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Safin's Trading Journal

  #1 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340

Just an update.
I am no longer using the method mentioned below. It does not mean it's not working. But I had problems following my rules and also I have limitation of time because I have a day job. So I have developed an automated strategy on ES and testing it everyday on SIM. I am documenting trades from this bot that can be found on last couple of pages.
Regards,
Safin
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Guys

I am a regular reader of BigMike forum. After doing many months of paper trading and studying lot of materials on trading, I have decided to start this journal. I am very much inspired by techniques on this site and decided to start my own journal to become a better disciplined trader.

I don't have lot of Capital to start with a live account, so I don't want to jump in live battle without enough practice.

So here is my trading plan,

For next few weeks or may be months, I will keep doing paper trading and I will only go live when I feel I am ready.

I already have a trading template and technique in place which is doing so far so good. I have not blown up my paper trading account yet. I want to treat this account as important as live account.

Right now my favorite instrument is CL, inspired by big mike. It's very vibrant and I think it matches with my personality. I don't like slow moving instruments. I did trade ES for few months, but did not get expected results. I even tried automating my strategies with ES for almost 6 months, but no success. Now I believe that it is impossible to automate a strategy that will work forever. So I decided to go old way, without automation and without much indicators, purely price action based entries and exits.

Few weeks back, I got All you need template from Jeff Castille's thread on this site. Thanks to him. I have modified his template for my own needs. Attached here is the template that I am using right now. Also attached are various settings screenshot for indicators that I use. I have added ADXVMA indicator in addition to Jeff's indicators, this warns me if market is going side ways.

My method of trading is simple. I look for support and resistance breakouts. I use Swing_3 indicator to draw support and resistance lines automatically for me. But I do not rely on just these support and resistance lines. Some times I draw my own support and resistance lines manually based on price actions that I have observed recently. I place my order 3-5 ticks above or below support and resistance levels. Then I wait for breakout. I go with two targets. First target is usually 15 point (sometimes I change it to 10 ticks depending on market condition), Second target is 500 ticks, I treat this target as a runner. My stop losses for both target is 10 ticks. First stop loss is a fix stop loss of 10, but second one is a trailing stop of 10. That allows second one to run as much as it can. Right now I don't have a very good exit plan. Still working on it. But usually after entering a trade, if I don't see lot of activity for 2 minutes or so, I try to exit with 1 tick profit if I can.

I don't always use all of the indicators that I have. I mainly use Swing_3 indicator only to draw support and resistance line. Here is a quick summary of where I may use these indicators

jtRealStats - Usually when I enter a trade, ideally I want this indicator to be 90% pink (for short) or 90% blue(for long) on 60 minute chart

ADXVMA - This helps me to decide if market is going side ways. You can see that I have set it's parameter to just show me White Dots. MAFalling and MARising colors are transparent.

ColorSampleUniversalMovingAverage - Helps me find out overall market trend. If this is blue, only look for long, if red then only look for short.

VOL - Volume helps me decide market strength. If this is below average volume (400-500), I would stay away from trading.

PivotPoints Daily and Weekly - These two indicators I just use as warnings. When price is moving around them, I try to be cautious. Still not so much clear on how I should use them.

This trading plan looks good to me and I am sure this journal would be helpful to me as well as to others on this forum. Please feel free to express your thoughts on my trading plan. Feel free to ask questions. If something doesn't make sense, do not hesitate to point it out.

So let's get started. Soon I will start posting my trades. Stay tuned...

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  #3 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340


30 June
======
Loss of -160$ (8 ticks with 2 entries)

See attached chart for my entry and exit positions. Tried to enter at 77 support breakout, but market went side ways and stop loss hit at 8 ticks. I changed my stop loss from 10 ticks to 8 tick to be more safe.

There was another nice opportunity of short at 75.95, but I got nervous because of stop loss at the same entry on previous day. It would have been an easy win of at least 90 ticks.

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  #4 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
Site Administrator
Developer
Swing Trader
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Broker: IBKR
Trading: Stocks & Futures
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Weeks
Posts: 50,396 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 33,172
Thanks Received: 101,537

Hi safin,

Good job on the posts.

Now the hard part: keep posting, sharing your trades, and try to take note of a few things with each trade. Your trading plan is very important, but you should also try to take a snapshot before/during/after each trade, and that snapshot is to include stuff like a) why did you enter?, b) as you were in the trade, how did you feel?, c) why did you exit?.

Recording this will help you see very clear patterns in your behavior over time. The key is to be completely honest as well, or else there is no benefit.

So keep posting and then after a few days I think you'll start to see some emerging patterns and then can start to formulate a plan of strengths and weaknesses to play to.

Mike

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  #5 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340

1-July
=====

Happy Canada Day.

Total Profit : 340$

First Order
Profit +10 ticks for first target
Profit +14 ticks for second target

Second Order
Profit of +10 ticks for first target.
Second target didn't fill because of fast market.

After slow home sales news in May, major markets are down. Short short short...

See attahced chart for today....

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  #6 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340

Thanks Mike for your advise. I will try to do my best. Let's see how it goes.

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  #7 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340

2-July
=====

No trades today.

I missed an opportunity in morning to short at 72.7. 72.75 was a good resistance point. I was sleeping.

Entered another long stop limit order at 74.11. 74 was a weekly support price, that acted as resistance today. I was hoping for a breakout that didn't happen.

Market is so slow now and very low volume. I am done for the day and week. Good news is, I am still green for the week.

See attached charts for today.

Have a nice weekend and Happy Independence Day.

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Thanked by:
  #8 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340

6-July
====

Profit : 60$ (3 ticks with 2 contracts)

Very slow market this morning after long weekend. No trades yet. I will keep you posted. Attached is chart before lunch.

Lunch was very costly today. I went out between 12.30 and 1. When I came back, CL was down like a rocket in opposite direction. Missed several opportunities to enter shorts. In addition, Ninja gave me hard time with chart. Somehow my chart wouldn't move with price. Not sure what was going on. I tried repairing database from Tools->Options. Also tried closing and starting Ninja again. But no luck. This was frustrating. Finally I had to create new chart without using my template with no indicators, and whoa it worked. Thank God!. I tried to build similar template that I had before by quickly adding Swing and Volume indicators.

Anyways, I tried to jump in down rally lately at 72.17, but by that time market became slow and I didn't see lot of movement. So got out with 3 ticks profit.

I got another resistance line at 72. Entered short stop limit at 71.97, but CL didn't move in downward directions. It's 2.30 now and I am done for the day. Atleast I am green for the day.

See attached chart for after lunch session.

Today's Question for Professional Traders
==============================
Why would market move suddenly in one direction after a choppy session? I mean look at today's move of CL. I couldn't think of any reason for this big move. Can anyone guide?

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Thanked by:
  #9 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340

7-July
=====

Total Profit : 530$ (4 orders)

First Order : 90$ (2 targets)
Overall market was trending up. Swing indicator gave me resistance line at 73.21. So I entered a long entry at 73.23. First target of +10 tick filled easily. Second target exited at breakeven with -1 tick because of hesitant upward move.

Second Order : 110$ (2 targets)
Almost similar scenario as first order. Swing indicator gave me resistance line at 73.72. So I entered long entry at 73.74. But this time, I tried to be smart. . First target was +5 and second target was +10 with trailing stop of 5. First target got filled quickly. Second target trailing stop got hit at +6. Then I realized my stupidity. I should not have changed my strategy. If I would have kept target of first order to +10 and let second target run with trailing stop of 10, I might have got atleast+30 ticks. Anyways that's a lesson for today. Never change your strategy.

Third Order : 100$ (2 targets)
Same scenario again. Swing indicator gave me resistance line at 74.11. This was daily resistance point as well. I was hoping for a blast here. So back to normal strategy. First target got hit at +10. But unfortunately blast didn't occur. Second order exited at breakeven.

I am happy today. After 2 idle days, finally I got a break. I will post my charts soon.

Thanks everyone for reading my posts.

EDIT
------
Ok, I guess it was too early to post my charts. I came back from lunch and I saw one more opportunity to enter long. When you are winning wars, why would you stop?

Fourth order : Profit $230 (2 targets)
Same kind of entry as first 3 orders. I got resistance line at 74.44 by swing indicator. 74.46 was yesterday's high from where market crashed up to 72 yesterday. So I thought this is a major resistance. I entered long entry at 74.51 and hoped for a breakout and it happened in a blink. First target +10 ticks. My runner had finally some room to run. It ran for +13 ticks and trailing stop got hit.

Whoever has written Swing indicator, a big thank you. I can draw my own resistance/support lines but it boosts my confidence when swing indicator draws resistance/support line at the same price.

Attached are two more charts for after-lunch session. Ninjatrader gave me hard time again today. My chart template got corrupted again, I had to rebuild it quickly. So after-lunch session charts will look a little different but basically same Swing and Volume indicator I am using.

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Thanked by:
  #10 (permalink)
 safin 
London, Ontario
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES, CL Futures
Posts: 273 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 147
Thanks Received: 340


BTW, I have started reading Price Action book from Al Brooks, "Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar". Very interesting book. I believe, it's a must for every trader. Author gives a great detail of explanation on how to interpret each move of price bar. I have started incorporating Al Brooks methods in my trading. And so far very good results. Every bar is important, even a small one. Thanks to Al Brooks for this valuable book.

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