trade. I removed "I followed my rules" from the best thing that happened today.
I realize now the importance of entry rules. When I follow them the profits are higher and losses are smaller. It took a long time to figure this out..
I forgot to post my trades in the previous post. I updated the previous post to include them.
Robert
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I clearly saw my entries today.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
When I got filled on a trade at a price I did not want, I did not close out the trade. I let it go in the "hope" it would go higher. This cost me ticks.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I need to stop looking at my total ticks. Every time I get around 150 ticks I freeze up... Missed several trades today because of this... Then if I do take a trade and it is a loss it has more of a impact on my daily total. Taking a break.. May be done for the day..
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Here is my first official video. I decided to do the first video on the ATM stop strategy I am working on. The goal of the strategy is to shave 2 to 4 ticks off my current stop without changing my targets.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I was busy tonight and almost forgot to post today's summary. In short, I should have stopped after the second trade. Ended up giving 100 ticks back to the market. The trading was different today after the 9 am open. What worked last week did not work as well this week. I may need to change my strategy up to adapt to the new year. Prior to the market open the market was the same as last week.
I noticed trend line breaks had the best runs. This is where I can catch more than 20 ticks in a single run. The breakouts and bounces of double bottoms hit the 5 to 10 tick area. I will work on creating a second ATM strategy for trend line breaks.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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We will call today a break even day. I didnt have my game on today and it showed. I made bad trades all the way around. I reduced my number of contracts once I started losing money. I couldn't read the movement on the chart.
The positive tick count looks good until you realize I was down 120 ticks at the end of the session. I managed to catch a 75 tick gain x 2 contracts on one trade during tonight's session to even out the today's losses.
I have been messing around with longer term trades for the past couple of weeks. GC seems to be a good candidate for these types of trades because the movement during the day is 100 - 300 ticks or more. I may take more of these in the coming weeks.
I have to be honest; I am mentally tired. I have been running @ 125% or more for the past couple of months. It has finally caught up with me. Its starting to show in my trades and my posts. I am going to take some time off from day trading and futures.io (formerly BMT) to rest up and get back on track.
SD Out!!
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I got nothing
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
I got nothing
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Well, I tried to stay away.. Had a overnight trade +75 ticks. When I was checking the status of the that trade another trade presented itself. Then another. I started thinking about the overnight trade so I kinda combined my daytrading strategy with my overnight strategy and let the trades run a little. The overnight trade had a 75 tick stop and target with 1 contract. The other two trades started out as 75 and 75 but i tightened them up after entry. Each had 2 contracts.
I have to say these trades were less stressful. With a little more wiggle room I was not worried about being stopped out right after entry. It allowed me to let the trade develop. The overnight trade came within 10 ticks of being stopped out. The other 2 trades I just went with the trends.
I am thinking of making the overnight trade a everyday thing. I have had a success over the past couple of weeks in SIM with following the trend for overnight and letting the trade play out.
I also realized I have had several different trading methods which have worked over the past couple of months. I will need to nail it down which one is working best in the coming weeks before I start my combine with TST. I feel like I am learning on the job. Every time I see something which works better than what I was using I make an adjustment. My trading style is evolving!!
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
After entering the trade I let them run.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
Nothing.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I am learning Price Action via the Al Brooks method. Found your thread interesting. I was trying to understand your charts and had some basic questions. I am not use to looking at a 4 Tick Chart.
1) What do the numbers by the HH, HL and etc stand for and how do you use them. What indicator is that?
2) What are the yellow and blue (non entry blue) vertical arrows represent?
3) Why do all your bars look the same except for a top or bottom wick here and there. Why no Doji Bars?
Is this really a 4 tick chart. That seems soooo fast. How do you draw your trendl lines and enter execution that fast?
I have been wanting to do a video on how I use the chart so let me put something together and I will answer your questions more in depth in the video.
As for the indicators used: Price Action Swing Pro which can be found in the download section. This will show the HH and HL which stands for Higher Highs and Higher Lows. Scapler RT which is in the download section shows the arrows. This is more for a visual confirmation that the trend has changed direction. I dont use them to enter and exit trades.
I have two accounts during the week I trade. One is my TST account. The second is my SIM account in Ninja. The TST account I trade as if it were a live combine. This means only take trades which meet the requirements to trade. My SIM account on the other hand, I use for testing new trade ideas or take trades I am not sure of. This gives me a chance to learn as I trade. The totals for the two accounts are similar.
Its interesting to note that my average winning trade in my SIM account is over a 100 dollars higher than my TST account. This highlights the issue I have of closing the trade out early in my TST account. I thinks its because I treat the TST account as if I was going through a combine. Because I treat it as the real deal, I am more risk averse.
The first summary is SIM only. The second is TST and SIM combined.
Sim only
TST and SIM combined
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I was going through my personal journal for the start of this week and found the following entry about the change I have gone through over the past couple of months. I am trying to figure out what has changed in me to make me a better trader. Is has not been easy to define.
Edit: added "@" to members names
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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I like how you have been trading lately. Holding positions through some heat(not getting shaken out easily), shooting for nice wide targets, and executing well most of the time Keep it up.
London Calling
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Hey buddy quick question: I see targets hit and then re-entries very close to each other. I do this sometimes myself, and I was wondering what you are thinking/feeling when you do this? For me the target was fear(trade is going to turn against me), the re-entry was greed(I'm going to miss the rest of the move).
London Calling
The following user says Thank You to Xav1029 for this post:
Talk about irony!!! Check out my last chart I posted while typing this up!!
This was actually a scalp before my entry. I already had my entry setup with a buy stop, but saw an opportunity to take a quick 20 tick scalp before the entry was hit.
However, I do enter then exit and re-enter again on occasion. Nothing wrong with that as long as you have have sound technical reason for re-entering the trade. Greed is not a good reason!! lol The biggest fear I have re-entering is giving back profits or losing more in the case of being stopped out then re-entering. I would rather wait until the next entry presents its self. If it happens to be within the same trend then I will take it.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Did not get a chance to post my journal entry yesterday. Decent days for both days. I made a couple of mistakes yesterday with my smaller trades. I moved up to a 8 tick bar from a 4 tick bar on the channel trend. This cut out a lot of the noise on the chart. For whatever reason I panicked when a trade started going against me. So I closed it out. Right after I closed it out it reversed and hit my 20 tick target. The other trades I was just wrong about the trades.
I had a overnight short trade on Sunday into Monday. This took off to the downside on Monday morning and I was able to get close to my 75 tick target.
I entered into an overnight trade last night. I did not panic when it went against me because the chart said it should go up. This morning it went up past my entry and had a hard reverse. I saw a double top and thought it was going to go lower. Instead of moving my stop up below the trend line and let the market take me out I closed the trade. As soon as I did the market took off in my direction. A couple of hours later it hit my target. The only saving grace was I realized my mistake and was able to get back into the trade. It cost me 25 ticks.
Once I get more comfortable with the overnight trades I want to move up to 2 contracts. Maybe have a 2 target objective. This trade alone would cover my profit objectives for the day.
Something else I have noticed; Since I have moved my target out further and I have let the trade develop my losses have actually been smaller. I am making more money and I am less stressed while trading. Who knew??
I feel like I am in the zone right now. I am seeing everything on the chart crystal clear. I am going to look into starting my Combine soon. I am ready. This last few months of learning to trade on a practice account was the best thing I could have done. I have flushed out the trading demons and have a clear (but still difficult) path in front of me.
Robert
The best thing that happened today:
I didnt implode when I exited a trade early. I got right back into it and hit my target.
The worst thing that happened today:
I didnt trust my trade.
I took myself out of the trade instead of letting the market take me out of the trade. This cost me ticks.
Edit: forgot my best and worst.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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The PriceLineAsk is my own creation. It looks at the current Ask price and plots the line
I use PriceLineWH & PriceLineAsk to visually show the spread between the last price and the Ask price.
Important note on PriceLineAsk : I hacked this together to show the ask price. I have not tested it beyond that. No guarantees.
It would be cool if someone with some indicator programming skills could make one which could show the bid, ask and last price with the option to choose any of the three. I tried and failed.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Attached is my 10 day total starting on December 26th. I am currently meeting the criteria needed to pass the Combine. I have what I need daily to meet the 100K profit criteria and close to meeting the 150K profit criteria for the 20 day combines. Of course with the 'minimum day' Combine model this is less of an issue but still important.
It is my intention to start the combine in the next couple of weeks but I still need to put some final touches on a few things.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Thanks! Now I have to reproduce these results in the combine.... I think I have tried every bar type out there over the past few months. I went back to the channel trend and it was like visiting an old friend; It just worked.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
The following 2 users say Thank You to Silver Dragon for this post:
Congrats to you Robert, this are really outstanding results !
Talking about the 'technical' side, it should be quite easy for you to reproduce similar results in your upcoming Combine, and I honestly hope that no 'psychological' issues come into play once you start trading in the Combine...
So, I wish you best of luck to succeed and hopefully you're one of our next funded traders here at futures.io (formerly BMT) !
And I'm also really looking forward to you next video...
The following user says Thank You to Daytrader999 for this post:
Today could have gone a lot better. The market was choppy and I got caught in the back and forth. One of the trades I should not have taken. I tried to jump the market and I was wrong.
My final trade of the day was the big one. It broke support at 1658 and I knew it was going to go lower. After 40 ticks it had a hard reverse and went back to my original entry. I didn't panic. I knew the day was going to be down day so I waited for it to go lower. I got out with a 30 tick gain I had originally thought of moving my stop up and letting my stop take me out but decided against it because I was down already for the day and this would get me back close to even. Soon after I exited the trade it ran down to my original target.
I was bummed that I missed out on a huge run but there will be other days. At lunch so I will post my trades later today.*
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Attached are my trades for the day. Trade number 4 is trade I should not have taken. As you can see it is the largest loss. I tried to Jump the market and anticipate a breakout. It cost me big time.
Robert
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I didnt panic when the trade went against me. I trusted my initial analysis of the chart that there was going to be a pull back.
I demonstrated that when you dont follow your rules it results in larger losses. I now have more conviction that I have to follow my entry rules. Following entry rules leads to smaller losses
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
I didnt let the market stop me out on the last trade. Had I done this there would have been a chance that I could of exited near the original target. My fear of taking a loss was greater than the potential profit I could have made.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
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Today was a one and done day. The setup was perfect. Placed a buy stop just above the trend line and price was hit and 7 seconds later my target was hit. Didnt even have time to enjoy it. Money is great but I still enjoy the trade. Traded some SIM afterwords but nothing serious. Had a couple good trades and I missed the two other breakouts to the upside.
I started to set a overnight trade last night but chickened out. My target would have been hit.
I am getting better at recognizing setups. Its allowing me to set my buy/sell stops and if my entry gets hit then great if it does not then I was wrong and I am glad I did not enter on impulse.
I reflected on yesterday; I was worrying that I would not be able to hit my daily targets everyday.. and well, this is true. Someday's will be like yesterday with small to no gains or a loss and other days will be like today with big score. The rest of the time it will be somewhere in between. Trading is so different from having a day job. In a day job you get paid the same amount everyday that you are there. In trading this is not the case. You cannot count on having a positive day everyday. In fact there is no guarantee at all you will even make any money after a week, month, year...
Robert
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
followed my rules and was patient. Waited for the price to come to my entry.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
The trade went too fast!! I enjoy the hunt so this was a bit of a downer for me.
Nice Robert - your consistency is inspiring. I'm curious how you set your targets, did you use a fixed price on this one? In general do you use fixed targets and then adjust as price action develops while in the trade? Thanks for your journalling.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. - Frank Herbert
The following user says Thank You to Surly for this post:
Yes on the fixed targets. Although, I am still trying to figure out the best setting. Today for example a 50 tick target would have been much better but on Wednesday 10 to 15 tick target would have been best. It really comes down to market conditions. I am trying to make a best guess based on the overnight movement and set my stops and targets accordingly. Ideally if the trade today had been slower I would have moved my target higher until I was stopped out by my trailing stop.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
The following user says Thank You to Silver Dragon for this post:
Thursday night I made a huge mistake trading. I was tired and trying to multitask and made comedy of errors which led to a 50 tick loss over 3 trades. Its was one of those days I wish I could have back to do over. But whats done is done.
The first trade of the night I chose the wrong ATM strategy. I set it to a overnight trade which has a larger stop loss instead of my intraday strategy. As I said, I was multitasking, so I set up a stop entry and went on with my work. It was not until I was 30 ticks in the hole that I had a panic attack and closed it out. Had I paid attention to where price was I would have noticed it was up against a trend line. Of coursed it reversed at the trend line and went back toward my entry.
I should have stopped at this point but I was determined to get part of my ticks back. Bad idea.. The next two trades ended badly as well. At this point I set my overnight stop entry and went to bed. I managed to get 22 ticks out of the overnight trade. I recognized it was sitting on the 200 MA in the morning and it looked like a bottom was forming. So I exited the trade.
I missed the big entry in the morning session, my one and done trade, and decided not to trade live for the rest of the day. I would have ended up making bad decisions.
I traded in my NT SIM account in the afternoon and made 74 ticks. The day ended good even though it did not go toward my TST account total.
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I took the day off from trading my TST account
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
I traded when I was tired and did not stop when I should have. This could have been a lot worse than it turned out.
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
The following 2 users say Thank You to Silver Dragon for this post:
I see the writing in the top right corner of your screen that list the setups you are trying to target , is that text something you put in manually each day now ? I have been trying to find a indicator that will put things like that on my screen for a while , I keep getting tempted to take setups that are not part of my plan and usually pay for it. I need to make one that flashes or something when i put my limit order in to just remind me LOL.
Thanks Quantismo
The following user says Thank You to quantismo for this post:
Have followed your thread and progress for some time and very much enjoy and learn from it. I wondered if you can give me an indication of your risk in ticks vs your returns. For example this week was +169 (well done) but was your aggregate risk half of that, the same, more? Just trying to get a handle of what you are risking for the rewards.
Thanks in advance
know thyself
The following user says Thank You to mokodo for this post:
Thanks for the comments! Since I will be participating in the combine the following rules apply: There is a 200 tick loss for the 100K account and 300 tick loss for the 150K account. These are the two account sizes I am shooting for. If either of these limits are hit during the day then I fail the combine. If you hit either of these limits during the week then you are done trading for the week.
With that in mind I have a 3 losses in a row rule which means I quit trading once I lose 3 trades in a row. Worse case in this scenario is 108 tick loss based on my 18 tick trailing stop loss * 2 contracts. Two losses in a row if I am trading 3 contracts. A 100 tick loss is the absolute maximum I can withstand during the day. This is my pain point. This is half of the 100K and a 1/3 of the 150K. However, 75 ticks is where I say should I really be trading? If I had two bad trading days in a row I would either stop trading for the week or move over to SIM or both.
Below is my draw down from Dec 26th to present. Average DD is less than 30 ticks (<$300) with my worse day being 100 ticks ($1000).
There have been a couple of things which have kept my DD under control. One is admitting I am wrong and closing the trade out. This means letting go of hope that you right. The other is following my rules which results in better entries and improved MFE. This gets my trailing stop closer to Break Even and gives me a chance to exit the trade early with a profit or small loss.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Robert
nosce te ipsum
You make your own opportunities in life.
The following 2 users say Thank You to Silver Dragon for this post:
The market has changed somewhat and I need to make an adjustment. Trades which were working and producing decent gains over the past couple of weeks are going about 10 ticks and reversing. I was positive on the two small losses but I was trying to let the trade develop and was stopped out. The first trade was a trade I should not have taken. Again, when I dont follow my rules it cost me.
I will start taking smaller gains until the market starts trending again. If tomorrow is a losing day then I will probably go on SIM to have a objective view and work things out. I have no intention of abandoning my setups, instead I will make adjustments on how I manage the trade.
I also inadvertently violated my 3 trade loss rule today. I was lucky the final trade was positive. After I realized what I had done I stopped trading for the day.
What was the best thing that happened to me today:
I kept my losses under control
I realized the market has changed.
What was the worst thing that happened to me today:
I was not paying attention to my trades and racked up 3 losses in a row then took a another trade.
The overlapping bars kill me every time! 
dont believe anything you hear and only half of what you see 
Its starting to show in my trades and my posts. I am going to take some time off from day trading and futures.io (formerly 
