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Hi, first post, first journal, maybe I'll explain the walk that took me here in a future post but right now I just gotta owe up to what I promised myself and put black on white my failures and my successes.
Any insight, suggestion or comment is very welcome, I like ALL external viewpoints, especially contrarian ones.
Trading ES and using doubleEMA to give me signals on a 5 min chart.
One contract.
Trading times may vary, I'll trade whenever there is sufficient volatility and a clear trend (or wide enough range)
I keep another chart and look at pure price action, switch back and forth with 15min chart and use signals to confirm suspicions.
So I wake up this morning and I bring up a chart, I first need to resolve a technical issue with NT, it keeps on bringing up blank charts until I reset the data.
Once it's up and running I immediately see the ES on a nice bear tend on a 5 min chart, it followed a bull leg and it's almost breaking out of the prior low.
I enter a trade and I immediately make a mistake, I go long because I'm groggy with sleep. I reverse losing one tick and hope for the best.
I go back to a 15 min chart and I see the last was a lower high, then it broke out in a bear spike, attempted a reversal, failed, so I'm measuring a move down equal to the first leg, down to 2026, or to test prior lo at 2025.
I need to go to work so ideally I would leave it on and try and take profits at 2026.50 because it's the first chart reading I do.
But when I see it's touching the upper part of the channel I really just ant to take two ticks of profits and go.
Too bad I focused on the 1 minute chart and totally mistook the bull flag for a separate trend.
Got stopped out brutally.
Good: did some analysis even if wrong, did not move stops or got out early to take easy ticks
Bad: Jumped in way too early, need to look better at what is happening, especially on longer time frames.
Result for the day: 2 trades, -2 points
Result so far: 2 trades, -2 points
Had a closer look this evening coming home from work, the trend were clear as day.
Feel like trading some more but today after 18:00 it's stuck in a very tight side channel. It's midnight here so I'm going to bed.
1) First trade I sold according to got knows what, in the middle of what leter as identified as a bull flag.
And what's up with that super tight stop, what was I trying to validate/invalidate?
Lesson: trend reverals are rare.
Result: -1.50
2) Second trade was obviously revenge trading.
Reasoned, as I was expecting the small bear trend to continue or at least do a bear wedge, but I still executed it poorly, got all excited seeing a big red bar on a 5 minutes chart and entered before the bar closed (turned into a doji).
Stopped out.
Result: -1
3) Sold the pullback when it touched the resistance micro trend, thinking the previous bear spike was CLEARLY a trend reversal because it poked through a half assed support line I drew on the basis of two lows at the start of the bul trend.
Punished big time.
I need to put more confidence in trends that have been going on across two days.
Result: -1
4) Bought the spike with trend, arrived late to the party, knowing it was losing steam.
Sold it as soon as I saw red after the doji.
Bad. I chickened out, I should have waited for the measured move up.
Thank you for being such a forgiving audience, I love you all.
Resut: +0.75
Obviously the measured move started with a spike, which I bought at the top, like all the other suckers.
Looked at other time-frames and saw a doji on the three minutes that put profit taking likely two ticks higher than my entry. Took two ticks and thought better see if it goes sideways for a 10 bars or so.
BTW that was a huge spike and I only got 1.25 out of it. Something is wrong with the way I do things.
Also, I am not following any of the rules I set out at the beginning. Yay!
Result: +0.50
5) Bought at the top of a 15 minutes breakout spike, with trend, broke two days high, it will correct and then continue higher.
Textbook stop one tick below breakout bar open. (8 points I would cringe risking with real money, but I am following the rules for once)
I'm tired of micromanaging so this stays on for a couple of hours, see how it goes.
6) Added one to my long on a pullback. Again a textbook move. Exited one on previous high to lock in some profit, worried about the forming double top and needed an ego boost I guess.
Result: +2.25
Losing my patience and this looks like it's turning into a trading range, so I'm getting out my last long with one tick gain.
Result: +0.25
Nerve wrecking day.
Trades for the day: 7
Result for the day: +0.25
The Good: I'm proud I've followed what I learned from Al Brooks
The Bad: it's clear I am not as good as I thought executing and sticking to my own rules.
So I come home and the good stuff for the day has finished, major bull leg up finishes at 2 CET, not enough time for a measured move I guess, plus (in hindsight) it starts trading between the open and the close of prior day.
So I think well I can scalp a few points, I have zero experience and the indicators I have up are actually counter-productive to the task but I'll be damned if the thought crossed my mind. I swear it's not hubris that will blow my account, simple mindlessness will. Also I start right about when the channel starts making its move up. Did not see that coming.
Shorted +0.50
Long +0.75
Shorted (right on the measured move up) -2.25
Total for the day 3 trades -1.00
Then I sit down and read some Al Brooks and here's the passage verbatim on page 397 "with neither the scalping nor the swinging bears now shorting and the bulls not taking profits, the market usually runs for about a measured move up, equal to about the height of the trading range". Amen, brother.
Also, NT crashed on me twice today, and I have a Pending Submit order that I can't seem to be able to cancel. Suggestions welcome!
Also, I learned trading stops for half an hour between 3 and 3:30. Neat! I've got to find out why is that.
As usual I come home, fire up a chart and want to get in the midst of it, but today I have waited just a little longer.
Looked good because it was oversold on the 15 minutes, there was an impending EMA crossover on the 10 minutes, so I went long on the 3 minute chart after a solid bull bar signal.
I had visions of a mad bull run until I realised we were one hour from the close, so I switched plan and went for a 4 ticks scalp, even though I should have bought one tick above the high 2 @ 2058.25 where the arrow is.
My protective stop was below the most recent low a 2055 exactly. Everyone can scalp one point with a five point stop, that's a bad habit.
I still believe it will continue going up, at least 2071 to test the recent high, let's see if the morning proves me wrong and if the original stop at 2055 would have been run over before reaching the target.
The reason is the bull trend has been going on for a while, the recent leg down looks like a correction, and I entered where I did because a high 2 is a solid signal according to Brooks (page 410 or something, as per today's reading)
All bets are welcome!
Result: 1 trade, +1.00
Total so far 13 Trades, -1.75
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Afterthoughts:
The Pending submit trade was an NT glitch, it was enough to reset the Sim account and it went away.
I keep on forgetting about the close of day, and that trade stops between Fri 17:15 and Sunday 18:00, I've got to pay more attention to that.
I've also been thinking I need to stop looking at higher time frame charts, for two reasons: one, it's distracting and I am not proficient enough to keep all that data together, and two, I could not afford stops wider than 5-6 ticks. I've got to stick to 1-3-5 minute charts. Question: Is it realistic to trade ES on those terms?
hi there-also a UK novice ES SIm trader- have you thought about moving away from time based charts to tick charts- i am making a lot less mistakes using tick charts...
Thank you!
I haven't tried tick bars yet, definitely will see how they work.
I'm interested, in what way are they helping you make less mistakes, precisely?
What kind of signals do you trade off of?
As previously mentioned, I've been reading Al Brooks, and he talks a lot about breakouts and reversal patterns. Now I know that he goes out of his way to explain how reversals fail 80% of the times, but for some reason the signals stuck with me and now that's all I see...
Is it me?
BTW, I've just wiped out my first account. Two days, baby.
More on that in the next post.
