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I am starting a journal here on FIO, to help in my trading and to be entered into Big Mikes' February Challenge.
I am only trading crude oil, hence the title.
This is a TST 50K combine, of which I have just completed the first month of trading. I will be adding details of my trades and performance as I go along and I will also give a brief overview of last months trading.
I have (ahem) tried several combines in the past...this is not my first shot at this. I have been working at building my trading plan for a little over a year, and am starting to see some daylight in this trading journey.
As I have a day job, most of my updates will of necessity be at the end of the day.
I will be trading from about 7:45 to about 9:25, which is when I leave for work. There will be times when my work schedule will allow longer trading or no trading whatsoever. I, in most cases, will not be able to trade Wednesday's Oil Report since most of the action is after I leave. I have found I am better off to not trade at all on Wednesday.
[Note: All times in this journal will be Central Time.]
Going into the 8:00 pit open(old school I know...) I try to formulate an opening trade bias. This is based on yesterdays RTH Volume Profile, and the overnight action. I use MA's to give me a direction for the market and then dial down using order flow.
I use MTF analysis, but trade primarily off of the 5 min 24 hour chart. I use the 5 and 15 min RTH charts to try to keep myself aware of what traders were doing yesterday, and the 24 hour 5 and 15 min charts for todays trade execution. I use a 1 min chart to keep myself aware of big volume spikes in the market. I have found that if CL has a spike of over 5k contracts on the 1 min, it can signal the start of a turn in the market or the beginning of a trend.
You could say that I trade in 30 min increments...ie the 8:00 open, the 8:30 equities open, and 9:00 swing zone. This is not to say I never take a trade within these times, just that I want to be especially focused at these times. Also, by trying to come up with a bias at these times, it seems to have really helped my trading.
I try to be a trend trader and hold trades for larger targets. That has been very tough lately, as some days the market just doesn't move while I am trading.
I am not 100% in following my plan, and that is something I am working on day by day. I have my greatest success when I stick to my plan.
My charting platform is MotiveWave, with OFA addon and I use T4 for order entry. I wish T4 would hold my trade info for at least one day! If I forget to copy and paste my trades into excel before I leave for work, I lose the record of them by the time I come home. I really like T4 for order entry though. It has some quirks, but it is very fast and I believe accurate. MotiveWave w/OFA has been really good to dial down into order flow. I am considering adding either Jigsaw or Bookmap...we'll see.
I will review my January performance in my next post, but the short answer is I am down about $500. I think this is the first time I have survived a month with breaking the rules or blowing myself up. I am happy and thankful for that.
I forgot to mention that I am primarily trading a 2 lot. I have been an all in/all out trader, but with the market so choppy lately, I am trying to book some profit.
Highlights:
Average loss; about 6 ticks. Very good!!
Average win: about 6 ticks!! Not good at all!! I will have to do a lot better if I am going to be successful.
Worst day was when I took 3(!!!!) trades during news!!! Lost 60 ticks in about 3 min The only good thing about that day is that I didn't continue on and self destruct. This has been one of the main problems I have had, letting my emotions get away from me.
Finally got a decent trade yesterday. This also an example of my chart setup. I am trying out Bookmap as you can see...I only started trial yesterday, so didn't trade off of it. And as usual, I took the best trade of the day with 1 lot and not 2!!!: That's trading
Summary: Up about $148 for the day.
No bias off of the open. Market seems very sideways and range bound.
Trade 1: Order Flow Long at 52.97. Just no traction...Lost 5 ticks.
Going into 8:30 open, strong short bias
Trade 2: Short 52.94 Stop should have been 53.00, and was originally. But I moved it to 52.98 and was stopped out for 4 ticks. This was a mistake. Market actually only went to 52.99. This has to go down as an error.
Trade 3: Short again at 52.92. Still a lot of trade in this area. Looks like absorption to me. Also the 5 min bar reversed down to its low. Some people call that a gotcha bar. Felt that I had the direction right. Made 18 ticks on the first lot, and 11 on the second. Trying to hide second trail stop behind a large order, but it went away so I took stop. Overall happy with the trade.
Trade 4: Order flow long 52.74. 5 min bar closed without the whoooosh that I expected....rolled stop to BE+1.
Felt performance overall was decent. 2nd trade was error. I should have had stop behind the VWAP, just made a mental error. Glad to start the week GREEN!
In review, Bookmap showed a strong layer of liquidity at 53.00. Would have been smart to have been above this.
What the trade record doesn't show....I wanted to get long after the second trade stopped out in the worst way!!! Would have broken my rules, and been an unnecessary loss! I am glad that I kept discipline and did not take the long there.
Analysis: Daily chart is just a mess!! all other TFs are long. Will be looking for long on the open.
8:00 Long@ 52.98. Made 30 ticks on the first lot. Trailing the second. Market bled down and stopped me @53.12 for +14. Management on trade was per plan. It is tough giving back so much on the second contract. I realized afterward that the market was up at that point over 100 ticks, so it is not abnormal for it to have a pretty deep pullback. I followed my rules so...{shrug}
8:30 Still looking for longs. The market is very slow. Big Volume at the high. Just no trade. Considering if I want to buy breakout, but I have another level just above. No Trades.
9:00 Swing zone. Market lost energy, stalled at 53.30 at the hi vol area, looking for shorts. Nice orderflow signal at 53.20, I am short. I know I have a level of resistance at 53.07ish. Took one off at 53.08. Market stalled, I have to leave for work. Really nice Vol transition to the buy side, but I have to leave. Made 11 ticks on second lot.
Overall, happy with performance. Nice to get the account back into GREEN
Morning Analysis: Was big UT overnight but large reversal. Very sideways action. Market just took out VWAP of down move 7:50ish. No clarity and no 8:00 trade.
8:00 no trades. Market range bound. Very unclear to me. Was thinking possible short at 54.29, but market never got there. Just unable to make sense of this.
8:30 Still unclear to me. No directional trade as of yet. Looked like market was trying to break, but resistance holding at 54.00. Looking long. Order flow long. 1 lot...very little conviction on this trade. Just no traction at all...stopped for -5 ticks.
Short in front of VWAP after spike down. Expecting continuation. Short 53.91...and stopped for -6 ticks on the 2 lot. Very good trade, strong conviction, but market violated the VWAP.
Short at 53.93. Very strong sell side conviction. All TFs except for daily transitioning to sell side. VPOC of range is 53.80, might hold market up there. Rolled stop to 53.91 to protect some profit. Stopped for +2 ticks on the 2 lot.
9:00 Still very strong conviction market wants to selloff. Sell surge again, Short 1 lot, add second as market breaks below MAs and previous up bar. Short at 53.85. market moving against me, with another buy transition!! may just be a low opportunity chop day...
started working. Stopped at 53.62. Did not manage trade as well as could have but made money... Laughing like a HYENA as market drops another 30 ticks!!!! Stop should have probably been above the last Volume transition at 53.70. Was trying to find some large orders to hide behind in the book. On the video replay, I realized orders had moved up to 53.64-53.65. I think I was thinking of yesterdays huge pullback, after the run up and was trying to protect profit. Did not break rules so <shrug>
https://nexusfi.com/attachments/226183d1486089951
Tried to short again 1 lot off of order flow at 53.81. Market slow, but I still have conviction market is getting ready to sell again. Added the 2 lot when it seemed selling was coming in and retrace to longer term MA on the higher TF.
And here is where I screw up...in trying to drag stop to 53.90, I accidently stopped myself out of the 1 lot. I sort of lost emotional/mental grounding at that point. So I moved stop to BE+1 and exited trade. Done for the day.
While in hindsight this was a good decision, it was more because I felt like I had lost control of my emotions. In times past a mistake (even though this was only a small one for -7 ticks) may have caused me to start making serious mistakes and even blow up.
...) I try to formulate an opening trade 
