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FM's Trade Log

  #201 (permalink)
 
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 FlyingMonkey 
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Thursday 22 Jun 2017
====================

CL market spent the overnight in a corrective amble slightly up. 42 is the next shelf for CL to jump off of, opening a door to 39. The last time crude slid this hard was back in June 2015, and it actually dropped about 33% in 8 straight weeks of selling. So this is not unprecedented and it is not necessarily done any time soon. Around 35 would be a safe place to take out the knife catching gloves. But I'm sure if CL would just get off the matt for a second there are plenty of swing traders, myself included, eyeing for a buying opportunity anywhere in here.



Zoomed in to my trading session here, I'd say the most likely direction of the next hour to two hours will include a trip down toward 42.50. Maybe VWAP holds it, maybe it goes down a bit further. There's a lot of holding around there and I'd look for this to push into another wave up for a long. If it just can't even hold 42.50, then I'd wait for clear weakness down below 42.40 outside the after-hours chop area from yesterday. On the top end, 43.10 should put up a good fight and some chance for a short. Above that be cautiously bullish up to 43.75. As we head toward the open and neither of my extremes have been hit yet, I'll be leaning on that idea that we're headed toward 42.50 before we try to turn higher. If there is a reasonable spot for a short I will take it.



I took two really solid entries today. I adapted my plan and placed entries based on revised information.

But they were both shitty trades. Coming away with +4 instead of much more.




I started reading Steenbarger's Enhancing Trader Performance last night. It's speaking to me. I haven't read a trading book in forever but I was a fan of his website years ago and I don't know why I never read this. It's time to get pissed off about my mistakes, and relentlessly seek perfection. There is no RIGHT WAY in trading, nothing works for all cases, but I'll never find the correct version of "right for me" unless I look at every trade and really ask myself "was there something I should have seen? what could I have done better?" Then, record those lessons and find time to replay them.

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  #202 (permalink)
 
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 FlyingMonkey 
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Friday 23 Jun 2017
==================

Yesterday I replayed the morning's session on fast-forward and re-ran my analysis and trades from scratch. I feel like it was a worthwile effort.

On the 120 we are sandwhiched inbetween 42.70 and 43 and the overnight session did a whole lot of absolutely nothing. Not looking promising. If I had to pick a direction I'd say south.




With the market doing very little, I'll be watching for it to trade out to either extreme and then fade it. If the open brings a change in tone, which isn't unheard of, then I've got some zones out beyond the edges. Be a little more aggressive on the sell side below .70, but unfortunately there are levels of support at 42.41 and .50 which warrant caution.




It is very, very frustrating to have a solid pre-session analysis and then blow the execution. Price came down into my buy area but it moved with a lot of energy which made me temporarily second guess buying the low spike. I also started eyeing overhead resistance and started to think there was no point in going long at this spot due to the immediate resistance overhead. I eventually did place an order but missed a fill by a tick or two and the market ran away from there. Then price came into my sell area with huge strength, so again I was pretty hesistant, which in and of itself is not a bad thing. I took a short and started to see what looked like continued strength so I bailed on it for -3. Then I waited for a clear short opportunity and low and behold I got a fantastic entry that I had been waiting for. Then as I was monkeying with my target I somehow accidentally had clicked my stop and closed the position accidentally before it could hit my target.




Yesterday's lesson was: Treat your target placement with as much forethought as you treat your entry placement.
Today's lesson I will find out when I replay the morning later today. I think it will have something to do with DECISIVENESS.

For some reason I've been monkeying with my stops more this past week. I need to go back through the trades and remind myself what the numbers say about stop size and trade management.

This week +0 -9 +4 +2 = -3.

Coming away with +2 overall on a day when the market did almost EXACTLY what I expected it to. Not acceptable. For reference, this is what my 5000-vol chart looked like when I closed up shop for the week.


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  #203 (permalink)
 
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 FlyingMonkey 
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Monday 26 Jun 2017
==================

I have a slight gut-feeling long bias for some reason, which I will keep in the back of my mind but also try to ignore and just follow price. The major downward trajectory for the last 4+ weeks still holds. We've been floating up since putting in a low on Wednesday last week. Right now the market is trying to hold 43 and retake Friday's high. Sustaining above 43.25 is key for this market to display the strength needed to suck buyers in for an attempted break over 43.80




Our corrective action is wedging into a tighter range. 43 could break lower and we would still have an oppotunity to paint a higher low as long as 42,53 (Y_Low) holds, really to keep the trajectory going I'd like to see 43.75 hold. I don't know if these little red and green circles are doing much for me today, but there they are. Long story short: If we can hold over last week's high, buy it up to 43.75. In between 43.34 and 43 it's a little choppy - expect it to waffle around Y_High 43.21.





Completely shit day. Not trusting my analysis. Executing bad ideas really well, and not executing the good ones. Have some work to do. -12



For reference, here's what the zones did.


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  #204 (permalink)
 
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 FlyingMonkey 
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Tuesday 27 Jun 2017
===================

After several days of executing poorly, my goal today is simple. Make a plan and execute it.

Oil is free of its downward spiral (for now). Now what?




OK here's what I got folks. We are melting up into the top edge of the new upward trajectory. High expectation for some reversion to mean but no reason we can't just keep melting higher if buyers stay interested. The little circles here represent areas I'd be more inclined to look for small targets. Big circles have more room to run.

We are firmly above yesterday's range but I had forgotten how rough last week was for bulls - we have a lot of room left to cover last week's range up to 45.28 high. Although I'm expecting reversion downward, I will be cautious. This market has been punished for quite a while and may have a lot of pent up energy.



Finally a decent day. Not crazy profits or anything, but I executed my plan much, much better. I used a lot of waiting orders so that I didn't have to think as much about the process of entering. My learning from yesterday was that I need to separate my ANALYSIS brain from my EXECUTION brain. There are times when you need to re-evaluate, re-analyze, and revise your plan. But a big point of making a plan in the first place is to free up the mind to focus on entering and exiting. Worked OK today. +10 on 2 winners and 1 loser.

Tomorrow's my Wednesday sleep-in-and-do-something-else day. Happy trading all.


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  #205 (permalink)
 
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Thursday 29 Jun 2017
====================

CL's run up has taken it overnight up out of last week's range. But price has risen into an area between 45.30 and 45.55 that should act as a key resistance. I would be very surprised to see this continue higher without waffling around and maybe revisiting 45, perhaps 44.75 first.




Price starting to curl lower in that heavy resistance area around 45.35. Looking for shorts heading down to 44.75. With potential buying opportunities as we get significant distance below this resistance area, or if we do manage to break above it.




Not bad. +13 on 2 wins, 2 losses. Had a lot of back and forth on the edges of my buy/sell zones, with VWAP and round 45.00 inbetween. Tricky to navigate but I made it out in one piece.


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  #206 (permalink)
 
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Friday 30 Jun 2017
==================

Yesterday didn't actually get anywhere, with CL hovering around yesterday's open and likely to open in very nearby. I have a feeling trading today could be tough as there is a lot of congestion. There are probably big longterm sellers still in very profitable positions from the 50's who may be dumped some near the bottom and are looking to add here at 55 for another leg down. There are also savvy swing traders who got into long positions at the 42.50 area and are taking partial profits here. This combination of sellers is really what's holding the market here while we see how much demand they can suck out the market, and how much is left behind to continue the push higher.




A market can correct via price, or via time, and over the last 24 hours it's been a time correction. Price has overall moved sideways, but we find ourselves near the edge of the upward trajectory and it's time for a push higher or a break into a new trajectory. To help visualize the possibilities, I've drawn two purely hypothetical channels, one a continuation move up, and the other down/sideways and out of the current trajectory. With all of these potential crosswinds, I'm going to try to get a feel for the rythm the market is moving and just avoid danger areas if possible.




Taking away +4, but I'm happy that I stayed out of trouble and came away with something. I sold my sell-zone twice. One win, one loss.


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  #207 (permalink)
 
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I "went live"(again) on March 30, and have managed to scrape a little bit of profit overall. I basically scratched June. Below is an updated summary .. added some missing data from March - May.




In June I accomplished my goal of trading more days, and improving the ratio of average winning day to average losing day. However, I had some rough patches and my Win % was not great. Moreover, I did not make a dent in my goal of increasing Average Winning Day. This continues to be one of my primary objectives - make more on winning days while keeping losing days reasonably small.


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  #208 (permalink)
 
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Wednesday 05 Jul 2017
=====================

CL has modified its upward trajectory with a large downward impulse overnight. Hypothetically, it could still be tracking upward at a shallower pitch, or it could actually be painting a new downward trajectory.




The overnight energy is strong selling, but we're in the midst of a healthy retracement back up to VWAP. Looking for renewed selling energy back down to 46.40 and last week's high around 46.35, followed by 46.25 to keep this upward trajectory intact.




My tradition of starting every month out poorly continues. -21 on 3 trades. -7 +1 -15. On Monday I did take one little trade, closed for +1. So I'm at -20 for the week.

Chief among my issues: Why all long trades today, when the prevailing energy was selling? Time to face it: I still have a problem just trading WITH the current energy. When price hit my "Sell Zones" today, was I not seeing the patterns I wanted to see? Time for some new patterns maybe. Will replay today and see what can be seen.




I've noticed this pattern as Oil has been trending strongly since May.

May 5 - 5/24 (UP TREND) : Long trades: 5, Short trades: 17
May 25 - 6/21 (DOWN TREND) : Long trades: 13, Short Trades: 5
6/22 - 6/30 (UP TREND) : Long trades: 6, Shrot Trades; 9

So I'm favoring countertrend trades more than 2:1. I need to at least even this or flip it back in favor of the prevailing energy.

fhdjswohgurilewahguvirleanvuriflanuvrilo

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  #209 (permalink)
 
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Friday 07 Jul 2017
==================

CL has had a rough couple days and is apparently trying to buck riders off. Volatility is up. Going back to its glory days, or just some surprising inventory reports?




I was up too late last night backtesting some ideas, so I slept in this morning and it's already NY open time. The prevailing energy is on the sell side still, although the market has pulled higher in the last few hours heading into the open. Still, I haven't put any buy zones on the chart. I will want to see really strong buying activity before re-evaluating and adding long ideas. I'm putting the training wheels back on. For this morning, My ideal trade is a short on a break lower out of this upward retracement. I'll re-evaluate if the market has other plans.




This day had "yuge" opportunity. I blew it because a combination of poor sleeping patterns (missed early opportunities), execution still not being where it needs to be (blown entries), and shitty luck. I have a tough time on the weekends getting as much time as I would like to replay and test ideas ... but I have a lot of work to do and I may have to lock myself up.

-10. -30 for the week.


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  #210 (permalink)
 Ddawg 
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FlyingMonkey View Post
Monday 26 Jun 2017


Completely shit day. Not trusting my analysis. Executing bad ideas really well, and not executing the good ones. Have some work to do. -12


Thanks for this. I have been in the same boat. Best wishes with your trading!

Danny

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