Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Good job walking away. I had a blow out on Wednesday, but my trade limit really saved me. I am still working on the write up for my journal. So I decided to sit today and tomorrow out and just watch.
But I noticed the area you were talking about. The 3666.00 area is the top of a bear channel line on the daily chart. Yesterday we touched it and so today we are pulling away from it. I would have shorted in that area with my stop up higher (10 PTs or so). On the daily the 21 EMA is @ 3636 area so that would have been my target for the day.
On your second trade, I also thought that the 3656 area could be the bottom of a range. I wouldn't have bought there unless you had a bull close.
I think some of the things you need to work on is waiting for confirmation. Watch Al's videos on Setups and Signals, he talks about what qualifies as a signal. Wait for one of these signals before you enter a trade. As a novice we have to wait for confirmation. You will pay for that confirmation in lost potential profit, but you will save yourself from entering in the wrong areas with out conviction.
I definitely need more practice noticing the setups and also waiting on confirmation. I am still learning things each day, drawing trend lines and channels I have to get better at. Thanks for the advice! I'm going to keep working on things as time goes on.
With more screen time it will become more obvious. Then you will find yourself watching it unfold and understanding what is happening and will happen next. That happen to me on Thursday, I saw the late reversal happening an hour before it did.
When I was doing the course, If I had an issue with something (like trading ranges) during the day. I would watch the videos on that and read the chapter in the book about it that night.
The BLS job report came out this morning at 8:30 a.m. so I was expecting some chaos.
My goal for today was to do a complete 180 from what I did yesterday and that was to trade with the trends and not against them! Let's see how it went:
Trade 1 - Short @ 3633.75
I seen the bit of a uptick at 8:30 when the job report came out and I wanted to sit tight waiting for market open. When 9:30 came around I watched the first bar and waited to see what happened. At it's closed it had a decent wick up but closed down. I waited on the next candle to close to give me some confirmation of a trend. I placed my stop sell order right at the lowest wick of the second candle. My reasoning was if the third candle moved down and hit this area I should hopefully be on the right side of things. Right away the order was filled and I was in. I tried to place a buy limit 20 ticks down from where i got in but I must have miss judged it and placed it at 19 ticks. I was in the trade for 1:40 seconds and had my 19 tick profit. +$95 to the good.
***On a side note*** Since I got out so fast at my 19 tick goal, I missed out n the longer continuing run down. Where do I balance letting a trade run and taking profit? There was +76 more ticks left down to 3610 (and it went down even more! than that) from where I got out. Possible $400 left on the table for this trade. The goal is profit and to make money. The logic should be less trades for high profit and not more trades and tiny profit. Need to think on this some to come up with some reason. ***end side note***
Trade 2 - Buy @ 3621.75
I took the same approach to this trade as the prior one. The down trend stopped under the 3610 support line I had. The next bull bar closed above that line and I waited to see what the next bar showed me. That bar closed bullish too, so I placed a Stop buy order right at the top of the candle wick and I got filled in about 40 seconds from the bar opening. This time I was able to get my sell limit order at the 20 tick mark. I was in the trade for 3 minutes exactly and I got out with +20 tick profit. $100 to the good
***Side note 2*** Having my 20 tick profit guide in place saved me, because if I had let this trade run, I would have made less, nothing or maybe had lost on it. Food for thought when reflecting on this day ***end side note 2***
Ultimately I was able to do what I set out to do. I stuck with the trends, waited for confirmation and made profit. I didn't want to be trigger happy today after yesterdays down day. There were at least 3 more places I could have taken trades if I followed my logic form the first 2 trades and made profit.
At the first pink arrow, my thoughts were to pull the trigger on the short at 3610. I watched that first bear bar with the long wick and thought "ok bulls trying to breakout but it failed." Watched the second bar and same exact thing happened, a long wick and close below previous bar. Instinct again was to place the stop sell order right at the lower wick point, which would have been 3610 on the nose and the 20 tick out would have been 3605. I watched the 3rd bar as it moved around a bit and I had maybe 2 or 3 chances to get the short in at 3610 on that third bar I just didn't want to be greedy for the day so I passed.
2nd pink arrow, same exact thought process as above. I mean exactly! I thought to myself "You didn't take the last one because you didn't want to be greedy, why take this one?" On the opposite of that I really felt strongly that I could get another +20 ticks taking this trade exactly how I laid out the first 2 and would have done the above. Stick the stop sell at 3588 and buy limit at 3583. I went as far as to get the pop up on my screen to confirm the order and i clicked no. Again with the reason to not be greedy.
3rd pink arrow,same as the last 2 but by this time I was already "checked out" for the day. I was doing other things, taking notes and such. I seen it and gave it a notice and said huh, could it happen again? Yup it did.
Daily Summary
+$195 for the day (+39 ticks) so very happy about that. I feel I left many ticks on the table for the day but maybe time and experience will help with that. The old Kenny Rodgers song sticks in my head " You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run."
First week of sim trading went well. Ended up in the black so big but it's only 1 week! let's see what it looks like after 1 month and then 2 month etc. Still have a great many things to learn. Still need to get more acclimated with Ninjatraders charts and it's features. I love the chart trader option!
Happy Monday everyone! Lot of watching for me today but I did execute 1 trade on the NQ (well 2 actually but i'll explain).
Trade 1 - Short @ 3522.50
Interesting trade I took here because I felt I was really late taking it. After the nice morning run up that I passed on, I waited to see where things would go. After the 2nd bear bar I was ready to short but had some PC problems. Candle began to run back up while I sorted things out and I was able to get in at the low end @3522.50 before the bar closed. It wasn't my ideal entry but all signs pointed to the market continuing to go lower. The next bar took me for a ride back up a bit and if I was rules or system trading I would have been stopped out at the -10 tick loss mark. Things I seen on the Order Flow and the T&S had me convinced to hold out a little longer. On the next bar I had computer glitches again so as things moved down I couldn't adjust my buy limit bar. I hit the buy market button to see if that would get me out (which it did). The program glitched up a bit and made me think I bought twice, so I hit the sell market button quick, thinking if I did buy a contract I didn't want let me get out at a minimal loss. Turns out it was just a glitch and hitting the sell market made me short another contract @3519.50, so when it moved down a few more ticks I got out of the trade and decided to fix some pc issues before doing anything else! **Note to self: make sure you clean reboot everyday to clear system cache before trading.***
I'm a spectator for the rest of the day. +21 tick today for a $105 profit. Here my chart for the day up till this point.
I took 3 quick hit trades today on the NQ for a +$110.
***Personal Notes*** I began testing out how X_Trader works for me. I like the DOM a little bit better than the Ninjatrader dom, it shows a bit more information. I have yet been able to delve any deeper into it to truly compare. The day I go live I want to start on a platform that is functional for what I need (Charts and a good DOM basically) but don't want to start $1,500 in the hole having to pay for a Ninjatrader license and Jigsaw DOM right away. I'd like to be able to trade a while and "earn" into that. So the continuation of testing platforms while I learn goes on. ***End Note***
Trade 1 - Short @ 3548.00
This trade was a quick hit. I was in it for about a minute and cleared out @ 3545.50 for a +10 tick profit. The price action based on the information I saw on the DOM gave me some confirmation on my move into the trade.
Trade 2 - Short @ 3549.50
There appeared to be some big resistance at the 3550.00 mark (I also had a resistance line at 3551 on my chart). I decided to get in on a short just before that mark because it appeared that we came close to that mark a few times since open but didn't quit get there. I was in the trade for a minute and a half and got out quick for what I thought was a 10 tick profit but was actually 9 (darn miscounting by me) got out @3547.25 for a +9 tick profit. Still need to have some patience in these trades, the run continued all the way down to 3535.00. That is 49 more ticks of possible profit left on the table.
Trade 3 - Buy @ 3572.50
I jumped in on this after that big run up (I was away from my computer and missed it), information looked good and I felt confident to be able to get some more ticks out of the move up. The rally didn't appear to be sustaining and It looked as if the bears where building up to nail things back down. It got a bit murky and I decided to get out @3573.25 +3 ticks. Few minutes later the rally did continue up a bit. Just needed more patience.
I didn't do any simulated trading at all. I took a step back and focused on education materials (reading videos etc). I am also researching brokers and platforms for when I decide to go live. Playing around with X_trader or NinjaTrader is nice, but I am not interested in paying the high cost to lease or own either software when first starting out.
So my search continues to find a free or low cost platform to use at the start that has an informative DOM like x_trader but possibly also has some features I like about Ninjatrader (chart trading, charts themselves etc). The broker and data feed for the platform is important too, so I need to iron all of these thing out and get them in place before I can really focus on trading either sim or going live.
Until I can figure all of this out, I am not going to trade at all. I am going to keep watching the market, the dom and keeping up with educational materials.
About a week has passed and I haven't made any simulated trades at all. Everyday I have watched the NQ and just soaked in all the movements.
It has been about 8 days since my last journal post in that time I have been able to accomplish:
Started demoing Sierra Charts and came to the conclusion that it gives me a functional DOM like X_trader and also gives me features I like about NinjaTrader. It is a bit confusing but I like it so far. It also is less expensive to start than the other 2!
Went through 1/4 of Al Brooks Price Action course videos. Want to take my time and soak in the information and not just rush through it
I started reading James Dalton's Mind over Markets
While I started out reading Al Brooks material and I am now watching his course videos instead (the book was killer. I had to go the video route and go back and reference the book). During my simulated trading time, I would track the charts, and look for some setups to make the trades. I started getting interested in order flow and volume profile. I felt that looking at the DOM and seeing what levels trades where happening at and how the market was moving helped immensely. It is impossible to predict the future and it is impossible to predict where a market will move, but I felt it was a great addition, another piece to the puzzle. So I am studying both concepts because I feel the combination of both will help give me a better edge in the battle.
When I played high-stake poker, all I ever wanted was a slight edge of the odds to be in my favor. While I cannot move markets or shift price around, I can be prepared as possible to shift the odds as much in my favor as possible. Chance favors the prepared mind!
It might be a while before I start tracking simulated trades again, because I want to fully digest all the learning material. I don't care that my first week or 2 of simulated trading had X win % or was X profitable. I need to learn first, then I need to develop a strategy not a system. Systems only work for a short period of time.
On the broker end of things, I really haven't made any attempt to seriously look at one, since I am not ready to go live yet. I do think that I will continue to use Sierra Charts since I think the platform is very functional for me at this point in time.
but it's only 1 week! let's see what it looks like after 1 month and then 2 month etc. Still have a great many things to learn. Still need to get more acclimated with Ninjatraders charts and it's features. I love the chart trader option!