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No trades. It was a mixed bag today in terms of marking areas. Some good some not so good. CL would have been a disaster until later. Glad I didn’t put real money on it. I was a bit sloppy putting in my arrows across the board. I need to not be so cavalier. Most of the failures were from trying to catch trend reversals too early. Need to wait for clear directional change on trend reversals. Biggest regret was passing on the late trade in NQ. Had a strong feeling about that one.
A note on ZN, there was a lot of quick movement at 10am on the 30 yr auction news. Wasn’t expecting this since the 10 yr auction news was yesterday which I thought would be more relevant to ZN. Need to be cognizant of this.
Objectives recap:
-identify trend early and take a shot: Grade D. 6E looked like it could trend and I had a chance that I passed on.
-All day trends are not over till the end: Grade D. Again failed to take advantage of some later moves in 6E in the direction of trend.
-Take obvious trades on ZN: Grade C. The continuation at 9:00 was pretty good but I passed. I’ll admit it wasn’t 100% obvious, just pretty good
-Pay attention to retests of opening swing: Grade B. Recognized on NQ but did not trade. At least it was recognized
-Use QM and M6E to reduce risk: Grade C. Considered a couple trades but did not click in
-Patience, there are plenty of opps each week to reach goals: Grade A. This is definitely on my mind when considering a trade that looks iffy. I quickly catch myself and relieve the pressure to trade. No need to take unnecessary chances. Now I just need to get in on those few trades every day that really scream out.
Note: From now on I will set my objectives at the beginning of each week and only state them once rather than every day. This will reduce the length of my posts. I write them out every morning in my notebook anyway.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
-Trade 1, NQ: 0t.
Playing the initial reversal at the open. Long pinbar was attractive after it tried to go down twice. When it went negative after entry, then had trouble continuing to the upside, I moved to BE. Total daily movement from entry was +6t, -56t.
-Trade 2, NQ: 0t.
Another trade where I was expecting price to break up quickly after retracing a couple times. Moved to BE when it stalled. Total daily movement from entry was +38t, -8t.
Relatively slow Friday on all markets. Most of the markets only filled ¾ of a screen with action. Decent mark ups across the markets which would have produced positively had I taken them all.
Mack advice to consider: be careful entering a trade with the EMA in the way. Better when price shoots through the EMA then retraces back to it.
Objectives recap:
-identify trend and take some shots: Grade A. Tried on NQ a couple times to no avail
-All day trends not over till the end: NA
-Take obvious ZN set ups: NA
-QM and M6E as alternatives: NA
-pay attention to retests of opening swing: Grade C. Missed a nice entry early on CL that retested the OS.
Weekly Summary 4/6/15 to 4/10/15
Live Trades: 4: 2 winners, 2 losers
Starting balance for the week: $2650.94
Withdrawals for the week: $0
Deposits for the week: $0
Week’s P/L: +$75.49
Ending balance for the week: $2726.43
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: -$273.57
Took 4 trades. Positive movement for the day from point of entry before initial stop hit was as follows:
Trade1: 6.7R
Trade 2: 2.6R
Trade 3: 0.4R
Trade 4: 2.5R
Solid trade choices this week. 3 of the 4 trades got to at least 2R before -1R. Some of the moves were quite choppy before getting to target so they would have been hard to hold.
Objectives and focus for week of 4/13 to 4/17:
-Identify trends early and take a couple of shots. The risk is well worth it.
-Strong trend days are often trade-able right up to market close.
-Watch NQ at the open for the fake out followed by the strong move in the opposite direction.
-Pay attention to trend line break failures. These are often the best trades.
-Pay attention to retests of the opening swing for directional changes
-Exercise patience. There are plenty of obvious, high probability trades each week to accomplish objectives. Be content to wait for them. They will come.
No trades. Blew it on a couple of opportunities in 6E early. It was set up pretty good. Should have taken a shot on M6E.
As has been the tendency lately the moves are over by 8:00. The rest of the time is chopping around. Need to get it early.
Objectives recap:
-Identify trends early: C. Saw it on 6E but didn’t trade it
-No all day trends
-No fake out in NQ at open. Just straight up. However, the sell off after not holding above the OS was an opp.
-Watch for TL break failures: C. Saw a few but missed some also
-Retest of OS: kept an eye out but no real significant events there
-Patience: A. Almost too good! Going to need to click in eventually. I am getting good at relaxing my need to trade, even after see good moves missed.
One trade on QM with CL as proxy for price. It was a good trade that wasn’t managed properly. Reasonable movement from entry was -4, +24. It reversed after entry, then resumed. I was expecting a quicker break up after it got in the black but it stalled again for a bit. Move to BE was taken out. 0t
Still looking for that “easy” trade. I keep skipping the ones that go like a bat out of hell, while picking the ones that chop around before taking off. No worries, at least I am tending to select better trades these days.
Objectives recap:
-identify trend and hop on board: C. Passed on the “easy” CL trade after the inventory, but at least tried to get on board later
-All day trends are tradeable until the end of the session. D. CL traded well all day but I skipped.
-NQ fake out at open: did not materialize
-TL break failures: still need to get better at recognizing these.
-Retests on OS: did not take seriously the one on NQ
-Patience: A. plenty of that!
No trades. Some great moves. Did a nice job of recognizing the TL breakout failures. Several examples across the instruments. These opportunities might be what I need to focus on at this time in my trading. They tend to run soon after entry and are easier to hold to target. I assume they are trapped traders who are running for the exits. If the trade doesn't work it usually means price will get stuck in a tight range. At the beginning of the day, when energy is highest, price rarely gets stuck in a tight range so it is worth taking the risk.
Objectives Recap:
- Trends came a little later in CL and NG. Identified both but did not get on board.
-Didn’t take advantage of NG’s big move for a good part of the day.
-No fake out this morning that was trade-able.
-Did a nice job of identifying several TL breakout failures.
- There was one retest of the OS on GC that worked pretty well.
-Once again, good job with patience
No trades. Did some nice work identifying Trend Line Breakout Failures. The idea is to identify an established trend, or the most likely next direction of the market. Then, wait for an attempt to break a trend line counter to the trend. When the attempt fails and instead breaks a trend line back in the direction of the trend this is the signal to enter. Training my eye for this keeps me always aware of what the market is trying to do but cant. These failures often result in the quickest moves because they have sucked a lot of people into the wrong direction and now they must bail.
Objectives recap:
-I am not doing well in taking at least one shot in identified trends. This is in keeping with my overall reluctance to trade.
-The move starting at 10:25 in NQ was an example of how an all day trend can trade well even after a lot of movement.
-I missed what NQ was telling me at 6:38 when it made several attempts to continue higher and couldn’t. Going short on the TL break was the play that would have yielded 100 plus ticks fairly quickly.
-As mentioned early, I did a nice job of being aware of and identifying TL BO failures. I am of the opinion these would be the best trades for me to take at this time until my account gets cushion. They move fast and often far, so holding is not as difficult as trying to catch an initial breakout in a trend when things can chop around before taking off.
-I am becoming more aware of opening swing retests. Price often goes deep into the opening swing on these retest before resuming in the original direction.
-Once again, patience was very good. At one point this morning I started to become anxious at watching several nice moves go without me. It dawned on me that these are the moments when it is most imperative to “let go” and relax the desire to trade. These are the times when one is inclined to take ill-advised trades. This is the kind of discipline and self-control I believe a trader needs to survive long term.
Weekly Summary 4/13/15 to 4/17/15
Live Trades: 1: 1 loser
Starting balance for the week: $2726.43
Withdrawals for the week: $0
Deposits for the week: $0
Week’s P/L: -$4.10
Ending balance for the week: $2722.33
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: -$277.67
Not a very exciting week of live trading. One trade. This is about 25 to 50 fewer trades than I believe are available in any given week.
As has been the case, my biggest challenge is my reluctance to trade. Undoubtedly this has to do with the potential losses being too large relative to my account value. This makes it difficult to stomach the thought of 3 or 4 losing trades in row, which any edge is susceptible to. It has helped that I have proxy instruments like M6E and QM, along with NQ (1 contract), and ZN to effectively reduce my initial risk by half. This puts my initial risk at around $75-$90 per trade on a $3000 account. It is still high (2.5% per trade) for my taste, but better. Surely when my risk per trade is a lot lower, more like 1% or even 0.5%, it will be easier to open up. The hardest money is the first money. In any case I need to develop more confidence in my ideas and take more trades or I will never get out of the gate. Options include: minimum trades per day, minimum trades per week, clicking in, taking or losing a couple ticks, then clicking out, etc. The rest of the weekend will be devoted to how to best go about doing this.
Not all was lost this week. I did some nice eye training work recognizing Trend Line Breakout Failures and Retests of the Opening Swing. I will continue these exercises on my daily objectives until they become second nature.
My quality of trade entry has improved with my stinginess. The last 20 trades price reached 1R 65% of the time and 2R 45% of the time. The last 10 trades price reached 1R 80% of the time and 2R 70% of the time, with some trades getting to 4R+.
No doubt if I traded more these statistics will get worse but overall I generally feel, based on how I mark the charts in real time, that my methodology is sound and my discipline is where it needs to be.
I still think you would fare far better..by picking your two favorite instruments and focus on those. If you want low risk, you need to time your entries carefully and that is extremely difficult to do when you are watching several at once. The only way you'd have a chance would be to have something that generates an audible and visual signal when a particular setup is involved. You are going up against not only professional traders..but complex algorithms. That's why most retail traders are totally delusional if they they think they have any chance of succeeding under those circumstances. Without knowing your instruments nuances, and particular way of moving (Cl doesn't move like NQ..etc..) , it becomes extremely challenging. When momentum suddenly comes into the picture or a setup shows up, you have to be ready to push that button without hesitation.
The bottom line is, if you don't have specific signal or entry point..you are going to have to have a very large stop loss..because chances are..you will have missed a good entry point and the price will retrace and go back and forth. And if you watch 5 or 6 things at once, it's almost impossible to time those entries..unless you are a machine.
I hope you don't mind me commenting again and I hope your weekend is going well.
