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Vision For Trading - Work In Progress

  #11 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35

Well, the market traded as I expected for once and GS beat on earnings as I expected, however...

The options didn't trade as I expected. I was expecting to much $ from the trade. After trading the GS calls last week I was expecting to be up to high a dollar amount on open. I was looking for $4, to $5K on open, but it just wasn't there. When GS was up $4.00 I was up a little over 1K on my option position, $4.00 on GS was a little more than a 2% move. I understand now that a 2% move was already priced in when I bought them, even though I thought I got them at a good price, that price included the move today. So what did I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I could have sold them at open and by all rights should have and collected the Profits and just waited to buy them back. I had another opportunity to sell them but declined that offer as well. This is troubling, that I have already passed up 2 opportunities to sell on a highly volatile position, that if it drops by $1.00 will be decimated. What am I waiting for? Why didn't I sell? I believe I was just clearly expecting too much from the trade and wasn't satisfied with what the market offered. Clearly that was all it was worth. Note This is a common problem I have and need to work on it if I continue to trade options. Sell them on open and then buy them back when they retreat.

My Plan for Tomorrow.

Morgan Stanley reports tomorrow pre-market. I am expecting that they will beat on earnings as well citing strong trading revenue. I am looking at this as another opportunity for GS to continue higher to possibly the $175 range, where I plan to unload my Long Option position in increments of 5 contracts w/i 15 mins of open.

The options did increase in value today and with only 3 days left now till expiry I will need to sell.

Futures Trades Today : Still working on calming down and not over trading Futures - This is confidence building 101 Singles

Had one DX Long Trade for $65
Had one DX short Trade for $ 0 Stop at BE after it reversed Could have closed another $70
Had one ES Long Trade for $100 In after hours - Bought 1 at resistance thinking it would break through, it didn't was down $75 and added another contract to get out. Eventually it came back and did break the resistance, If I had held on 2 more mins I could have doubled the win, but I had a terrible entry and was glad to get out with a win.

Stocks:

Sold 500 Shares ATVI for $705 Profit

So, all in all a successful day besides the fact that I sold JNUG twice yesterday for like 10.65 and today it was trading in the $11.15 to $12.30 range. I sold it, because I just didn't feel like it was going to breakout, and didn't want it to turn around on me. I could have bought back in, but didn't want to chase it. I will chalk that one up as the one that got away.

Psychologically, I've been calmer, much calmer, maybe even too calm considering the large short dated option position I'm holding, but hey, it's better than freaking out over every tick.

What has changed Psychologically? That I believe has improved my trading and trade management? Or at least my mental state while trading.

1. Journaling and Logging Trades Religiously. Thanks again to Softsoap for recommending the Traders Journal. It is much more than a spreadsheet.

2. Getting past my ego and sub-conscious. How am I doing this? What method am I using? Well, I started praying and asking God for help and telling him my mistakes and shortfalls. Since I've started doing that, I've found this site. I've closed out trades that I don't even know why I entered. I don't believe that God can effect the market, but I do believe that through the act of praying or meditating I can achieve a regression of the ego and possibly re-train my subconscious similar to other methods listed in the psychology thread. I'll be honest, I'm not particularly religious and I am not a bible thumper, far from it. I was in the Navy and still talk like a sailor, but to appease the wife and kids, who wanted to go to church but didn't want to go without me, I started going during a recent period of severe drawdown in my account. This was one of those times where when the market closes you just feel like you've completed 15 rounds and lost the fight. When the bell rings, you just laydown with a headache and question everything you're doing type of periods.

3. All in all I feel like I'm making progress, and now that I'm logging every trade, it's not just a feeling, I can look at my log and see that I am making progress. My equity curve is going up, and I have exited positions that were purely speculative with no basis in reason.

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  #12 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35

Overall the Market traded as expected.

GS continued to trade up and I sold my 172.5 Call Option Position within the first 15 Mins of Open. I could have made more on it, if I had held on about an hour, but that did not work yesterday, and is not good trading practice. If I had sold yesterday on open, I would have had a chance to buy back and sell again. By not doing that, I was locked into the position so I had to sell when I had the chance on open. I held onto the 175 Calls and sold them a little later I paid .38 for the 175's and sold them for 1.05 avg. My only regret is not buying more when they were cheap. Regardless it was a successful trade and moved GS up my list of profitable underlying by adding over $1600 today alone in profit.

I had a few /NG futures trades today, in and out, won a few and lost a few trying to establish a long position at what I believed was support. After getting stopped out on my first attempt, I re-entered carefully and decided to place a buy order where I would normally place a stop. It worked on my final attempt, the order was filled and instead of being down $50 on 1 contract, as soon as the added order was filled /NG spiked back to where it was and I was back to breakeven on the trade in an instant. I will work to employ this method more. Instead of jumping in, I will try to emulate being in and then place my buy orders where I would normally put a stop. Since I've been buying in to early again and again and getting stopped out only for the market to reverse, I see this as the only option.



Ordered this book and got it today. Going to read it all tonight...

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  #13 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35


Overall Positive Week: First Positive Week in 4 Weeks!

With the advise of fellow traders on this forum I have started keeping a detailed spreadsheet logging every trade, win, loss or scratch and adding notes. The Trade Spreadsheet is great as it has a built in graph so you can immediately see the consequences of a bad trade and the positive effect of closing out a profit. It's simple, but it has a strong effect on how I manage a trade. I haven't taken any large losses since using the spread sheet. This is the first week in quite a few that I took much larger profits than losses, and I was able to log and track them, and view and expectancy ratio, should I keep the same W/L RR Ratio over time.

There is much room for improvement, as I let some very profitable trades turn against me, and I had higher expectations than existed in the market, but even though I missed out on locking in a nice profit, I did manage to get out before I took a large loss. I was Long NG last night, overnight with 4 contracts. I sold 2 for a profit, and could have sold the other 2 as I bought them on the initial spike down at 6 PM last night. However I did not close them out, and upon wake up this morning my profit had turned to loss, and I immediately closeout a loss. Had I not, closed that out, I would have lived through a 5.4% decline in NG with 2 contracts, so thank God I had the sense to get out when it turned against me, and I need to prepare to act in the future in a more disciplined manner and close out a profit even if it's a small one. Just close it out and move on. I don't need to be in every market, all the time, and certainly not overnight.

I made the mistake of selling the DX last night as well. 5 Contract Mistake. After enduring a $25 Tick erosion of my account balance to around $750 to the bad, by 2AM it had retreated to the point where I was actually up by $150 on the trade. What did I do? I went to freaking sleep. It was 2:30 by this point and I just couldn't watch it anymore. I just went to sleep and woke up down $500. So I closed it out, and again, it is a good thing, since the DX went on the rally the rest of the day and press new highs all day. It has closed well above my entry of 98.401 I would have been down thousands had I held on. But I closed out and moved on to trade the ES intraday to the good of $1162.50 Also traded SPY Options for and additional $550 Closed Profit.

So the moral of the story is, while I minimized the bleeding, I need to do the following to improve my trading.

1. Increase the urgency of my discipline in taking a profit.
2. Do not hold Futures Overnight that I was Planning on Trading Intraday without a Stop.
3. Close out a profitable trade, or set Stop at BE

On Thursday of this week I did damage control or attempted to in my Stock Account. Selling out of positions to lock in profit. However, there was 1 position that I decided I would hold onto. SKX Well SKX had earnings yesterday after close and today went down 17.4% basically decimating the profits I had locked in yesterday. I should have sold SKX and just held my other positions as they hardly budged today even though the ES was down 13 Points on Open. SKX however was down overnight and then some more on open, and did not increase in price by more than .25 throughout the session.

1. Why did I hold onto the Riskier Asset, earnings release. History of Misses. Down Down Down for the year.
2. I sold My winners and Held onto the Loser (Trading Backwards)
3. My winners kept winning without me, and Loser kept losing in my account, and I felt the pain and the damage to my psyche.

What could I have done to lessen the impact if I had to hold onto SKX, which i didn't I could have sold it for a profit prior to the release.
Could have sold ITM Options to protect against a miss. At least I would have the premium as a cushion.

So from this point forward, If I need to hold an asset, through earnings, sell Calls against it. Even if it beats on Earnings, the move is mostly already priced into the Option. I.E. GS day after beat, 3% Move Only on open were there a difference in price. I could have bought them Cheaper on the day of the release at noon than I paid for them the day before a 3% Move. So Sell the Options prior to the release, then be patient, if it beats, it beats, you'll still win if you are patient. Collect the Option Premium or just intraday trade them.

Learned alot this week. Not emotionally devastated, slowly building back confidence (Spreadsheet Helps Alot)

Sometimes it "feels" like I'm doing terrible. But I can look at the spreadsheet and "see" the cold hard facts.

I'm not doing that bad. I see what I'm doing right, and see what I'm doing wrong. By seeing it, I can work to correct or stop altogehter what I'm doing wrong, and focus more on what I am doing right.

Without this log, it's easy to just keep repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different outcome.

After Trading the ES with Success after success and only small losses, I had the confidence to trade it on Friday.

I nailed the 2124 Low with 2 Contracts Long and 4 Options Calls on 2130 and 2135
SPY too, Sold the Puts I held overnight on Open Both 5 Lot Sets, while Automatically Executing an order Placed Yesterday for Calls, up imediatley, bought more calls, held them and sold into strength, very good intraday even in slow grind chop there is opportunity if you are prepared and in-tune with the market.

Since I am Trading ES and SPY well over the past few sessions and since I have not been able to see consistent profits from other underlying, I plan to focus more on these two assets going forward. Win ratio is much higher than anything else. Profits are building instead of eroding.

I believe that with continued Journaling, Logging, and proper mental preparation that success in trading is possible.
Combined with working harder to eliminate mistakes, and simply stay out of markets I'm not successful in.

Everyone have a good weekend, as next week is big earnings week in US Market. GOOG and AMZN could tip the balance for the year.


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  #14 (permalink)
 
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 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
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Broker: InteractiveBrokers
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Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
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KBal View Post
Overall Positive Week: First Positive Week in 4 Weeks!

With the advise of fellow traders on this forum I have started keeping a detailed spreadsheet logging every trade, win, loss or scratch and adding notes. The Trade Spreadsheet is great as it has a built in graph so you can immediately see the consequences of a bad trade and the positive effect of closing out a profit. It's simple, but it has a strong effect on how I manage a trade. I haven't taken any large losses since using the spread sheet. This is the first week in quite a few that I took much larger profits than losses, and I was able to log and track them, and view and expectancy ratio, should I keep the same W/L RR Ratio over time.

There is much room for improvement, as I let some very profitable trades turn against me, and I had higher expectations than existed in the market, but even though I missed out on locking in a nice profit, I did manage to get out before I took a large loss. I was Long NG last night, overnight with 4 contracts. I sold 2 for a profit, and could have sold the other 2 as I bought them on the initial spike down at 6 PM last night. However I did not close them out, and upon wake up this morning my profit had turned to loss, and I immediately closeout a loss. Had I not, closed that out, I would have lived through a 5.4% decline in NG with 2 contracts, so thank God I had the sense to get out when it turned against me, and I need to prepare to act in the future in a more disciplined manner and close out a profit even if it's a small one. Just close it out and move on. I don't need to be in every market, all the time, and certainly not overnight.

I made the mistake of selling the DX last night as well. 5 Contract Mistake. After enduring a $25 Tick erosion of my account balance to around $750 to the bad, by 2AM it had retreated to the point where I was actually up by $150 on the trade. What did I do? I went to freaking sleep. It was 2:30 by this point and I just couldn't watch it anymore. I just went to sleep and woke up down $500. So I closed it out, and again, it is a good thing, since the DX went on the rally the rest of the day and press new highs all day. It has closed well above my entry of 98.401 I would have been down thousands had I held on. But I closed out and moved on to trade the ES intraday to the good of $1162.50 Also traded SPY Options for and additional $550 Closed Profit.

So the moral of the story is, while I minimized the bleeding, I need to do the following to improve my trading.

1. Increase the urgency of my discipline in taking a profit.
2. Do not hold Futures Overnight that I was Planning on Trading Intraday without a Stop.
3. Close out a profitable trade, or set Stop at BE

On Thursday of this week I did damage control or attempted to in my Stock Account. Selling out of positions to lock in profit. However, there was 1 position that I decided I would hold onto. SKX Well SKX had earnings yesterday after close and today went down 17.4% basically decimating the profits I had locked in yesterday. I should have sold SKX and just held my other positions as they hardly budged today even though the ES was down 13 Points on Open. SKX however was down overnight and then some more on open, and did not increase in price by more than .25 throughout the session.

1. Why did I hold onto the Riskier Asset, earnings release. History of Misses. Down Down Down for the year.
2. I sold My winners and Held onto the Loser (Trading Backwards)
3. My winners kept winning without me, and Loser kept losing in my account, and I felt the pain and the damage to my psyche.

What could I have done to lessen the impact if I had to hold onto SKX, which i didn't I could have sold it for a profit prior to the release.
Could have sold ITM Options to protect against a miss. At least I would have the premium as a cushion.

So from this point forward, If I need to hold an asset, through earnings, sell Calls against it. Even if it beats on Earnings, the move is mostly already priced into the Option. I.E. GS day after beat, 3% Move Only on open were there a difference in price. I could have bought them Cheaper on the day of the release at noon than I paid for them the day before a 3% Move. So Sell the Options prior to the release, then be patient, if it beats, it beats, you'll still win if you are patient. Collect the Option Premium or just intraday trade them.

Learned alot this week. Not emotionally devastated, slowly building back confidence (Spreadsheet Helps Alot)

Sometimes it "feels" like I'm doing terrible. But I can look at the spreadsheet and "see" the cold hard facts.

I'm not doing that bad. I see what I'm doing right, and see what I'm doing wrong. By seeing it, I can work to correct or stop altogehter what I'm doing wrong, and focus more on what I am doing right.

Without this log, it's easy to just keep repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different outcome.

After Trading the ES with Success after success and only small losses, I had the confidence to trade it on Friday.

I nailed the 2124 Low with 2 Contracts Long and 4 Options Calls on 2130 and 2135
SPY too, Sold the Puts I held overnight on Open Both 5 Lot Sets, while Automatically Executing an order Placed Yesterday for Calls, up imediatley, bought more calls, held them and sold into strength, very good intraday even in slow grind chop there is opportunity if you are prepared and in-tune with the market.

Since I am Trading ES and SPY well over the past few sessions and since I have not been able to see consistent profits from other underlying, I plan to focus more on these two assets going forward. Win ratio is much higher than anything else. Profits are building instead of eroding.

I believe that with continued Journaling, Logging, and proper mental preparation that success in trading is possible.
Combined with working harder to eliminate mistakes, and simply stay out of markets I'm not successful in.

Everyone have a good weekend, as next week is big earnings week in US Market. GOOG and AMZN could tip the balance for the year.


Sounds like you are making good progress. Glad you liked the spreadsheet, I was super excited when I got it as well hah.

Once you have tracked enough trades you should see what your biggest errors are, and then slowly work on fighting those.
Example, if one of your biggest errors is that you held the trade for so long that a good winner turned into a big loser, you can set personal goals to set a stop after the trade has gone X% your way (or something else that can mitigate the issue).

Also since you're reading Van Tharp's book, have you done his trader test?
Tharp Trader Test - What type of trader are you?

It's similar to any personality test, but more trading-specific

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #15 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35


SoftSoap View Post
Sounds like you are making good progress. Glad you liked the spreadsheet, I was super excited when I got it as well hah.

Once you have tracked enough trades you should see what your biggest errors are, and then slowly work on fighting those.
Example, if one of your biggest errors is that you held the trade for so long that a good winner turned into a big loser, you can set personal goals to set a stop after the trade has gone X% your way (or something else that can mitigate the issue).

Also since you're reading Van Tharp's book, have you done his trader test?
Tharp Trader Test - What type of trader are you?

It's similar to any personality test, but more trading-specific


Thanks for the comment! Yes, I did, just take the trader test last night. I am a "Detailed Trader" according to it. Imagine that. Enjoying the book immensely, and getting into the work.

It just seems like everything working together: the journal, the new mindset, reading books to actively improve, and learning how to look inside myself and make adjustments on the inside is all making it seem much more possible to trade consistently.

I can look back and see, I was more or less wandering blindly after some initial big wins, over-leveraging to try to make it back and taking losses in-proportionate to my wins due to poor trade management, and poor R/R expectations. It seems like an amazing change in such a short time, but I guess if you are willing to put in the effort, becoming a profitable trader is right there, you just have to set yourself up for success by doing all of the above. Then if you make mistakes, and you will, you won't take it as personally, you can see it for what it was, it was an error. You can work on those. You can't work on constantly beating yourself up over something that happened in the past. So I appreciate that you offered a response that I could accept over how I was viewing my past failures and how I should look at wins and losses in %. That made an impact on me.

Journaling has pointed me to the fact that I should trade the ES more, and other contracts less, as out of 13 Trades from last week till present I have a 92% win rate. By focusing on this I was able to pull winning trade out of the ES in less than 2 mins tonight. Calmly, cooly, no emotion, no wanting to hang on until it went higher or became a loss. In and out and recorded in my journal as a profit. Now I can sleep soundly, and be ready for another opportunity.



Regards,

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  #16 (permalink)
Caerus
Zagreb Croatia
 
Posts: 45 since Jan 2016
Thanks Given: 15
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great progress!

less is more, so focusing one one market can help you to learn what you do right and where is room for improvement.

this will help you to define more what type of trader you are...also your excel journal will help you with that...it will show you what loss is acceptable..and what profit is real...for you...so you will be much comfortable taking profit, or cutting loss in future
this will lead you to note some kind of setups/events on which you focus and take action


when this mastered, then you can easily add another market to follow
while looking at your things to improve don't forget to see you as you do them already the way you desire to...

don't focus on win rate in %...13 trades is small sample...will it be the same after 1300 trades, doesn't matter as long as you have focused on what you are doing, i.e. process is more important than winning x out of y

this is dangerous as you maybe will want to keep that at 92%...and then will stay in some trades to much...or will miss some out of fear of losing and making win-loss % worse

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  #17 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35

Need to work on discipline, main problem that is causing big losses, Holding Stocks into Earnings, thinking they will beat.

It isn't worth the risk. Even if they beat, they are likely to sell off. Consider the time and effort and struggle to maintain these positions as they drain your account of capitol that could be other wise used in short duration trades that actually generate profit.

Then after all of that this morning and selling puts trying to work my way out of terrible long stock positions, I decide to trade a few contracts of CL in 2 separate trades I got in, was up, placed a stop to not let it turn against me, and got stopped out twice for a total of $120 Then it sold down a little more than either of my first 2 entries, so I tried again. This time, It didn't go up, it went down fast and I was trapped in at like down $270 on 2 contracts this time. So I decided to hold it. Placed stops well below low of day. Then, it slowly came back to B/E, right before the API report came out, I could have gotten out at B/E or just small loss for about 5 mins prior to release, but I didn't held right into it. Got smashed down for $720 Loss wiping out profits fought for all day on other contracts.

If I can't get it through my head, that holding Futures, Stocks, Etc into news releases, earnings, etc, is not how you trade and make money, then I'm going to have to stop trading altogether.

Still making progress on actual trades, but wiping it all out due to just poor decisions and taking un-necessary risk.

Holding onto ES rather than taking profits today was bad idea, still holding, down overnight.

Multiple chances to get out poor trade management, probably effected by trying to make losses back sustained in stock account.

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  #18 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35

What an overnight, and what a day of days trading.

1st ES Trade. Held Overnight/ Rule Break #1 Don't hold Futures you don't intend to hold overnight.

Rule Break #2 Don't let a profitable trade, turn to a loosing trade.

I began to build an ES position not long after open on 10/25/2016 Starting out with 1 Contract on the 200 PMA on 30 min chart, assuming a bounce would happen and I would exit for a point or 2.

When this bounce didn't happen, I began adding contracts to bring my avg down. Starting with 2 to 2139.5 then 3 to 2138.25 During the hour of lunch this position was largely against me. On the recovery of that earlier selloff I had a chance to sell for a profit and should have just taken the profit and been done with the trade or reverse the position altogether as I could sense that it just wasn't going to make it any higher in this attempt and I should just take it off. I had the flatten command at hand and was only a click away from closing out the trade....had limit orders set a tick or two above the most recent high.

But I didn't take it. Then it started pulling back. I couldn't take a lesser profit that what I had earlier? No way.

Then it went to loss, and after being up $350 for the taking I couldn't take a $75 loss. No way. Then it sold off more and I was down a couple hundred. No way was I taking a $300 loss, not after being up more than that.

I decided to just leave it alone and not close it out. It will trade up overnight I said to myself, dreaming of riches I guess.
So I decided to busy myself with a few trades in /CL even though I know I'm horrible at trading it. It will make things better with my sour /ES trade.

So I made a point or two trading it and getting stopped out for profit earlier in the day $120 total. Near /CL close it traded down to a lower level than where I was at when I made money so I bought a contract. Then it went down and rather than get out, I added another contract, then it really went down more, and now' I'm down on that one 2 Shit. WTF did I just do? Turned a damn profit into another freaking loss. Someone get me the hell out of here, I am a damn moron and should not have access to technology greater than maybe a flashlight or a spoon.

Then the best idea I had all day occured to me. With /CL API report coming out in 30 mins, I'll just hold into that report and make all the money back...50/50 chance What in the hell kind of thinking is that? Is that responsible? Shit no. It's not. If I can't do better than this, I don't even deserve to call myself a trader. This is just un-called for.

Needless to say after API /CL sold off hard and it trigger my stop set below the low of the day. Now when I set this stop, I didn't bother to calculate how much money I would actually loose, but after wards, it was calculated for me to the amount of $810 turning my $120 profitable trade into a $690 loss on the day. That is why I should trade /CL unless I am seriously focusing on it and have an active plan for entry and exit.

So at this point the /ES was on closing break, and I guess, behind the curtains it was being passed around by the dealers and sold some more because when it re-opened I was down about twice the amount as I was before.

The beginning of the overnight pain.



Certainly wasn't going to take a $600 - $800 Loss on something I was just up on by $300 or more. No way. I will suffer through and add another contract to leverage out. Bringing my avg down to 2136.875

10/26/2016 Early Morning AM

And suffer I did, as /ES was continually sold through out the early night on the 25/26th. When I awoke in the AM about 6:45 I was greeted with the pleasant surprise of being down twice more what I was down earlier, and missing an opportunity to get out around 2:30 AM. now my small loss had doubled and I had to manage risk ... right?

Well, here is where journaling and tracking your trades may be a rather strong positive thing. I knew if I took this $1500 -$2000 loss it would wipe out all the progress I had made all week. I knew the level, If I wasn't already in, I would buy here. It was on technical resistance, and signals to sell through it were just not at hand. So I removed my stops I had set earlier so as not to be stopped out for a big loss and held through open at 9:30. When /CL inventory was release, the move was so impulsive it carried over into the /ES contract and it was bid up to a point that I was not only back to break even on the trade, but I was positive and closed it out for $312.5 in profit.



So how did I manage this? Tracking every trade, good or bad. Realizing where I'm taking losses, and where I'm taking profits. Getting into either of the above two trades could have been managed better, I would have been free if I had just taken the profits given, getting out and coming up with a plan after an assessment of the conditions. The clear Trade on /ES overnight was short our FLAT.

In past months of Trading Futures and not tracking the trades, in times such as I endured last night, I would either panic sell or stop out for a large loss, only to have market reverse and provide an opportunity for exit or profit. So even though this trade was managed poorly mis-managed entirely something positive came from it. I learned that by not trading out of emotion and using stop losses improperly I can do better than I have been doing in months past.

Todays Trades, 10/26/2016

After getting out of that /ES trade with a profit, I was elated I mean, I had just endured a night of drawdown and came out with a profit. I am really getting the hang of this trading I thought. So what did I do? I jumped in another trade right away on /NG this time, the November contract that expires tomorrow, let me trade that one. I wasn't thinking about when it expired, or what that might mean in how it would trade. I just bought a contract, and was up. Could have sold it, but I didn't. It went down, I was down, so I added another, now I had 2. and it traded up, I was up about $210. I could have taken it, or $190, or $120 or something. But I didn't. I just waited. Then it traded down. Down $190, damn, So I'll add another contract. And another, and so on and so forth until I was down $1000, I was down $2000, could the selling ever cease I thought? I mean this has sold off at a rate of 4.5% a day for 3 days in a row? Are you freaking kidding me? No, not at all? It has sold through the 200 PMA with no regard whatsoever? Yep. I picked up 1 more contract where someone told me in chat that there might be support. 2.65 area, well there wasn't really support there cause it traded to 2.62X I bought last contract at 2.64X and I was down like about 2% in my account overall on this one trade that I put on right before lunch. 3 hours maybe ? Down a ton. Then I started thinking, the intraday traders will have to cover at close, so if I just hold onto until close I might have a chance to get out.

So hold on I did. I didn't panic sell. Only good thing about this trade.

In the last 10 mins of trade it began to pick up, it was getting buyers, Cover those shorts, then it started escalating, I was down half of what I was earlier. 5 mins left, WOW

I mean an exit was in sight here. So as I approached breakeven on my terrible trade, I sold when I was down -280 an acceptable loss on a horrible trade. But then, guess what? It didn't stop there. It went on, well past my entry of 2.6835 to go back to it's home of 2.75 the 200 DMA for a rest and damn near close. I think it closed 2.71 but my point is, this. If I had been patient and not jumped into this trade way to early, I may have actually had a big winner. But Nope. I calculated what the profits would have been if I had held on an it was nearly $3,700 if I had just held on 3 more freaking mins man. So even though I survived this trade, I lost focus of my original vision of what I thought price was going to do when I entered the trade. Since it did everything opposite that what I expected, I thought that by it getting back close to my entry that it would retreat rather than push through and move on to greener pastures to the upside.



But on the last day of trading a contract can carry some pretty high short interest when it has sold off so much in such a short period of time. basically 10 Days from the high. So I just missed out on a massive short squeeze as sellers from the top, covered. Tomorrow maybe they will roll over to the Dec and bid it up.



I'm writing this out for myself. I see the only things helping me improve my trading are journaling and being honest. So yeah, it's detailed and I'm probably rambling a little, but I just need to get this out because it's helping me. It may help you I don't know, I don't see how it could, but Logging and Journaling are helping me make better decisions and getting me close to major profits. This is my second week and I have been increasing profits each week. If I continue to trade more responsibly I can see how the profits will add up.

Coupled with better decision making and less outright risk taking I can see a future in trading. I am beginning to get the picture of a vision of my trading. Of how my trades will look. Of how I will approach my entry, of how I will exit.

I know that mistakes are inevitable, but like so many things, it's not possible to eliminate all mistakes, they are going to happen. It's what you do once you have made the mistake. How do you handle your mistake? Do you panic sell? Do you stop yourself out to be free from the trade? That is what I have done in the past. So even though I had 3 trades outlined above only 1 was a big loss and that was the /CL trade? Could I have managed it better? Yes? Could I have profited if I had held on? Yes? But I stopped myself out for a large loss. I shouldn't have been in it anyway, but if I continue to hold myself accountable for these actions, I can tell the impact already.

Somehow it allows me to be more emotionally detached to log and record each trade. To avg down my entries to review past moves.

Regards all, time to turn in. Tomorrow is another day.


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  #19 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35

Today was the day I decided to hold some ES 2150 calls that I was up on over $500 after leveraging down overnight. I didn't sell them, I bought more when it went down and now they are pretty much worthless, barring a rally into 2250 Tmrw. Considering action today it isn't looking good. However the way things have been trading lately, I think anything cold happen.



Mistake No. 1 Today - Overconfidence - Holding out for something that wasn't there. After getting out of NG yesterday for a small loss, and then in blowing by my entry for what would have been a $3700 gain, I didn't want to sell the calls out of the money. I wanted them to double or triple in value, which they pretty much already had, I just wouldn't acknowledge it. I was just gloating in being right to myself I guess. Just happy that ES had pushed against 2143 and was sure it was going to break through to 2150. Even when it started to pull back, I said, well it will find support right below and then push through. I thought about going short here against the calls, and should have, that was the trade of the day, but I didn't take it because I was so sure it was going to break the resistance.

Mistake No. 2. Today - Interrupted on open. I work full time in an office and have the day to pretty much do as I will with trading, but today I didn't give the open a priority and had the sales manager talking to me about a job I had priced, in the first 15 mins of open. I was so sure that everything would continue moving in my direction (Over Confidence), and I would end the day with more money than I started, I didn't even give it a thought. Until we were finished with our discussion and I realized that all the P/L that were mine for the taking were no longer there. Note, I trade options heavily and this was a major mistake. To miss taking some profit early in the day is often the only chance you will get with some options.

Mistake No. 3. Entering a long ES trade at the mid point of a range. And not taking a profit when I had a chance, and then adding to the position when it went negative, then not selling it when I came within profit again, and breakeven. Nope, I held it until close and sold at the end of the day, down 10 points wiped out all my profits for the past 2 weeks on Futures Trading, basically just self destructed.



Mistake No. 4. This is a continuation mistake from holding UA in to earnings. I thought it would beat expectations and rally back to $45 as it did during the summer months. It did not. Although in Pre-Market trade, day of earnings, I had a chance to get out on that early morning spike. Had 2 chances actually, but I was just convinced, this is going up, so I didn't take a $3K profit, or a $1500 profit. Nope, so today, I took a $3,100 loss on part of the position that I entered into the 1st day it sold off in my Futures account to try and leverage out of the position counting on a snapback rally which did not materialize. I sold out of this position because I should not have entered into it in the first place and it has continually worked against me since entry. I sold $35 puts to maintain participation in any rally and at least get paid to buy back the stock if it is less than $35 at expiry. Something I still can't believe will happen considering them move, but it probably will. I have sold many puts at $35 Expiry, so that again is reason for me to ditch my original Stock position, I am fixing to own alot more.



Good Trade 1. The only thing that really went right for me today was NG. I waited until after the release of the storage date report, and waited some more 30 mins more. When NG hadn't sold off as it had in days prior I established a position at 3.01 initially and immediately it began to sell off basically.



So I entered in 2 accounts, 1 contract in Ninja Trader Account and 1in TOS but ended up adding another. I had a target sell set for 3.084 but it didn't get there during normal trading hours but did shortly after close of the main session. I had already sold out for $690 profit but if I had held it would have been around $1200. I am still long 2 contracts of NG. Since it was the only thing that worked today, and we are on new contract now, I believe the bid will increase as we get into colder weather and the supply is drawn down.

I have decided to exit most equity positions when possible, either at B/E for a profit, or for a loss if I don't know why I'm in the trade anymore. I'm dong this for 2 reasons. 1. Stocks have been a consistent point of losses in my account, due to any news release that comes out of nowhere can effect share price with no warning. I am doing this to free up capital to build my futures account to the point that I can more effectively leverage down on positions to get out as I did NG yesterday and ES yesterday. I thought that I could do the same on ES today, but the action was too intense so I panic sold at the end of the day. It did break through a channel line that it had been respecting on my chart so this was uncerntainty to me. I didn't know if after the close it would open up above or below that line. That made a huge difference and since I had basically been wrong all day, I was probably best to sell. The fact that it opened up above the line, just pisses me off.

Well, prior to today, I had a consistent build of profits in my futures account by trading futures. That was all taken out in 1 bad trade because I didn't sell it for a small profit I took a big loss. Over-leveraging to early and overconfidence led to this I believe, along with just not realizing I was wrong. It was tough all day as basically the market traded in a tight range right up to the end, and even then it was only down a few points but I was down 10 due to mid entry and high open distortion.

Working to improve mindset. Not trade as often. Improved entries and exits. Only take high probability trades instead of trade on a hunch or whim.

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  #20 (permalink)
KBal
Evans, GA
 
Posts: 31 since Sep 2016
Thanks Given: 14
Thanks Received: 35


By the end of this week, I have come to some blistering understanding of where my money is going, and what I can do to stop it.

This is my plan to turn my trading from painful to profits.

1. Liquidate Equities: Yesterday I sold 1000 shares of VRX that I had been holding from $25.50 "in hopes" of a turnaround. Today VRX traded down another $1.80. I was very pleased that I was not holding it in my account.

2. Buying stocks and options prior to earnings "in hopes" of beating, and skyrocketing up, has been a loosing strategy. It has worked a few times, but most recently has failed horribly. I will cease this strategy and work my way out of the positions I currently hold in my stock account and move to cash as soon as possible, preferably next week. I will employ that cash into futures trading and selling options only to preserve capital.

3. I have noticed that while I am still making some mistakes that are keeping me from profits in trading futures, it is basically that I am trying so hard to make back the losses suffered in my stock holdings, I am overtrading to try and make up losses, and being to greedy to take a small profit. This is failing strategy and a poor state of mind to approach the market from. Overall, I was profitable in Futures trading based off of tracking past 2 weeks of trading recording every trade. Yesterday I made a mistake with ES that set me back but today I am nearly back to B/E. I can't say that for my Long Options, and Stock positions.

4. If I focus on trading Futures, I can further hone my edge and improve my entries and strategies. I have been practicing trading on Ninja Trader for the TopStepTrader combine, and with the 100K sim account I have traded ES and NG successfully over the past week with strong returns employing price action trading, and even tight range trading overnight on ES with great success.

5. I will liquidate a large Stock position currently in an IRA that I can withdraw without penalty and use that capital to properly fund a Ninja Trader account and a Tradovate Account to save on commissions for tight range trading cost.

6. By joining a TopStepTrader combine I plan to hone my discipline and become a better trader by taking less risk and focusing on capital preservation and building profits.

7. It has been a painful lesson but the writing is on the wall for me to cease buying options and stocks. Regardless of what the chart says or how good "the news" there seems to always be unforeseen occurrences that the retail trader has no control over that can effect the value of the stock or option that is totally avoidable by not holding long equity positions.

8. Based off of todays trading price action in the market, it is easy to see the sensitivity of the market to news about who might win the election, and then in December with the positive GDP report this morning we are facing a rate hike, with more to come next year most likely. Unless the Fed starts buying up every dip in the market...which they may do, I see this as a further weight to equities.

9. I will feel more free with cash instead of trash stocks and options. If I want to go on vacation or take a break from the markets I can.

10. Right on the verge of consistent profits in futures trading. If I can get my mind right by freeing myself of the burden of loosing equity positions and freeing up capital to more freely trade futures I believe that success is possible with the proper mindset and risk parameters.

Here are a few of the trades I made today. After yesterdays action at market close with the Amazon miss and NasDaq and S&P retreat, I knew that today would be a day of weakness. So I wanted to be short the ES. I shorted at open, and was up quickly on 1 contract. I made the mistake of adding 2 more contracts, and wound up upside down in the choppy first 15 mins of trade. This was a poor idea to just go short right away, but on that first contract I was up $200 and should have just taken it off rather than add 2 more at a midpoint as the price quickly rose I had to close it out. Then about 10:00 ES was pushing up to 2134 which I knew would be strong resistance since it was the bottom of the channel it has been trading in for the past 2 weeks. So I went short again, a large position of 5 contracts. I expected it to retreat quickly and probe the overnight lows, but it did not retreat, it hung out, so I closed out with a small profit. Then at about 11:00 AM ES was back pushing the 2134 level and I went short again, and again it did not retreat, so I got out. By this point I was mentally defeated and just went to lunch and stopped to get gas. When I got back to the office, I didn't even really look at the ES I was most likely looking at my terrible stock positions and pondering what I could do, when I noticed the 10 point drop in the ES. I knew it was going to happen, but I was wrong about the time frame. The stregth that it had been exhibiting all morning was just a sham. When the weakness came on the FBI reopening the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation the ES retreated from the 2135 level as I expected, very quickly.



I didn't want to go short at the mid point and get chopped up, so I went to look at the VIX. The VIX had started to spike but I knew there would be a larger spike since the ES had not yet probed the lows of last nights trade. So I went long the VIX Futures with 1 contract.



So while I missed "The Big Short" I feel like I was trading responsibly based off of the price action the ES was exhibiting. The only thing I could have done differently was be more mindful of where the ES was trading at. Had I noticed it there I would have went short again. This was a very strong level according to my chart that I have been working off of for weeks. I took a few longs at the bottom and made some profits for the day.

I will work harder to have limit orders ready for times such as these. I expect to see more volatility in the coming weeks and after such a dry period it will most likely be big volatility.

So Good weekend to you all.


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Last Updated on January 27, 2017


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