I have been trading Forex actively for about 11 years and full time about 5 of those years. As the account grew, I slowly switched to higher and higher time frames and now only look at Forex charts once a day. Time for something new. I have known about futures for several years and up until now just haven't done anything with it. Last week I opened an account and after the 4th of July holidays I will begin trading it live. I have been demo trading for a few weeks and find many similarities between Forex and Futures along with many differences. The system that I have used for so many years trading Forex works even better in the Futures market (at least so far ). Looking forward to seeing what I can do.
I could go back to day trading Forex but where's the fun in that? Time to experience something new.
I trade at all hours of the day but I am not necessarily in front of the computer all day. Not having a day job has its advantages.
Going to be starting mainly with NQ adding others in as my experience grows. I like the volatility of the NQ.
I will try to grab screenshots as I go but with the NQ things happen quickly so I am not sure how well I will do with posting during the day. I will post results at the end of the day at a minimum.
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Launch day tomorrow. I will get an early start and trade as long as I feel up to it. No particular goals or targets other than to just get in there and trade.
Spent most of today going back 120 or more days looking at how my trading system worked in varying conditions. Looks promising. It is interesting to see how much volatility changes with NQ. Some days are all over the place and others are smooth and trending. Doesn't really impact how I trade. It just changes the number of trades I have to make.
I love trying new things and demo time is over for futures trading. Time to experience the live side of futures.
I will update as often as I can but as many know NQ can be a fast moving beast. I hope to post several times during the day but I don't make any promises.
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Morning update. Took 3 trades this morning all 3 profitable. Had to leave for a while to take care of other things but looking forward to the afternoon session.
Still getting used to how quickly NQ can move around. I am used to the snails pace EURUSD moves most of the time. No big deal.
We shall see what the afternoon brings.
Later
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I think I did pretty good for my first day of trading Futures. 4 trades and all were profitable. I was very conservative with my entries and as a result I missed several good opportunities. The speed of NQ was quite an adjustment for me coming from the Forex world and primarily EURUSD. I think I have a good understanding of where to place stops and what to expect when in a trade.
Trade 1: Decent entry but I closed it early because I am a bit superstitious and I wanted my first live Futures trade to be profitable. LOL!
Trade 2: Almost got stopped out. It came within 2 ticks of closing the trade but fortunately it made the turn and came on down. Didn't get much out of that trade but it was green nonetheless
Trade 3: Much better entry, trade turned green quickly but then found some resistance and bounced up and took me out at a reasonable profit. My stop placement on this trade was really good. Right after the trade ended it continued to move in the wrong direction.
Trade 4: Much more like it. Good entry and better exit. Most profitable trade of the day.
I finished the day out up $850 but could have done much better. Learned a few things about trading NQ live today and will use these Friday in my trading. I plan on being a bit more aggressive with my entries and I plan on trading longer than I did today. I think I only had about 3-4 hours in front of the screen.
I didn't grab any screenshots of my trades today because I was very focused on what was going on and what I needed to do next. Here is a shot of the final profit for the day.
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It was bound to happen. I have always fought with going with the trend. I guess you would say I am a contrarian trader. I never wanted to be the one who bought at the top or sold at the bottom. Cost me today. 1 bad trade in which I failed to fully follow my rules. Oh well, it pays to follow the rules it hurts when you don't.
I still missed way too many opportunities. I will fix that this weekend.
Doesn't look like the market is going to give me a chance to redeem myself. Guess I will take the 400 dollar hit and head into the weekend. Time to spend running through the playback simulator.
Still looking forward to next week. 2 steps forward 1 step back.
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Putting my programming skills to work. I seem to be having difficulty in catching the trades early enough and completely by my rules so instead of having to evaluate all of the entries manually I am writing a strategy to find the entries for me. Testing it now with the playback simulator. So far it is about 7 out of 10 for accuracy but that is improving with testing.
On Monday I will let it run on the sim account and when it takes a trade that I agree with, I will enter on the live account. If I don't agree with the entry I will make a note of it and find out why it took a wrong trade. That way I can evaluate it with live data but not kill the account if it makes a bad entry. That is one thing I really like about NinjaTrader is the ability to run sim and live side by side.
I have designed it to open the trade and place the stop but not to exit a trade by itself. It has to hit the stop. This allows me to manage the trade.
Once I am satisfied with the stability and accuracy of the strategy I will post it. It takes a bunch of time to work the kinks out of a strategy so be patient. It may be several months before I am comfortable enough with the code to let it out on the real world.
BTW: The title of this post is from Weird Al Yankovic's "It's All About The Pentiums". Funny video.
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Think I have the code ready for Monday. Testing looks good but only live data will tell for sure.
I had to do a workaround on testing the code since it appears that the playback engine cannot deal with multiple time frame data. The joys of learning a new system and software.
It switches where the signals come from depending on time of day. All three time frames for early morning, switching to just the highest time frame during the volatile 930 am (eastern US) to about 10 am. Once the noise has passed it only uses the upper two time frames. Taking whichever trade happens first. So it essentially automatically filters out the noise to keep from getting too many signals.
Should be fun to watch. Like I said earlier I am going to let it run on the sim account and take any good trades on the live account. I expect many false signals since this is essentially version 1.0.
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Getting a computer to understand what a human can see visually is an interesting task. Writing the code to help see trades as they develop has allowed me to see how much I filter out automatically. Transferring those filters to a computer has proven to be interesting. Computers are very rule based and very strict at following those rules.
NinjaTrader is a bit cumbersome when dealing with multiple time frames. Not as straight forward as other languages I have worked with in the past.
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First trade was a loser at -510 second trade was a winner at +180. Both good trades but should have been in earlier on the short trade that lost.
Strategy I wrote this weekend has a few bugs which is keeping it from working. Probably something to do with multi timeframes being used. Will have to work on those but not while trading.
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If anyone is wondering I am looking at a 100,200 and 500 tick chart. I use moving averages to help find the trend and to help find potential reversals. Over time I will cover everything I am looking at good bad or ugly.
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Haven't taken any more trades and probably won't for today. Ended up +395 which is ok. I am still missing opportunities but the entries are getting better. I see a pattern on the 500 tick chart I want to investigate tonight to see if it is consistent and easy to find even when the markets are moving. I have seen the pattern 3 times this afternoon and it led to a profitable trade all three times. May just be coincidence so I am not calling it usable yet that's why I didn't take the trades based on it.
Hope everyone has a great afternoon. Today is my 30th anniversary time to celebrate.
Later.
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Thanks. I have a very logically driven mind and putting things down in words is outside of my comfort zone. That's mainly why I am doing it. I like to challenge myself.
Hope things are going your way.
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Checked the pattern I saw on the 500 tick chart. It works well right now but only marginally well in the past. Probably won't use it.
Waiting for a trade opportunity. I didn't have a chance to work on fixing the code for the strategy so that will have to wait probably until the weekend.
Went ahead and stepped up my membership here to elite status. I like supporting sites like this that are there to help others.
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I did NOT take a single trade all day. I have been letting myself get distracted and missing opportunities right and left. So, this afternoon I decided to get naked...... Now wipe that image from your mind. LOL! I switched off every indicator on my charts and just watched price movement. Oh yeah, that kind of naked.
Now, what did I see or at least think I saw. The human mind will attempt to filter out anything painful (such as a losing trade) by trying to find ways to reduce the number of times we experience that pain. In doing so we start to add indicator after indicator trying to "filter out" the noise. By doing this, we complicate the process of trading far beyond what it should be.
You can say that today was an eye opener for me. I suggest that if you are struggling with your trading then you should switch off every indicator you have on your charts and focus on nothing but price movement. Notice what happens just prior to changes in direction, notice the time of day it happens, etc.
The one thing I have notice since starting to trade Futures just a few weeks ago is that it doesn't take much movement to make a good living. I think too many people get hung up on trying to be the first trillionaire trader that they miss out on the process they must go through to be a good trader. Fear of loss is what causes most traders to make poor decisions. Either fear of a losing trade or fear of missing the trade. And, in some ways, fear of posting that losing trade to an open forum for all to see and critique.
For me to be successful at trading Futures I have to adapt to a different type of trading. That adaptation will be tested starting tomorrow morning.
Instead of just posting results, I will be posting each trade with screenshots, before, during and after. Instead of trying to jump in at the exact right moment, I will be using pending orders. I will wait for the market to come to me instead of me going to the market.
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Wow! Massive sell off late yesterday and into the night. Must have been the news about the tariffs. It will be interesting to see how it impacts today's trading. Wonder what Europe will do with it once they open?
stop triggered. Only made +65 on that trade. It turned back really quickly. Looks like I may have been too quick to move the stop but this is a new way of trading for me so there will be a bit of a learning curve when it comes to stops.
edit: Yup, waaaaayyyy too aggressive. LOL! Lesson learned.
Learned a few things during this early morning trading session.
1. Relax, don't be overly aggressive with moving the stop.
2. Trust the new way of trading. Missed a long trade that would have been profitable but I wasn't 100% convinced that where I had the entry picked was the right place. It was.
3. Should have been using the 100 tick chart for entries since the market was slower than it is on days. I was using the 200 tick.
There is decent opportunities during the early morning hours. Just have to remember things move much slower early in the morning.
Going to cancel the pending order and wait for some better movement for the next trade.
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Well that was over quick. LOL! It dropped down took the short and quickly came back up. I have the entries set up to move to break even +5 ticks after it moves 40 ticks in my favor. It moved it and then price came up quickly and took it out.
Here is the pic I was about to upload when everything happened.
Saved some profit because I had the stop move automatically. +160 now.
curious why do you trade the NQ over ES or YM.... I normally trade the ES but today it looks like the NQ trends a little better do you find this is usually true ?
NQ just happened to catch my eye first. When I started doing research into Futures, one of the videos I watched was someone trading the NQ. I liked how it moved. Coming from a Forex world where the EURUSD moves at a snails pace I wanted something I didn't have to wait on to see results. NQ does trend nicely on most days. It can also be a real pain. There are good opportunities all day with NQ to make some decent money.
ES is next on my list once I am fully comfortable with NQ.
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Finishing the day at +1395. No additional trades taken. It was a good day but a stressful day.
Going to adjust my risk profile for trading tomorrow. Although the account can handle the swings, mentally I am not ready to see profit/loss move that fast. It's fun to watch when it's going your way, it's not so fun when it isn't. LOL! So, starting tomorrow I will be trading just 1 contract instead of 5. Should reduce the stress by a factor of 5. This will also allow me to widen my stop some and let the trade develop instead of forcing it.
Time to relax a bit and get ready for the new trading day.
Thanks for all of the support.
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Let me know if these attachments are too big. I used the screenshot tool in NT to grab it. I have large 4k monitors and I am not sure how these will display on other monitors.
I turned on the moving averages again but plan on trading a combination of swings along with my normal trading style. I don't use them as a crossover type of trading. Instead they are paired up in two's to give me information about short, medium and longer term trends as well as giving a good visual cue as to where to join a trend.
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If price breaks below the yellow line (200 ema) because the white line (60 ema) is still above it, there is a potential for a reversal. Will have to watch it closely.
There is the reversal I was talking about. Now that it is above the red line (21 ema) because it is below the white line (60 ema) the short term trend is down. How it acts at this level will determine if I get out or not.
It did. LOL! Closed at +185 Not as dramatic as it is with 5 contracts but a few more trades like this and I will have the same day I had yesterday without the stress.
Had an unplanned appointment to go to today. I call it unplanned because I didn't know about it until 30 minutes before I was supposed to be there. LOL! Missed the great trend today. Ended up -50 for the day. Could have been much better.
Finally moving the right direction. Had me worried for a few. Needs to get below 7405.50 to make me feel comfortable. If it can't I will exit with a small loss.
We are at a point where it could get a bit choppy for a while. Both long and short term trends indicate up but the intermediate is pointing down. We may get a few smaller cycles until it breaks loose.
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Yup. Stuck in a range. It may take the 930 am eastern open to push it anywhere. There may be some scalp opportunities but you have to be careful since eventually it will break out and make a move.
There are some really good trends that happen that early in the morning. To me it is a good time to learn the movement without the speed of the US session. Liquidity is much lower so if you are above just a few contracts you will get some slippage.
Old habits die hard. I use to trade the London every morning when I first started Forex. Up at 2 a.m. to be fully awake by 3 when London opened. Did my trading then went to work.
I use to do the same and it was horrible by about 12 pm I was dead. Depending on news I also use to trade the 2nd half of the Asian sessions and get 1-2 hrs of sleep before work... horrible
I wake up around 5 am might have to have a look one of these days.
-P
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Three trades since the opening. All profitable, barely. Need to work on timing my entries. I WILL fix that this weekend. If I have to stay up all weekend and beat it into my head, I WILL fix it. LOL!
+190 on the day. Much more potential for profit. Need to learn to keep my dang mouse pointer off of the "Close" button.
Lunch time choppiness right now. Hopefully they don't stay at lunch too late.
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ok, done trading for the day. No new trades. Missed a few entries but as choppy as it is they probably wouldn't have earned much.
Going to take a little break and then start coding the strategy I started on a week or so ago. I have some new ideas and features to add that should make it much better. By Monday morning there will be no excuses as to why I missed an entry or didn't take an optimum entry point.
I will post screenshots sometime over the weekend.
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Made a modification to the NinjaTrader tick counter indicator where it places the tick counter next to the current bar. I have uploaded it to the NinjaTrader 8 indicators forum: https://futures.io/local_links.php?catid=27
So here is the current status: User interface is built, working on the automated entries.
In the picture below you will see six buttons on the bottom right of the chart. Most are obvious as to what they do. You will also see a horizontal line that is currently red. This means it is disabled. If I click the "h-line" button it will turn green and become enabled. As soon as this happens the strategy checks current price and if the line is below it expects to enter short if price goes below the line. Opposite is true if the line is above price. This feature allows for trading swings instead of just automated entries. User can choose between waiting for the candle to close or triggering on touch.
The text just above the buttons shows the status of whether automated entries are permitted. This only impacts entries not triggered by the horizontal line (those are controlled by the h-line button). Auto trading is enabled by clicking the "Auto" button. Once enabled it will enter trades based on my system discussed in earlier posts. All triggers are set up to fire on close of candle.
It uses any pre-defined ATM strategy set up by the user. This limits the responsibility of the strategy for stop placement, target placement etc. If no ATM strategy is entered it will simply open positions at 1 contract. No stops, no targets. If there is an ATM strategy entered it will place orders based on the defined contract size in the ATM strategy.
I will have the rest of the automated entries programmed by late this evening. There are many rules for it to follow and testing each one will take time.
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Everything is ready. Plan for tomorrow is to trade with just the horizontal line and let the strategy generate alerts for automatic entries. This will give me time to verify with live data if the code is working right. The horizontal line is simple enough that I am not worried about it on live data and a live account. At a minimum the strategy should help me see trade set ups that I have been missing.
Last weeks lower volume was interesting. Maybe a bunch of people were on vacation at the same time. Who knows? Would like to see it step back up to where it was the weeks prior.
Should be a great week of trading. Hope everyone has a green week.
Do you prefer lighter or darker charts? Not sure yet. Changed mine a little while ago. May have to put on sunglasses. I kind of like it right now. We will see early in the morning when I get started.
Overnight we went back up to Friday's high (within 1 tick). Looking at a long term chart (12000 tick) the last two times this has happened (where NQ makes a double top) there was a significant correction to the downside. One was about a 120 point drop and the other was the start of a 400 point drop. Could this be the start of another drop? Time will tell. I don't let longer term charts set my bias for the day. In my opinion, all long term trends start on the lowest time frame.
I started looking at longer time frame charts recently in an attempt to find a way to get in a trade and possibly ride it out all day. I had hoped that there was some clue during the early morning hours as to what direction NQ was going to go during the day. I have not found that correlation as of yet. Probably isn't one.
If this turns out to be a good week, this will be the last of getting up early to trade. I enjoy the peace and quiet but the volume of trades is too low for long term value. Some days it trends really nicely but most it barely moves at all. Not exactly sure of what time I would start but looking back 6 a.m. looks like a good time to start looking for developing trends.
I have the strategy up and running with auto trading enabled but I have it rigged in the code to prevent auto trading from taking any trades. It will just sound an alert instead. The horizontal line trade entry is still live and will take trades when they happen.
200 tick chart:
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I modified the existing bar timer in NinjaTrader 8 to move it up next to the bar as well. You can find it in the indicators section under ninjatrader 8.
So far the automated entries would have been about 86% winnable trades even in this choppy market. Still not quite ready to give it control. Needs to be tuned a bit more. It gets into trouble during moving average transitions.
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If you are referring to where I place my stop it really depends on market conditions. If the market is really choppy like today then I will move it further away and let the markets move. On days when it is trending like last Thursday the 12th then a big stop isn't needed.
Hope this is what you were asking.
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I understand the difference about the stops depending of the markets but I have not found a proper SL with NQ, for example I’m using 3.25 points in ES.
BTW horrible market to trade today, really chopoy as you said
For me usually it is 1-2 points behind the last swing. If that means 5 points total or 10 then that is what it is. NQ is a jumpy beast so it needs room to move.
Markets seem like they are waiting on the Trump-Putin summit before making a real move.
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Well there is the drop I was thinking was coming this morning. Totally missed it. I had already gave up on the day. No trades for me. But I was productive and focused on refining the entry points.
I don't understand what you mean with 200 ticks, because in the right scale there is not 200 ticks considering there is 4 tics per point in the NQ. Can you explain please.
Looks like a quiet night so far. There was a signal to go short but it occurred before I got set up. I have a pending long above where that signal generated.
We may see the second leg of the drop today. We are re-testing overnight lows right now. Wonder if they will wait until late afternoon before making the move like they did yesterday.
One news thing to watch is Fed Chairman Powell testifying today at 10 a.m. eastern. I know this can and does have an impact on the currency markets so I am sure it will have some impact on the stock markets at least to some degree.
Watching price drop is frustrating when you don't see a good way of jumping in. It's just something you have to deal with when trading. Sometimes the train leaves before you get there.
Here is why I didn't move the green horizontal line down to that small swing high. It would have put me in a buy right at a support/resistance area that had been tested twice recently(marked by the blue line).
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). Looking forward to seeing what I can do.
Enjoying your journal!
