Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I have had a very frustrating few days trading!!!! I have not lost much money but feel I have missed out on some massive upside potential.
Not sure exactly what this journal will be yet, I will just see what develops over the next few weeks. Ill just start with a bit of a brain dump.
A bit about myself.
I originally started trading futures with a sports bet winning so I really was just having some fun and was lucky enough not to blow up my account and got on a few winners. I now want to take it a bit more seriously.
I have been wanting to take it more seriously for quite sometime, but a changing work roster has lead to inconsistency and many changes of markets.
Currently and hopefully for the foreseeable future I work a 2 weeks on 2 weeks off roster at a remote oil and gas site in Australia. I plan on trading while on-site but with limited internet and time constraints I may not always be able .
On my 2 weeks off I will trade the ES most evenings. I have been watching CL and YM recently so they may be added at some stage.
How I trade.
This something that I hope will become a lot more formalised as I write it down in a journal. I use NT8, Rapid Trader Pro and a few Rancho Volume Profile tools. I am fader. Always have been and always will be. I dont want to change it I just have to figure out how to do it more profitably and consistently. To me fading can be trying to pick tops and bottoms of ranges or extremes or using a pull back to get on to a trend.
I had built up a bankroll but recently due to some unforseen circumstances I have pillaged my trading account and it is looking pretty dismal again.
This account will therefore have max draw down of $2k. I know this is not enough how ever this is considered an educational account. I hate sim always have done, my biggest challange is myself and I do not learn anything about myself with no skin in the game. It makes lessons much more expensive but it is what it is. I had the same issue when I learnt to play poker years ago, expensive way to learn but the only way I do learn.
This account is effectively at $1422 so over $500 in draw down. It really should be well in profit but some stupid trades, a couple of fat fingers and being stopped out to the tick multiple times has turned this week in to a sh!t week.
2 or 3 times this week I have taken what can only be described as dumb punts where I loaded up trying to get lucky which is the main reason the account is in DD. I really really need to stop doing this and hopefully this journal will keep me on track.
If am being honest I may as well put it all out there. I have placed a massive amount of pressure recently to succeed. I make low 6 figures at my current job and only work 22 weeks a year. But I hate my job and I hate working away from home. I REALLY REALLY want to make it as a trader and feel this is greatly affecting the way I am trading. I am not sure how I am going to overcome this but it is probably the root cause of a lot of my current issues.
Enough of a brain dump for now, I am sure there will be more ramblings to follow.
Attached is my trades from last night in all its ugly newbi mess haha I hope it provides a few laughs :P
Allllllll over the shop today. Took some heat early and then was jumping at shadows for the rest of the day.
My last few trades are a good example of this. Tick was holding low cl started coming off. I got short at 35.75 and wanted to cover at vwap which was 32.75 and was also a lvn. It was looking good and then I am not even sure what I seen on the cl that caused me to cover and flip long at 34.00. Took profit to early against oringinal plan and then gave it back trying to flip as it went to vwap.
I am struggling with sleep at the moment as my sleeping pattern is all over the shop. Not much I can do about it now but worth noting as it definitely affects my mood and therefore my trading.
Lots and lots of trading today. Waaaaay over traded. I got crushed early in the day and was down the entire day.
I possibly held on to my losing traders too long initially and then lost the plot and over traded.
Current effective size of the account is now $1,047. The lowest since I started and approaching the biggest DD since I started trading years ago. The pressure I have put on my self and the desperate desire to size up is really taking its effect on account........ as expected.
The last 2 days have been quite demoralising, but I have enjoyed writing it all down so I will keep writing. It has been an expensive few lessons the last 2 few days but who no knows a good night sleep and hopefully a good day trading tomorrow
Cheers, not much value in here yet but hopefully as I grow as a trader it can help someone else.
So we are down but not out tonight. I must not take stupid risk trying to regain the weeks losses. Ill be happy if I trade well and if it results in a positive day that is a bonus.
I should really scale back to 1 lot trades with no adds, however this goes against everything I have been working on recently. Averaging down and taking one off where possible to lock in some profit is a big part of how I trade. As noted above this is an educational account and not my entire bankroll so if I blow it up I will survive another day (will just have an enforced break). With this in mind I will trade 1 lots only averaging down once with a daily loss limit of $300.
Attached is my prep for tonight, I will revisit again before the open to see what has happened during the EU session. I will aslo watch FT71 trader bite.
I have a natural bias to be a bear for some reason, so I try and keep this in mind.
But everything is screaming at me to be a bear.
We have a LVN on the comp profile in yellow, the low of 9/9. The PA from the last 2 days is weak. The bulls have tried to buy it up and bears have sold it back down. Friday is also a likely weekly hi or low.
Short Hypo - My ideal scenario is an initial push higher I can fade looking for a test of 2110
Long Hyop - Test of Y-Lows and then a push to 2144
Neurtral Hypo - A low rvol day much like the previous 2 with similar levels.
Other Hypo - I am a newb, new to the ES and the markets are random so who freakin knows.
Not sure what is going on with my trading at the moment. Well I do I just dont seem to be able to shake. Lucky I have the weekend to ponder things over.
I got super lucky tonight and really need to make the most of this opportunity as I do not feel like having to reload or going back to sim.
Started out poorly taking a trade that @rocksolid68 took which I did not see but took anyway. Often our analysis is the same but often different. I chat in his room and I am sure he will agree I dont just shadow trade. Except for this one haha serves me right and I took a loss. I was annoyed at the trade but not fussed with the $$$
The first circle area around 31 I wanted to short but I didnt. I was looking for my AOI or YVPOC to fade but it didnt quite get there. That annoyed me that I missed it but it should not have.
Theeeeeeeeeeen things got messy. I didnt feel there was enough vol to show exhaustion at 36, tick was still being sluggish and cl not doing much. We then had push down which immediately recovered and tick bounced to new highs. Even I thought "stop run". I didnt flatten as yesterday I over traded and I didnt want to make the same mistake. But I did anyway.
I got stopped out and then for some dumb reason kept trying to short in no mans land. Not at any important levels just blindly shorting I think.......idiot.
By this stage I was way over my daily limit but had not noticed as I am not used to monitoring it too closely. With my new tiny account and what ever is going on with my trading psychology I will need to start paying more attention.
I got short once more at least this time it was at the upper range of one of my AOI and some bearish tick divergence. I held this for a long time, to me the bulls were done. Tick was spending most of its time below zero so I held. Then some luck, with news re Clinton hitting while I was still short. Managed to hold for most of the initial move down
I then took a breather and sat on the sidelines for a while.
The last few trade I was attempting to fade vwap looking for at push back down to 16. I got a bunch of error msgs so not really sure what happened so flattened.
So after all of this I am plus $25 haha. Very Very lucky tonight
Thoughts on tonight
Dont take someone else trade.
Dont take trades in no mans land, or if I do need to, have one crack at it and then wait for a level
It is a fine line between doing your own analysis and then listening to traders who are WAAAAAAY more experienced. If I
had followed the SPOO thread or @rocksolid68 I never would of kept shorting. Nothing much wrong with my first short but I would of given up sooner and saved some $$$ if I was paying attention to what other were saying. How do I find the balance???
