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  #301 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082

7/29/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 2 wins. 1 loss
Day’s P/L: $226.30

2 trades on QM and one trade on ZN. The QM trades were based on momentum after the inventory. I am especially happy about re-entering on the second trade after being taken out prematurely on the first. Showed a little fortitude.

The ZN trade would have worked for some ticks but I decided to exit voluntarily after it double bottomed with CD divergence. In my opinion one sign of trader maturity is the ability to take oneself out of a trade that has gone against them but has not hit the full stop. I have found difficulty in the past in taking small losses voluntarily, instead holding out “hope”. Hope is a costly tendency and should be expunged from a trader’s habits.

Marker and trade results were very good today:

3 wins
2 BE

If all profits were taken at 1R, this would be a 5R day.

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  #302 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386


Tap In View Post
7/29/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 2 wins. 1 loss
Day’s P/L: $226.30

2 trades on QM and one trade on ZN. The QM trades were based on momentum after the inventory. I am especially happy about re-entering on the second trade after being taken out prematurely on the first. Showed a little fortitude.

The ZN trade would have worked for some ticks but I decided to exit voluntarily after it double bottomed with CD divergence. In my opinion one sign of trader maturity is the ability to take oneself out of a trade that has gone against them but has not hit the full stop. I have found difficulty in the past in taking small losses voluntarily, instead holding out “hope”. Hope is a costly tendency and should be expunged from a trader’s habits.

Marker and trade results were very good today:



3 wins
2 BE

If all profits were taken at 1R, this would be a 5R day.

Nice job!!

Failure is not an option
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  #303 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082


7/30/15 Thursday
Live Trades: 1 loss
Day’s P/L: -$96.75

Blew it today. One early loss on ZN stifled my fortitude to continue trading. After a couple nice days, I had it in the back of my mind that I could get overconfident and have a blowout day. The result was that I passed on some really nice moves after the loss on ZN. I’ll need to push through those early losses to trade at full potential. To be fair, I also marked a lot of areas that ended up being losers, so I am not all that upset that I didn’t trade freely.

I kind of knew quickly that I was trapped on the ZN trade and seriously considered reversing, but I didn’t want to end up with one of those stupid looking chop out areas with entry and exit arrows going every which way. It turned out that reversing would have paid off handsomely. Oh well, at least my instincts were correct.


Marker and trade activity:
0 wins
4 losses
3 BE

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  #304 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082

7/31/15 Friday
Live Trades: 3 wins, 2 losses
Day’s P/L: $56.62

5 trades, 4 on ZN and 1 on M6E. Had it to $200 before taking two losses on ZN. I was probably too aggressive for a Friday on those last two, but the trades were there and I took them. The 4th ZN trade was the cruelest as I held it for over 3 hours and had plenty of chances to get out at BE. It finally made one more push down to stop me out to the tick before going on to target.

Had a great trade on M6E for 44 ticks. Unfortunately it was with only one contract at $1.25 per tick. This was good for $55 on the trade. On the regular contract it would have been $550, so I’ve got that to look forward to.

The big miss of the day was on GC. A perfect set up with my rules that went 100 ticks in the easiest way. I can’t wait to actually get one of those!

Marker results were good. Marked a lot of ZN areas that worked:
8 wins
2 losses
1 BE

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The following user says Thank You to Tap In for this post:
  #305 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082

Monthly Recap July 2015
Live Trades: 40: 17 winners, 23 losers

Starting balance for the Month: $2290.40
Withdrawals for the month: $0
Deposits for the month: $0
Month’s P/L: $144.15
Ending balance for the month: $2434.56

Beginning account balance from first live trade on 3/10/15: $3000.00
Total Withdrawals: $0
Total Deposits: $0
Total Gains/losses from 3/10/15: -$565.44

Trade count and trade quality were up for the month at 40 trades with 42.5% profitable. The P/L wasn’t anything to write home about but at least it was positive. Considering I made one big accidental entry error that cost $191, I made some progress.

Last month I wrote:

“My goal for the next month will be to focus on the bigger charts and try to eliminate all “bad” or “ok” trades. If at the end of the month I can say all trades were good, and I am still losing, than I will need to rethink how I am looking at the markets. “

Looking back on July, of the 40 trades, 34 were in “good” areas and only 6 were just “OK”. None were “bad. This is progress. There were many trades that were managed poorly. I generally traded only with the perceived trend at the time. Of the trades that didn’t work, most were flat out trend changes that caught me in traps.

As far as the potential of my trades:
-24 got to +1R before -1R, so my edge was there at 60%, even if it was slight.
-Only 9 got to +2R before -1R (22%), so I generally did not pick trades that went very far. There still seems to be something missing in my trade selection. Perhaps I need to hold out for bigger patterns in order to get the 2R trades.

When the trades were combined with the real time markers the results were much better. Out of 89 marked or traded areas:
-61 got to +1R (68%)
-29 got to +2R (32%)
-28 hit -1R (31%)

Edit: when I originally posted this I was not too impressed with the results because I was thinking that 32% at 2R is only around break even if the rest were -1R losses. However, I forgot that the way I calculate the marker results is to move to BE after reaching +1R. In re-looking at the results 29 got to 2R against 28 that hit the stop at -1R. The rest were at BE. Therefore the results were actually quite good, essentially a 50% win rate with a 2/1 gain to loss. That's the formula I have been targeting.

The results were better in part because I am a little freer when putting in markers, placing them in locations that might show more momentum but with less confirmation. My actual trades tend to be in more complex patterns wanting more confirmation.

I still feel I am letting too many good trades go, both untraded and unmarked in real time, as evidenced by the thick arrows I place in my daily recaps. I need to do a better job of visualizing that end-of-day recap while still in real time. The better I can match my actual trades to the markers, the more progress I will make in my opinion.

Next month I will focus on:

-Continuing my primarily focus on the 3X charts and taking only “good” areas.

-Waiting for slightly larger patterns to capture those 2R trades

-Visualizing the end-of-day recap while in real time.

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  #306 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 8,158 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 57,293
Thanks Received: 26,253


Tap In View Post
Considering I made one big accidental entry error that cost $191, I made some progress.

Progress is progress. Steadiness wins.

You're moving ahead, which is what matters.

Bob.

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  #307 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082

8/3/15 Monday
Live Trades: 0
Day’s P/L: $0


No trades today, not that there weren’t opportunities. I just wasn’t feeling it. Things started very slowly and methodically, which triggered my caution meter. Then, I missed a great trade on ZN early when, unbeknownst to me, the live part of my 3X chart was hidden behind the locked space. From there I became more and more reluctant to jump in to already mature trends, instead waiting for some other obvious move that never came. The equities made a long straight move that bottomed in chop. That is where I placed a couple markers that went nowhere.

Marker results were not impressive as I placed several of them late in the day when nothing was happening:
1 win
2 losses
1 BE

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Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #308 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082

8/4/15 Tuesday
Live Trades: 6, 2 wins, 4 losses
Day’s P/L: $52.72

In spite of the fact that I took 6 trades and only made about $50, I was somewhat pleased to be positive today. It was a tricky day, starting very slow, with most instruments in ranges. Things really didn’t break open until after 10:00am so one had to exercise a bit of patience, which I did by focusing mostly on the 3X charts and waiting for some sort of “event” before attempting a trade. An “event” would be a strong fast move, a big break out, a bounce off significant S/R, etc.

1 trade on NG
3 trades on YM
1 trade on QM
1 trade on NQ

I felt a little freer to take trades, though was a bit too cautious on a couple trades that were good for 1R+ had I stuck with them. As has been said before, when my account gets bigger I will let trades play out more. Right now we're looking for the ones that take off and never look back, which does happen often.

Marker and trade results:
1 win
4 BE
5 losses

The marker and trade results reflect the difficulty of the day and the fact that price chopped around quite a bit before making moves late in the day

All in all, my trigger finger is getting a little looser. Hopefully when the right day comes along this work will pay off.

One extra chart today since I traded two different equities.

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  #309 (permalink)
 
Tap In's Avatar
 Tap In 
Bend, OR
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts
Broker: Global Futures/OEC
Trading: NQ, CL
Posts: 948 since Feb 2013
Thanks Given: 2,162
Thanks Received: 2,082

8/5/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 2, 1 win, one loss
Day’s P/L: $166.38

Today I faced a different sort of mental challenge. After a nice $250 trade on NG early, I became stingy with my profits, not wanting to give anything back. Not used to this!

Of course I just couldn’t help myself. After passing on opportunity after opportunity, I had to go and make one more trade late in the day on YM. Naturally it was a full stop out. The trade was not a bad one and was executed properly and just didn’t work out.

That’s the thing about winner/loser probabilities. No one is ever going to be perfect. There will always be x number of wins and y number of losses. Any single trade could be a loser no matter how great it looks. It is impossible to predict. This is the reason that the better a trader can take ALL trades, the more probable a positive outcome overall (assuming, of course, a robust edge). All in all though I am pleased to make some profits today.

Marker and trade results were less than stellar once again today:
2 wins
3 losses
1 BE

I am letting too many areas pass without marking, so I am not getting a true idea of how the method is working. The marker results are just a “what if” game, a sort of sim without using sim. They are a tool to gauge the health of the methodology at any given time. If good set ups are not marked the system can not be evaluated properly. I need to get back to marking more areas and having conviction in the set ups, letting the chips fall where they may.

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  #310 (permalink)
thetamax8
Vancouver, BC
 
Posts: 25 since Sep 2014
Thanks Given: 0
Thanks Received: 17


Love this journal. Keep up the good work!

I noticed you are posting summary stats (win/losses) at the aggregate level.

Do you look at the breakdown by instrument as well?
Do you look at longs vs shorts, which ones are working better for you? (to see if you have a natural long or short tendency)?

Just curious...

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