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I traded a replay day today, normal speed of course. Pretty straightforward price action and I was able to make some more money towards my goal. There are some more comments in the charts.
7/23/2014 +$169.90, 5 wins
-bbdsan
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Oops! Really traded poorly on this replay day. I started out with 2 full losses trying to get long, looking for a retest of the initial up-channel. Things went from bad to worse and I had another max loss followed by a double loss. I got my act together a little and made some money back but then screwed up one more time near the end of the session. Did some significant damage to my demo account but I'm alive to trade another day.
7/24/2014 -$395.76, 6 wins, 7 losses
Today on live data I have 4 wins in the bank, although two of them were only 2 ticks because I chickened out. I need to have more confidence!
I fell behind with my journal here a little. I have a few days' results to report:
7/27/2015 +$67.46, 19 wins, 7 losses
This day was crazy! I started out really well with 6 wins and I was up about $166. Then I had a max loss but made it back quickly with 2 more wins. I was up about $155. Then I started getting whipsawed. I had a big 2-contract loser followed by another big 2-contract loser and suddenly I was down about $280! Then I started trading even bigger. I kept scaling into 3-, 4-, and even a 5-contract position. I was winning but I definitely wasn't trading according to my rules and plan. I seriously went off the reservation. Technically, it would have been possible for me to trade up to 5 contracts because I had more than $2000 in my demo account at the time and my broker only requires $300 margin per contract for day trades. But still, this is not me. This is not how I want to trade. In the end I had about $67 in profits and put this day in the W column.
7/28/2015 +$37.86, 4 wins, 3 losses
After the previous day's insanity, this day was relatively calm. I got tripped up a couple times but still managed to turn a profit.
7/29/2015 +$103.88, 5 wins, 1 loss
Pretty good today except one spot where I failed to wait for a setup and just sold blindly at a place where I thought prices would turn back down. They didn't turn down and I took a 7-tick loss. Oops. But it's okay, I'm still learning every day and slowly moving forward towards my goal.
7/25/2014 +$164.80, 6 wins, 3 losses
This was a replay day. My first loss was a legit 2nd entry short but prices just wouldn't go down enough to fill my target order. It tried 4 bars in a row but could never go down more than 2 ticks from my entry. I should have just taken 1 tick but I let it go back up and stop me out for a 6-tick loss. My second loss was a legit 2nd entry long but I had failed to recognize that the larger pattern in play was a big down trend. Prices dropped quickly and stopped me out at -8 ticks. My third loss was just a bad trade. I just bought blindly at a place where I thought prices would bounce. Instead they dropped quickly for another 8-tick loss. That was when I finally recognized the larger two-tiered channel working down. I went short 2 contracts and held the position for a big drop to the lower channel line. That was a nice fat win which made up for the earlier losses. Then two more normal scalps and I called it a day.
Quick morning. I started with a max 8-tick loss but right at the open I got short 2 contracts based on a very bearish reversal bar. I took a 4-tick scalp and let the 2nd contract run. I could have held it a little longer looking for the measured move but I didn't. I took profits 1 tick above the previous low. I took one more scalp on a failed 2nd entry long and called it a day.
I have completed another day on replay, normal speed. It was a good day except I really got tricked on my third trade of the day. I believe the PA is never wrong so I must have misread it somehow but man, it seemed like a very nice 2nd entry short. It went 3 ticks my way then reversed quickly for a max 8-tick loss. I think my mistake was not waiting for a retest after the break of the up-channel. But the bias was clearly down at that point and my setup bar was a beautiful bearish reversal bar. The overall pattern turned out to be a big range day so I guess that last move down was just a failed breakout. Whatever it was it sure fooled me! However, I was able to recuperate and end the day with some profits.
7/28/2014 +$71.84, 6 wins, 2 losses
I am now up $1854.07 in my demo account, more than halfway to my goal.
Ouch! I took some damage in the battle today. It wasn't too bad until the last hour of the session. I really need to leave my parameters alone once I enter a trade. 8-tick stop, 4-tick target - just set it and forget it. There were a few trades today where I would have gotten my full 4-tick scalp but instead I closed too early for a 1-, 2- or 3-tick profit. But worse than that, on one trade today I was long and actually moved my stop up to -6 in order to stop myself out and reverse to a short position. As you might guess prices moved back up and stopped me out for another loss, right about where I would have been taking my 4-tick profit on the original long - if I had just left it the hell alone!
Anyway, there are some more comments directly on the charts.
Tonight during work I traded a day on replay, normal speed playback as usual. It was a pretty good session and I'm glad to put up another profitable day, especially after this morning.
I've certainly had some big losing days while I've been learning how to do this. As recently as yesterday I lost more than $300 in one day. Yet my winning days are usually only about $100 +/-. Today I changed this pattern. I traded a day on replay, running at normal speed. I capitalized on two regularly occurring market tendencies; 1) when early morning news causes prices to move a large amount in one direction, prices usually work back to that same level that they were at before the news, there's an emotional reaction and then prices come back and "reset", and 2) there is usually a reversal within the first several minutes after the cash open.
With these two ideas in mind, and a channel working down before the cash open, I built a 2 contract short position. I had a 5-point stop and a 5-point target. As expected, shortly after prices moved up at the cash open, they reversed. As noted on my chart there was a last little spike up which ended up being a nice bull trap. I shorted a 3rd contract with a sell-stop 1 tick below that bar and took a nice little 4-tick scalp in the midst of my larger short position. After that I still liked prices to the down side so I faded what looked like a nice long entry setup. It turned into a 2nd entry short / bull trap so I took 7 ticks on that scalp.
Finally, prices returned to the level they had been at when the early morning news hit. I took my 5-point profit on both contracts and called it a day. Best day ever!
Well, I thought I was done for the day but I wasn't.
I was just watching the rest of the PA play out since it was still early, and I saw this nice trade setup. It almost went against me. I really should have waited for the failed 2nd entry long, which came 2 bars later, to be safer about the idea. But I felt pretty confident that prices would move down to at least retest the lows. I set my target order 1 tick above the previous low and scored myself another 11 ticks.
7/30/2014 Extra Credit +$133.98
And now I'm done for sure. I'm not giving back a cent of these profits!
I spent some time reading some of my first posts and looking at my old charts. Man, I used to really struggle with this. But something has changed now. Some kind of light bulb clicked on in my brain. I just need to wait for good setups. Identify the larger theme and just be patient!
Today I completed another day on replay, normal speed. I had 4 good scalps before it really became clear what the larger pattern was. It was what Mack calls a "spike and channel". Earlier on I was trading it like a range. My first scalp was a long, in fact. But prices quickly turned back down and I was looking only for shorts from then on.
Prices kept trying to push below the mid-line so I figured they would eventually push down to the lower channel line. I went short after a failed 2nd entry long (from the top). Then there was a second failed 2nd entry long from the recent low so I went short a second contract. I held the double short position all the way down to the lower channel line which also happened to be an absolutely perfect measured move (indicated by the orange arrows).
7/31/2014 +$778.88, 6 wins
Today was a very big win and I have now reached my goal of $3000 in profits in my demo account. I'm sending a check in to my broker tomorrow so I can try live trading again. However, it will be almost 2 weeks before it clears so I'll have plenty of time to practice a bit more.
