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My first attempt at posting my trades here on futures.io
I have recently simplified my charting for my trades and rely mainly on price action. I do use a 21 ema as well as proprietary indicators that plot key support and resistance area's like VAH, POC, VAL, implied deviation levels and market profile. I also have a chart with the Gomi Metro Ladder, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around that to see how I can integrate it with my charting.
Today's journal entry is from Friday, April, 8, 2016. It was an unusual day for me, I had to take my daughter to sick call at the pediatrician (she is ok, suspected case of strep), so I missed the open and I didn't get to perform my normal pre-market routine as early as I normally do. I made only two trades today, both on NQ Futures.
My first trade was around the 10:45 am EST mark, price was coming off of the high of the day, breaking through the EMA. Price makes a new low for the current trend near a key level (green line)which is the value area high. I used this low to form the create the opposite trend line of my channel. I got a second entry short on the 7th bar after the low of the current trend, the short was bouncing off of the upper trend line and the EMA. I entered short 4 contracts with an ATM strategy to take profit on 2 contracts once price moved 10 ticks, my stop was initially placed at the high of the bar +1 tick previous to my entry for a 18 tick stop loss, and then subsequently moves to BE +1 at 11 ticks from the entry point. The remaining 2 contracts come off - 1 at 15 ticks and 1 at 25 ticks for a total profit of 60 ticks.
My second trade was around the 12:40 pm EST mark, price had made a new low of the day, printing a very bullish bar on the reversal, followed by another bullish bar that breaks through the upper trend line of the channel. I got a second entry long as price broke through the EMA. I entered 4 contracts long with the same ATM strategy as the previous trade - 2 conttacts off at 10, 1 at 15 and 1 at 25. My stop was 1 tick below the low of the bar previous to my entry for a stop loss of 7 ticks. Profit on trade of 60 ticks.
I am attaching the chart markup I did this afternoon after taking those two trades. I did not take any other trades for the remainder of the day. Result of +120 ticks total profit on these two trades.
Starting this thread to discuss the life of being a Stay-at-Home Dad and a Trader and the many (decided to keep it toned down and just use a word like 'many') challenges involved as these endeavors happening simultaneously.
If or if …
Ron
...My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy...
The steed of this Valley is pain; and if there be no pain this journey will never end.
Buy Low And Sell High (read left to right or right to left....lol)
Here are the Trades I took on ES today. I marked up the chart with the details of each trade. I'm using price action and a 21 EMA to determine my trade entries, for all trades with the exception of the first one I used 4 contracts with an ATM strategy to take profit on 2 contracts at 4 ticks, 1 contract at 6 ticks and 1 contract at 8 ticks.
I did not get to trade yesterday because I had Jury Duty. It was not a bad experience by any means and I have fulfilled my civic duty for the next three years. Today I had a lot going on and I was only going to be able to give the market two hours at best, so I figured I would take what it gave me if it gave anything at all. After yesterday's run up, I was expecting there to be a correction and most likely a choppy one.
Fortunately ES was kind to me today. I only took two trades, but I was happy with the result and thought it might just be best to walk away with the little I captured than to try and find another trade I wasn't going to be able to devote 100% attention to.
I use strictly price action and a 21 bar EMA to determine entries. Using 4 contracts and an ATM strategy with profit targets for 2 contracts at 4 ticks each, 1 contract at 6 ticks and the final contract at 8 ticks.
Friday the 13th! Yikes, I almost did not want to trade, I did though and put in a couple of trades and I ended the week on a positive note. 4 trading days and I limited my trading because I had a number of things going on and felt distracted. If I can get results like these when I feel that way, I'm thinking I should have something going on all the time. I think I was more focussed because I knew I wasn't going to be able to spend a lot of time recovering from stupid mistakes. It is definitely something to draw from.
1st trade today came after price had made a new HOD by 3 ticks but failed to push it any higher. I waited for a 2nd entry short which I got just shy of 0951 hours. I entered 4 contracts short taking profit on 2 after 4 ticks, 1 contract at 6 ticks and the final at 8 ticks.
My 2nd trade was not as clean, I was paying more attention the the EMA bounce and not really noticing that price had settled into a small sideways pattern. To further compound my miscalculation, I failed to accurately determine if all of my proposed profit targets could be met before price reached the trendline that had formed at the low of day and subsequent higher lows. the trade was partially successful, but I wasn't happy with the setup after I reviewed it back. Entered 4 contracts short, took profit on 2 after 4 ticks, 1 contract at 6 ticks, moved my stop to protect 2 ticks after price hit my profit target on the 4th contract but failed to fill me and started to go against me.
38 ticks total on the day, and I quit while I was ahead. I felt foggy and disconnected and thought it best to just step away. 168 ticks for the week for 4 days trading. Not bad at all.
I do have video of today's trades as they played out in real time, and I will render that tomorrow morning and upload it. I'm going to do that through Youtube since I did not realize there was a bandwidth limit on Screencast.com.
It's been over a week and a half since my last update, I was in California helping my sister move. It's good to be home now and back to my normal routine. I took a couple of days (Monday & Tuesday) to demo trade and shake off the rust before trading live.
I've changed my setup a little bit, I know am doing video journal updates that are being uploaded to my Youtube channel. I will continue to post the videos in here.
Today I placed 6 trades and captured 90 ticks on the ES, here is the video update
I didn't get a chance to post yesterday's journal update so I am doing it today.
Yesterday was a pretty bad day, I was not focussed and I mad some really careless mistakes. I ended up only taking two trades because of a self imposed time out from trading due to breaking my trading rules.
First video is my pre market analysis and the second video is my end of day recap.