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)
One trade on CL: -9t.
-TRM +0t, -65t
-Got the context completely wrong and read the order flow wrong. Another trade away from my usual set up criteria because I thought order flow was signaling a reversal. Need to be a little more practiced before taking these types of trades.
One trade on GC: -8t
-TRM +5t, -10t
-Got the direction right but in a little early and stop too tight based on trade activity.
If you have added a new component into your system, such as the "Footprint" and are trying to read order flow, then you are in a testing mode. In my opinion, any new factor you put in a system makes it now an unproven experimental entity.
If that is the case, live trading is a somewhat risky way to find out if that new addition will work. Personally, I never change anything about my system and immediately take it live. It needs to be tested first, before risking money on it.
You are absolutely correct. I tend to be a bit immature as a trader when it comes to things like this. I have in the past made a mental note of your admirable patience in going through the proper process to test a new idea. You test a new idea by trading in sim, correct? At what point do you know it is time to implement?
Weekly Summary 1/4/16 to 1/8/16
Live Trades: 5
Week’s P/L: -$153.00
Starting balance for the week: $3439.39
Withdrawals for the week: $0
Deposits for the week: $0
Ending balance for the week: $3286.39
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: $286.39
A rather inauspicious start to the year. Four losses and one win. I came out swinging with a new order flow tool and took some trades that went against plan. I have long felt that I needed something to help further refine the entry process in order to get expectancy up from where it currently stands at barely above zero. Eliminating trades that show no order flow in my direction seemed a logical place to start. The original intent of adding footprint to my arsenal was to use it in conjunction with my current plan to cull out some of the losers, not to create new trades that have nothing to do with my plan. Unfortunately I got a little over my skis this week. Back to the bunny hill next week.
Of the 5 trades:
-3 were counter trend and were losers. Thought I had this footprint thing down and so tried to take early advantage of directional changes. @ratfink, I lost money going counter trend so that you wouldn’t have to. You’re welcome.
-My one win was with trend, context correct, timing a little early but it worked out. Here I used footprint as a verification tool to both enter and stay in.
-One loss was with trend and had the context right but was timed a little wrong. OK, at least I can sleep well knowing I followed the plan.
Next week:
-Trade within the rules of the plan. Wait for obvious trades, trades I would take with or without footprint. Use footprint only to confirm order flow going in the direction of the trade. If order flow is not there, no trade. In other words, use footprint to eliminate trades, not create them.
Yes, I do trade new things in SIM. If it is something such as a new tool or indicator, I can generally tell after a few weeks if it is helpful. For example, after about a week using the Tick Strike order flow indicator, I could tell it was going to be useful. As long as you are not making drastic changes to your existing trading system, you shouldn't need hundreds of trades to know if it is effective or not.
Monthly Recap January 2016
Live Trades: 5
Month’s P/L: -$153.00
Starting balance for the Month: $3439.39
Withdrawals for the month: $0
Deposits for the month: $0
Ending balance for the month: $3286.39
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: $286.39
It has been a while since my last live trade, or post. I have been spending time working with order flow, specifically footprint, to improve trade selection and timing. Results in sim have been very promising. Compared to other testing periods, my win rate has increase dramatically and there have been many more days profitable, even while taking a high quantity of trades and some knowingly questionable test trades. This is good news. Normally when I trade a lot, even in sim, I do nothing but lose. This time the trade log showed a lot more time spent in the black. The markets have been quite volatile so the one question is whether the results will be the same in a more sanguine market. At the very least I feel my trading skills have improve to another level. Whether that level means consistent profitability remains to be seen. I’m quite leery of making any sort of bold pronouncement, like “I’ve got it!” Any time I have done this, with either golf or trading, the next time out proves to be a big disappointment.
Some things learned:
-Using footprint provides much more specific criteria to look for in trade selection. There is a lot less questioning, “is this it?” Not to say every trade is 100% obvious. There is still a lot of discretion, just not as much.
-I have had an epiphany in regards to retracements, why they happen, and where they might stop. In essence, it is this: price almost always returns to where it broke out, and this occurs on all time frames. I am embarrassed to admit that, in all my time studying and trading, this never occurred to me.
-While I still use the same tools to structure the market, my entry criteria will be a lot more dependent on footprint than some of the things I have done in the past, like waiting for a break of a trend line. I’ll largely still be trading pullbacks in trends but the entries might happen a lot earlier, sometimes even later, and occasionally will be counter trend if the conditions are right.
-Watching footprint requires a lot more focus, which means I will be concentrating on fewer instruments, primarily oil and one of the indexes since they seem to be coupled at the moment. This has been encouraged by a few folks. I now have a compelling reason.
-I have been able to decrease my typical stop in oil to around 7 or 8 ticks, which is nice.
I will still have other instruments like GC and NG open in the event of those rare times where obvious and potentially lucrative opportunities occur, but most of my time will be with oil, at least as long as it is moving. Footprint seems to work quite nicely with oil.
Going forward I will trade my own account as long as I remain profitable or go backwards $1500 or so. Should this occur I will look to do a combine to take some pressure off my finances while at the same time working towards something tangible.
Monthly Recap February 2016
Live Trades: 4
Month’s P/L: -$217.82
Starting balance for the Month: $3286.39
Withdrawals for the month: $0
Deposits for the month: $0
Ending balance for the month: $3068.57
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: $68.57
Just returned from vacation. Not much in the way of live activity in February. Still working on order flow techniques and took a much needed holiday. I will be starting a $30,000 Top Step combine Monday to shake things up a bit. Analysis will be on Sierra Charts while the combine execution will be on a simple Ninja chart. This will allow me the tools available on Sierra and the ability to trade my live account on occasion.
I will attempt to treat the combine as a form of sim trading with the added benefit of reward with success. I anticipate many trades in the combine, with a few targeted trades on the live account. My goal for the combine will be to treat it as I would sim, with as little concern as possible of blow up. As simple reset of $100 and we start over. Time will tell if I can keep such a carefree mindset when the shooting begins, especially if by some miracle I get funded!
For some reason I lost my Sierra stats for February so only the account balance is attached.
I did not know that. Thanks! I use the Sierra Charts data because of its thoroughness when using order flow. Do you know if I would have to pay another data fee for the the second Sierra copy?
