NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





Papa's Trading Journal


Discussion in Trading Journals

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one papa15 with 339 posts (1,003 thanks)
    2. looks_two bluemele with 47 posts (46 thanks)
    3. looks_3 Big Mike with 43 posts (47 thanks)
    4. looks_4 PandaWarrior with 43 posts (40 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one papa15 with 3 thanks per post
    2. looks_two Big Mike with 1.1 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 bluemele with 1 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 PandaWarrior with 0.9 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 91,224 views
    2. thumb_up 1,216 thanks given
    3. group 20 followers
    1. forum 566 posts
    2. attach_file 174 attachments




Closed Thread
 
Search this Thread

Papa's Trading Journal

  #311 (permalink)
 
PandaWarrior's Avatar
 PandaWarrior 
In the heat
 
Experience: None
Posts: 3,165 since Mar 2010
Thanks Given: 6,329
Thanks Received: 13,404


papa15 View Post
Today I noticed that CL was barely moving on the charts...could not believe what I was seeing as we all know CL moves. Then I realized, I need to roll to the next month. One of the beauties of ToS is that the chart displays a continuous contract and but orders are sent to the market to the proper contract without an rolling. Took just a couple of minutes to create new charts and I was off and running.

Did a couple of practice (ie sim) trades during the big drop just after 9:15. They were supposed to have been real, but I had been looking at NT charts (rolling forward), glanced back at SC, saw a setup and took it. After the second trade, realized it was sim, so switched to live trading. On these trades, the emotions were exactly like real trading. It actually was good for me as I had waited for the setup and executed the trades per plan. I just repeated that once I was back to live action.

I did 2 trades, both for 8 ticks. Yes, I could have gone for more, but I took what satisfies me. I made enough to do that. I waited for the 233 chart setup, made the entries controlling the risk, took profits, and now I am done.

I hope everyone has a great day and week.
Papa15

Brillant!

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Thanked by:

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
NT7 Indicator Script Troubleshooting - Camarilla Pivots
NinjaTrader
My NT8 Volume Profile Split by Asian/Euro/Open
NinjaTrader
Online prop firm The Funded Trader (TFT) going under?
Traders Hideout
Ninja Mobile Trader VPS (ninjamobiletrader.com)
Trading Reviews and Vendors
Are there any eval firms that allow you to sink to your …
Traders Hideout
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
60 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
37 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
24 thanks
GFIs1 1 DAX trade per day journal
22 thanks
The Program
19 thanks
  #312 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

Tuesday is like any other day of the week. Same length of time, etc, but it is the day of the week I trade the worse. I have no idea why that is so. I track my trading performance by the day of the week (among other metrics) and Tuesday is by far the worse day for me. I have no idea why. I seem to have developed a mental block for that day. Each week I tell myself this week is the week I change that.

Well today, I did not. In fact, it is my worse trading day in a while. I did 8 trades, 2 winners, 1 scratch, and 5 losers. I think all the losers went my direction, some coming within 1 tick of my target before they went against me. One loser had an increased stop loss due to the volatility just prior to the trade. I broke my rules once and did a counter-trend trade (the last one of the day). The best winner I had came off an inside bar trade (the bar had initially broken low, I took that as the first trade of the day, it went 5 ticks my way and reversed); the winner came when price broke the inside bar going up.

Bottom line: I was fighting against the market all day. I should have called it quits earlier, but thought I could get back in sych with the market and regain some lost ground. I did not. I need to revisit the concept of a daily loss limit. Looking back at the trades, the entries were not as clear as I thought at the time. Perhaps a bit over confident? Don't know. Need to go let this day settle for a while. .
Papa15

Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	CL32211.png
Views:	159
Size:	68.0 KB
ID:	34544  
Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread
  #313 (permalink)
 
cory's Avatar
 cory 
virginia
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: ninja
Trading: NQ
Posts: 6,098 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 877
Thanks Received: 8,090



papa15 View Post
..and 5 losers. I think all the losers went my direction, some coming within 1 tick of my target before they went against me. ..

on a slow day you reduce your target.

Thanked by:
  #314 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

I have been doing some analysis of my results today. I see some things that I goofed up:

- I listened to a John Person seminar this morning before trading. He stated he expected oil to come down (to be fair, not today but over time). Any way it planted a seed in my mind. I then saw the over night drop in CL prices, and considered it weakness. I allowed this to fixate my thoughts on the market would be going down.....in other words, I formed a bias and followed that rather than really trading what I saw.

-the first trade met my entry criteria but the timing was off. I should not have entered immediately before the opening of the CL pit trading.....there is too much volatility then.

-On most of the trades, I really did not get all the entrance criteria met. On many of them, price was above the moving average, but the ergodic was below zero....conflicting signals. Best to stand aside.

-I allowed my frustration to overcome my discipline and I did a counter trend trade. That was a fundamental violation of my guidelines, and is a cause of concern. The next time I get frustrated, will I do it again? I tell myself no, but I must prove it to myself. (But of course, I don't want to get frustrated enough to have to test this

The first trade losing did not bother me. I know not all trades will be successful and figured this was one of those that just failed. I did not hesitate to continue trading. There were a couple of other trades where I was stopped out but very soon saw another entry, and I took them. I think that is good. What was not good, was continuing to trade once a reasonable daily loss was met, and especially the counter trend trade.

Lessons are there to be learned.....now can I act on them?
Papa15

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread
Thanked by:
  #315 (permalink)
 
gulabv's Avatar
 gulabv 
Dallas, TX
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Zen-Fire
Trading: ZN, 6E
Posts: 286 since May 2010
Thanks Given: 161
Thanks Received: 169


cory View Post
on a slow day you reduce your target.

Hi cory what do you look at specifically to determine a slow day?

  #316 (permalink)
 
gulabv's Avatar
 gulabv 
Dallas, TX
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Zen-Fire
Trading: ZN, 6E
Posts: 286 since May 2010
Thanks Given: 161
Thanks Received: 169


papa15 View Post
Lessons are there to be learned.....now can I act on them?

You can and you will! That's the @BigMike way! Now I need to get back to the webinar recording

  #317 (permalink)
 
mattz's Avatar
 mattz   is a Vendor
 
Posts: 2,493 since Sep 2010
Thanks Given: 2,440
Thanks Received: 3,789


papa15 View Post
Tuesday is like any other day of the week. Same length of time, etc, but it is the day of the week I trade the worse. I have no idea why that is so. I track my trading performance by the day of the week (among other metrics) and Tuesday is by far the worse day for me. I have no idea why. I seem to have developed a mental block for that day. Each week I tell myself this week is the week I change that.

Well today, I did not. In fact, it is my worse trading day in a while. I did 8 trades, 2 winners, 1 scratch, and 5 losers. I think all the losers went my direction, some coming within 1 tick of my target before they went against me. One loser had an increased stop loss due to the volatility just prior to the trade. I broke my rules once and did a counter-trend trade (the last one of the day). The best winner I had came off an inside bar trade (the bar had initially broken low, I took that as the first trade of the day, it went 5 ticks my way and reversed); the winner came when price broke the inside bar going up.

Bottom line: I was fighting against the market all day. I should have called it quits earlier, but thought I could get back in sych with the market and regain some lost ground. I did not. I need to revisit the concept of a daily loss limit. Looking back at the trades, the entries were not as clear as I thought at the time. Perhaps a bit over confident? Don't know. Need to go let this day settle for a while. .
Papa15

Our office trades a certain automated system where the vendor "blocked" Wednesdays in the code. He said that that on back testing that day was not a good day to trade. He claimed that there are certain news releases that affect the system to perform poorly on Wed.
Naturally, as a technical guy and not a fundamentalist I initially negated this idea.
However, that proved to be right in real life.

So I thought about your post about Tuesdays and wanted to bring to your attention that API (American Petroleum Institute) releases figures every Tuesday. This would cover inventory of refineries, non traded petroleum products and crude oil. Maybe this would affect your method? In anticipation of the news and during the release of the choppiness for scalpers might be too volatile?

Maybe Tuesday demo trades are required to do prove whether this indeed has an affect on your bottom line P&L.
I hope this helps.

Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email [email protected]
  #318 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248

Had 2 news reports today, one at 10 am and oil inventory at 10:30, so I decided no real money trades until after those releases.

I did sim trade however. I used a 400 tick chart as the primary chart for criteria to be met on (it is sort of a compromise between the 233 and the 610 tick charts, a goal of mine would be to reduce down to one chart to look at). Had good success as can be seen from the attached chart. I also used Ninja Trader today.

After the news releases, started real money trading. Was focusing on proper execution. The first trade threw me a bit of a curve ball as I suffered about 11 ticks slippage on entry...and then took lots of heat. I stuck through it, leaving my stop at my original point. I took a reduced profit though as the slippage and subsequent heat gave me a bit of a pause....

The second trade is the only one I regret. I noticed on the 15 min chart that a shooting star formed at 11 am. I thought this might signal a downturn and put in a sell stop beneath it....the ergodics did not fully support this (they were positive but sloping downward). My entry was hit and the stop was hit almost immediately. It was very quick.

I caught the drop with a subsequent entry and was actually increasing the profit target when it was hit. I did get a 12 tick target.

My last couple of trades as price came back up. I did wait for entrance criteria to be met, but price action post entry was poor (choppy). I just took reduced targets.

Overall, with the practice and the real trades, was 10 for 11. One of the trades was essentially a scratch.

What did I learn? Well nothing new....if you establish entry criteria, wait for the criteria to be met, enter and then manage the trade......but we all already know that don't we?

Papa15

ps: after quitting for the day, while writing this the market broke through the 106 barrier....but I didn't miss any thing...I had already determined to quit as I was satisfied for the day.....

Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	CL32311practice.png
Views:	177
Size:	120.7 KB
ID:	34695   Click image for larger version

Name:	CL32311.png
Views:	164
Size:	106.2 KB
ID:	34698   Click image for larger version

Name:	CL323performance.png
Views:	170
Size:	55.3 KB
ID:	34699  
Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread
  #319 (permalink)
 
cory's Avatar
 cory 
virginia
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: ninja
Trading: NQ
Posts: 6,098 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 877
Thanks Received: 8,090


gulabv View Post
Hi cory what do you look at specifically to determine a slow day?

could be one of them, could be all of them, in no particularly order
volume - look for same small amount of volume across multiple pars
bars - they overlap each other you can group them into a rectangle
time of day - lunch time is frequently a slow time
repeating behavior - if prev day it spikes up in the morning then flat all day and if today spikes up then look for the same

most of these are just common sense.

  #320 (permalink)
 
papa15's Avatar
 papa15 
Wake Forest, NC
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248


First, I want to say today was a positive day dollar wise. That is the good news. I did 7 trades and was 6 for 7....which is also good news. The bad news is the losing trade, which was the second one for the day, suffered a large stop loss. I had the stop entered as a fixed number of ticks (12) but manually adjusted it to be above a moving average. I did not really look at the risk to reward before hand, and if I had I should have realized it was not good enough to take the trade. My bad on that. My second bad is that once the short term ergodic turned above its signal line, I should have cut the trade. That is a strong indication that the trade is not working.....

Any way, I went into a hole and spent the rest of the day working out of it. I really focused on following the entry criteria as closely as I could. The market was fairly choppy and about time stuff would line up, price would reverse. It took a lot of patience, but I did get positive on the day. I used smaller targets, trying to increase the probability of success.

A real difficulty I face is I am a one lot trader and I face the issue of do you trade for a fixed target or do you use a trailing stop loss in an effort to get a larger target. I have always defaulted to using the fixed target method. Each of the trades I took today, I could have gone for a slightly larger target, but I chose to use the smaller targets as I am still "kicking the tires" of this ergodic setup. I want to see it under many different price action scenarios to get a better grasp of how it responds. I would welcome any feedback you folks have on this subject.....it is one I have pondered for a long time.....

Papa15

Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	cl32411.png
Views:	159
Size:	76.5 KB
ID:	34827  
Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Started this thread

Closed Thread



Last Updated on May 31, 2012


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts