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On trade #1 , if you look back at your chart (3) , you will see a retest of the APA boundary. Market hit the boundary level, bounced a little bit, came back and tested it a second time, then took off to your target and never looked back. That is such a common pattern that plays out every day, I think you need to almost expect it so it won't rattle you when it happens. Putting it another way, that retest pattern is intentionally designed to shake you out of your new trade. Which unfortunately it did in this case.
There are a million studies out there about moving stops, trailing stops, scaling exits, all that, the math keeps coming back to the same answer. Leave your stop alone, and let the trade run to target. The more contracts you have sitting at your target the better.
So there were no trades today as apparently there was an issue with Rithmic/Vision Financial Markets (Broker/Data providers). It was a TST wide connection problem for the peeps that trade with Ninja. The folks at TST were great and super helpful in responding and answering questions about it. They ended up removing any activity that may have shown up today on trade reports and will also add a day to the backend of combine trade period just in case I need that one extra day to complete the 10 days of trading. Gotta chalk it up as "Sschtuff" happens and live to trade another day.
I did have a few signals that I tried to pull trigger on before I really figured out there was an issue with the connections. 1st one would have been a loser. Then perhaps a few winners after that. See pics of #1 and #2 TST attempts and then a few in regular SIM after hearing no TST today.
We had another day of technical issues with the Data connection and placing trades. :-(
So TST was super helpful again and is/was aware of the problem (which is not on their end), and they had hoped it was fixed as of mid morning today. For me I was done trading at that point however, and once again TST will delete any trades or activity for today in my combine trade report, and add a day on the backend in case I need it to complete the 10 days of trading required.
I will post a few pics of a few trades that got triggered, which I cold not adjust or get out of it once the pre order was placed, as well as some regular SIM trades that worked out rather well bouncing between zone levels. Woulda been nice to have today in the books, ah well ... there is always next week for that. :-)
Have a great weekend everybody, thanks for taking the time to stop by and check out the gibberish.
Wow, so today I got totally rag dolled. I didn't necessarily break any "Rules" accept for not really getting a good grip on context and what price action was telling me. Kind of had a context meltdown I guess you could say.
I started off with a quick 15 tick winner, and then missed or ignored a great Short signal, and it was all down hill from there for me. The next 3 trades were patterns/signals, but when really put into context .. were just plain poor executions on my part. I wrestled with the "should I move my stop to b/e" on #2 trade, but elected to hold firm as I remembered leaving a few good trades on the table last week by moving stop to b/e ... so I did not move it, of course it would get stopped out. On the next 2 trades I never even got a chance to move stops as I just never got above water to catch a breath and think about it lol
Sooo, a big Red Day, the biggest so far in this combine, and have some catching up to do if I am going to get my averages up and hit my overall profit targets. I am still in the overall green as far as profits go, but my Daily win/lose average is back to 50%, which needs to get back above 55%. Basically I can't have more than 4 Losing days with this 10 day combine. Also another TST parameter that needs to be met, is where the largest winning day amount needs to be greater than the largest losing day amount. That got flipped upside down today, so I will need to post some big days within the next 4 days of trading.
Here are pics of the 4 trades I took, along with some comments .. rather disappointing and ugly when looking back on them jeeeesh!!
Trade # 3 was a killer in so many ways, so sorry that all unfolded as it did.
As soon as I looked at the trade #3 chart I said to myself "ut oh"
My best advice is to get back in the batter's box, choke up on the bat, and try for a couple singles. Get back into rhythm with your method, and trust it to come through for you in the remaining days. You just need one or two trades that run in your favor. CL is the best market for a trade to run, stick to the fundamentals but let that runner fly when it comes to you. CL ATR spiked higher today and hopefully that will continue through this week. A rising ATR is going to expand out these daily ranges, which is perfect for you to capture a couple of big runs.
Dont get me wrong, but the real issue was to not take that short at the #3. This is my biggest weakness as well. If there is a consoloditation area, and I am taking a trade to go long, and it is go against me, it takes me a lots of time to realize I am in the wrong side of the moneybag.
What I am usally doing at the sweatspots nowdays to analyzing it for short and for long (just like a chessplayer doing... for both side). And If I dont have enough pro-cons to to take one side, than I do nothing, but If I am taking a side, I am always telling my self, we have a chance, to we are not right, than I know what is going to do next.
As a technical trader, you have to accept that you are not able to figure out the future, from any chart. What you are doing is playing your edge, because you know that, if it is a winner, than you will win a lot. At the situation on #3 You would think that, hey if it is going for short, it will fall back like hell, that is good for me, I could win win that a lots of money...
Anyhow, no offense I am just in the same shoe as well...
Ok so a little better today than yesterday! I only made 2 trades they were both winners. I had decided to be a little more aggressive and split the 2 cars up, having T1 at the usual 15 ticks, and then pushing T2 to the next 15 min zone away. I hit T1 with both trades today and was then stopped out @ b/e on both T2 runners.
I did not get the long right out of the gate, my signal happened too fast and I don't like that first 60 seconds after the pit opens. Looking back, still not sure I would even take it as it was soo close to the GH. Anyhoots . I did take my first signal to go #1 Trade short on a possible retest back to GH, and hope for a breakdown. Never happened, got T1 but stopped on runner. Went short again with #2 Trade signal, same thinking with T1 and possible room to get to a lower trend line or even lower down to the next 15 min zone which was way down there. Price made a lower high, but found support before it could make a lower low, and ended up coming back and taking out the T2 runner @ b/e.
I didn't get a signal at the top and then passed on the next signal to go long as I was expecting chop due to time of day and a wedge/triangle thingie happening. I was also thinking .... if I stop here, it's a green day, which would get my winning day % back above 55% and keep me in the running for a combine rollover at the very worst case scenario. (not getting a roll over is not in my vocabulary at this point )
Here are a bunch of pics that show the trades as well as thoughts going thru the head while it was happening.
I gave all this some thought overnight and this is my suggestion for your consideration.
You have two goals to achieve in your remaining three days of this combine. First to maintain or increase your win%. Second to make roughly $3000, or an average of $1000 a day.
You mentioned needing to be more aggressive in these last three days, which I do agree with based on your daily average P/L. Continuing to do what you have been doing is not going to be enough to reach the $3000 mark given the time available to work with.
Given everything up to this point, this is what I would do in this situation. I would start by maxing out the number of contracts you are allowed to trade, I think that is 3 contracts ? Now starting with that max, I will assume 3, I would slightly modify your open position management strategy in the following way. Use your 15 tick target for the first two contracts, so instead of one contract at + 15 ticks profit, take off two contracts. This locks in $300 profit. On the third contract I would trail that with a 10 tick trailing stop. So at the +15 tick mark, you have locked in an additional 5 ticks on the third contract. I would then let that third contract run as far as it wants with it's 10 tick trailing stop in tow. So if the third contract runs 100 ticks, you will lock in at least 90 of those ticks of profit. If the third contract comes back and stops out at 5 ticks, then your total profit on the trade is $350.
I think this strategy will allow you to maintain or improve your high win%, it won't really affect your first target at all, other than getting more help on the $ profit per trade attempt. The actual outcome and probability associated with that outcome will not be affected by having the extra contract at the +15 tick target. The stop strategy on the runner is designed to also help you with the $ P/L at the end of the day/combine.
This slightly more aggressive trade management strategy stays true to the intent of your original trading plan, and at a minimum, should allow you to achieve a rollover of your combine. So my suggestion here is, wait for a valid trade setup to form, then manage it more aggressively with respect to $ profit taken out of the trade attempt.
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