NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





Adventures in Oil Futures Trading - Demo to Millions! $$$


Discussion in Trading Journals

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one naesm with 136 posts (137 thanks)
    2. looks_two Comeback King with 7 posts (21 thanks)
    3. looks_3 Rrrracer with 5 posts (14 thanks)
    4. looks_4 Cutloss with 4 posts (1 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one ratfink with 4 thanks per post
    2. looks_two Comeback King with 3 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 Rrrracer with 2.8 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 naesm with 1 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 17,083 views
    2. thumb_up 185 thanks given
    3. group 19 followers
    1. forum 162 posts
    2. attach_file 59 attachments




 
Search this Thread

Adventures in Oil Futures Trading - Demo to Millions! $$$

  #21 (permalink)
naesm
Fort Collins Colorado
 
Posts: 144 since Nov 2016
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 137

12/21/18 DEMO
TOTAL = -54 TRADES = 7
WINS: 2 WINS TOTAL = 41 AVE WIN = 20.5
LOSSES = 4 LOSS TOTAL = 95 AVE LOSS = 23.7
BE = 1




Anyone have any suggestions on getting some engagement and discussion going on this journal? Maybe it is my fault and the content is not engaging. It was my hope that it would spur discussion, engagement and exchange of ideas. Otherwise this seems like more of an exercise in pure narcisism and that's not interesting to me. It does take a fair amount of time for me to put this together and I already have my private journal that I maintain so I may not continue the journal here.

Today was a terrible day and a full loss limit, which is not fun heading into the weekend and the holiday. I need help. I don't know where to go from here, I am not sure if I have a fundamental problem with my read and understanding of the market or if this is a deeper psychological issue I am facing. I feel my context read and analysis of the market is solid, but a good analyst a good trader does not make. I had trades today that completely went against my analysis of price action and the chart when I looked back.

I think my video journal today is an open and honest assessment of my trading today and an invitation for help. It's longer at 25 minutes, but at 2x speed can be done in 12.

video journal:


Thank you for any and all feedback, support and or criticism.

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
NT7 Indicator Script Troubleshooting - Camarilla Pivots
NinjaTrader
NexusFi Journal Challenge - April 2024
Feedback and Announcements
New Micros: Ultra 10-Year & Ultra T-Bond -- Live Now
Treasury Notes and Bonds
Better Renko Gaps
The Elite Circle
The space time continuum and the dynamics of a financial …
Emini and Emicro Index
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
61 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
39 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
26 thanks
The Program
18 thanks
Battlestations: Show us your trading desks!
18 thanks
  #22 (permalink)
naesm
Fort Collins Colorado
 
Posts: 144 since Nov 2016
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 137



Trade #4 I took from today. I feel I get lost in the shorter timeframe charts sometimes. I spotted this large absorption on the footprint and for some reason I took a short above it to push down through and to test the lows rather than the long. Many things wrong with this trade. First of all, I shorted above a previous large volume demand zone (an area where a previous bullish imbalance move came from). So when I got short I had to trade back through this volume.

So the question is why did I do exactly the opposite of what the chart and the info was telling me? I remember thinking at the time that all of that absorption was value and acceptance of price. It made sense at the time. My entry was the exact time when price ripped up and didn't stop for nearly 100 ticks. I also averaged down on this trade effectively doubling my original loss. I had a "line in the sand" stop where I had to take the trade off and that was at my -38 tick loss on the trade. The problem with this is that I was wrong on the trade from the very beginning. I need a more mechanical way of handling when to average down and scale into and out of trades. At least until I get a better handle on what works and what doesn't.

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #23 (permalink)
naesm
Fort Collins Colorado
 
Posts: 144 since Nov 2016
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 137


Trade #7 and last loss for the day. This is not the same context as the previously posted trade, but it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the price action and absorption I put together at the time. I took this trade long looking to break the highs. There are many problems with this trade to the long side. I remember thinking at the time, we had previously pushed up aggressively and we were now consolidating for the next leg higher. But If you look at the chart previous to my entry we already tested the bar highs to the left and failed that high on an increase in volume. This should have immediately invalidated any long setups. That should have been clue #1 to avoid the long side. Then came the large blocks of absorption, of which I chose to see as conviction for my long position and acceptance of value. But what is really going on here is that either longs are either taking profits from the previous large imbalance move up or sellers are absorbing everything the buyers are willing to take preventing any further move up in price. Neither scenario is good for long trades. To add to the pain of this trade, after we got a small move up I added another contract to my position thinking we were about to break out. Price went another once tick in my favor before going against me and taking me out for a full loss. This is a textbook example of large sellers trapping longs before hitting the bid and crushing them (me included). I know all of this and I still get trapped. Where the hell is the disconnect?


Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #24 (permalink)
 
Comeback King's Avatar
 Comeback King 
Tampa, FL/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TradingView
Trading: NQ, ES
Posts: 269 since Aug 2016
Thanks Given: 191
Thanks Received: 382

I'll offer my 2 cents.

I have not gone through all of your videos but I have followed with the other things you have done in this journal. I honestly barely have time to keep up with my own trading and family and regular job so I really don't read journals too much. I do see that you've been trading a while and you seem to have a good grasp on trading and price action.

I think you have a fundamental problem reading price action on CL. If you were reading the PA as well as you wanted and were placing trades in favorable locations I don't think you'd have so many losses. I think you're pouring so much time into journaling and getting things right and being 100% transparent (which is great) that you're maybe over invested. That's likely too much to handle. Maybe your PA reads are actually good and it's just that you're a bit on tilt because of the large time investment.

I could of course be 100% totally wrong. I can only compare my experience to what you are doing and make a few guesses based on my experience with this journey through miles of razor wire.

Quite a bit ago I committed to doing thorough journaling, daily journaling, on two forums. A lot of this was just copy paste from one to another but both occupied my time. At that time I actually had no real edge either, so I was doomed. Putting so much time into journaling just made me more frustrated. It eventually became counter productive so I stopped - for a few years I think.

A few questions to ask yourself. Do you KNOW that you have a quantifiable trading edge that over time will make money? Are you sure? How do you know?

If you can't get past this part, if you don't have several hundred honest back tested trades and you do not have a sim trading track record where you've made "money" over at least a similar number of trades (trading CL I'd say several contracts at least) then you need to go back to step 1 which is to find and clearly define your trading edge and build that into a trading plan. Based on your results it seems that you simply don't have an edge.

I'm not trying to be harsh at all. I'm just trying to potentially save you from more weeks, days or months of building frustration.

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #25 (permalink)
 
matthew28's Avatar
 matthew28 
United Kingdom
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Bookmap
Broker: Stage 5, Rithmic
Trading: US Equity Index Futures
Posts: 1,250 since Sep 2013
Thanks Given: 3,500
Thanks Received: 2,532


naesm View Post
So the question is why did I do exactly the opposite of what the chart and the info was telling me? I remember thinking at the time that all of that absorption was value and acceptance of price. It made sense at the time. My entry was the exact time when price ripped up and didn't stop for nearly 100 ticks. I also averaged down on this trade effectively doubling my original loss. I had a "line in the sand" stop where I had to take the trade off and that was at my -38 tick loss on the trade. The problem with this is that I was wrong on the trade from the very beginning. I need a more mechanical way of handling when to average down and scale into and out of trades. At least until I get a better handle on what works and what doesn't.

It’s easy to look at the chart afterwards and think it was obvious what it and the other information was telling you. That’s why trading seems so simple when looking at charts in retrospect. You will always have losing trades and if it was a trade entered for a good reason because it followed your plan then that should just be a small cost of doing business. You don’t say if that was a -38 tick loss in distance, or -38 tick loss in total cost (-$380), or how much more than your original intended stop it was. I assume it was more than you intended.
Either way an advantage of using orderflow is that you can use tight stops and as soon as price couldn’t get back through that high volume node to new lows and started to move up and away with conviction you should be out and reassessing. Also if you are day trading I wouldn’t even consider averaging down. For most people that will just equate to taking larger losses than they initially intended and looking to add in to failing trades right at the point when they should actually be getting out for a small cost because their original trade premise has failed.

I think the Axia Futures videos, [yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFA5mCxXHSCCGxsDBSuRRw/videos[/yt] , are good for showing how tightly they manage risk on their trades.
Also in the Mike Bellafiore book “One Good Trade” he talks about how important If-Then statements are for his traders, such as I will get long If price holds above the held bid Then sell if price breaks through by more than 10 cents, or offers hold below. Basically analysing the market in real time. (And they only add in to positive trades)


naesm View Post
Trade #7 and last loss for the day. This is not the same context as the previously posted trade, but it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the price action and absorption I put together at the time. I took this trade long looking to break the highs. There are many problems with this trade to the long side. I remember thinking at the time, we had previously pushed up aggressively and we were now consolidating for the next leg higher. But If you look at the chart previous to my entry we already tested the bar highs to the left and failed that high on an increase in volume. This should have immediately invalidated any long setups. That should have been clue #1 to avoid the long side. Then came the large blocks of absorption, of which I chose to see as conviction for my long position and acceptance of value. But what is really going on here is that either longs are either taking profits from the previous large imbalance move up or sellers are absorbing everything the buyers are willing to take preventing any further move up in price. Neither scenario is good for long trades. To add to the pain of this trade, after we got a small move up I added another contract to my position thinking we were about to break out. Price went another once tick in my favor before going against me and taking me out for a full loss. This is a textbook example of large sellers trapping longs before hitting the bid and crushing them (me included). I know all of this and I still get trapped. Where the hell is the disconnect?

You added to this trade after further consolidation with two green delta up bars as price pushed up to the top of the range. If momentum is in your favour price should break out of the consolidation almost immediately. As soon as the momentum dies, and definitely when price comes back through the high volume node at 46.16, there is no reason to stay in the trade as your breakout premise has failed. I don’t know what your full loss was but I am guessing it was at a price a lot lower than this.

It sounds like you are not actively creating if-then type ideas about what you will do in real time if you see x or y, and are taking much larger losses than are either planned through increasing your initial position or are necessary because you are holding after the initial idea of the trade has long been invalidated. Every trade is different so you either try to create entry and exit rules that are so comprehensive and cover every possible scenario you miss every trade through 'paralysis by analysis' or you have some simpler trade ideas then create specific entry exit rules based on what you are seeing in real time to get you in once your trade idea has setup for you to get long or short. And the same for monitoring that position/trade idea once it is on. Also just my 2 cents.


naesm View Post
Anyone have any suggestions on getting some engagement and discussion going on this journal?

For me I find that in most cases any journal thread that references the millions they are on their way to making isn’t worth reading as within a few weeks they will have blown it anyway.
Also, probably just me and other people are different, I tend to ignore anybody who has been around the site for awhile and written a good number of posts but has never once managed to click on the ‘Thanks’ button.
Anyway. Merry Christmas. Good luck in the new year.

You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #26 (permalink)
naesm
Fort Collins Colorado
 
Posts: 144 since Nov 2016
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 137


Comeback King View Post
I'll offer my 2 cents.

A few questions to ask yourself. Do you KNOW that you have a quantifiable trading edge that over time will make money? Are you sure? How do you know?

If you can't get past this part, if you don't have several hundred honest back tested trades and you do not have a sim trading track record where you've made "money" over at least a similar number of trades (trading CL I'd say several contracts at least) then you need to go back to step 1 which is to find and clearly define your trading edge and build that into a trading plan. Based on your results it seems that you simply don't have an edge.

I'm not trying to be harsh at all. I'm just trying to potentially save you from more weeks, days or months of building frustration.

Thank you I appreciate the feedback. This seems to be where I keep coming back to the elusive edge. I continue to try to nail that down. I continue to return to my written trade plan, to question what constitutes my edge exactly, are the setups in that plan valid, am I executing the setups correctly, or is it something else entirely?

My most recent data set consists of about 120 trades over a 30 day period, which I know some say is still not statistically significant. There is still variability in my strategy as well, I have changed from a fixed 1 lot all in all out strategy to scale in or average down, which adds more variability. You mentioned going back to step 1 and I completely agree. But my question is what is an objective starting point that I can get back to as my foundation if I haven't had something solid that has proven to be profitable in the past? It seems if you ask 50 people you are likely to get 50 different opinions on what is the course of action to take.

When I was optimizing campaigns in affiliate marketing, I knew that when you split test between variations you don't want to change more than 1 variable because you will not know what produced the results. But with trading there are so many potential variables. Maybe my answer lies somewhere in there, getting things boiled down to core components and go from there.

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #27 (permalink)
naesm
Fort Collins Colorado
 
Posts: 144 since Nov 2016
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 137


matthew28 View Post
It’s easy to look at the chart afterwards and think it was obvious what it and the other information was telling you. That’s why trading seems so simple when looking at charts in retrospect. You will always have losing trades and if it was a trade entered for a good reason because it followed your plan then that should just be a small cost of doing business. You don’t say if that was a -38 tick loss in distance, or -38 tick loss in total cost (-$380), or how much more than your original intended stop it was. I assume it was more than you intended.

Yes I agree, but I feel that going back over the trade I realized I had lost my bigger context read and it was not a valid setup per my rules. I try to be conscious of not calling trades bad purely based on outcome. I try to see what I may have missed, so I can take that forward and learn. I know this can be dangerous, the guys always trying to figure it out never figure it out. My old mentor told me, the traders that were engineers and doctors sometimes have a very difficult time because they come from a background with certainty to something that doesn't have it.

The 38 tick loss was total for the position, 19 / contract, and yes more than I intended. You are spot on when it came back down below that volume I should have been out. When it didn't break above where I added I should have closed it for a small profit or BE not added on. Recently I changed my plan to an averaging down strategy to account for rotations, but I don't believe this is valid or helpful. I used to trade very tight, if I didn't have an identifiable stop within 10 ticks I would pass on the setups. Usually, an untested high or bar low.


matthew28 View Post
I think the Axia Futures videos, [yt]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzFA5mCxXHSCCGxsDBSuRRw/videos[/yt] , are good for showing how tightly they manage risk on their trades.
Also in the Mike Bellafiore book “One Good Trade” he talks about how important If-Then statements are for his traders, such as I will get long If price holds above the held bid Then sell if price breaks through by more than 10 cents, or offers hold below. Basically analysing the market in real time. (And they only add in to positive trades)

Yes thank you that makes a lot of sense about the binary type thinking I do this but should probably work on it more. Also I have watched a lot of the Axia videos, I really like their content and is some of the best I have seen. Aside from these very recent losses my stops have been less than 15 ticks. Most I think 10 or less, do you consider that big?

And I agree with you the title is obnoxious, I thought of it more to get people to engage but not as something that would deter them. But yet here you are

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #28 (permalink)
 
Rrrracer's Avatar
 Rrrracer 
On the road
Webinar Host
Trading Nomad
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TradingView
Broker: Oanda
Trading: FX
Posts: 2,512 since Feb 2017
Thanks Given: 17,582
Thanks Received: 9,752


naesm View Post
You mentioned going back to step 1 and I completely agree. But my question is what is an objective starting point that I can get back to as my foundation if I haven't had something solid that has proven to be profitable in the past?


Sean, that's a very good question. You're obviously not a beginner, you are knowledgeable and I appreciate your transparency and willingness to put it out there.

You mention in your OP that you saw some success back in 2013... I'm sure a lot has changed in the five years since, maybe getting back to your roots might be a good place to start?

Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #29 (permalink)
 
amoeba's Avatar
 amoeba 
Sydney, NSW, Australia
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Chart, Python, C#
Broker: Interactive Brokers
Trading: MJNK, ASX, SPI
Posts: 205 since Jan 2014
Thanks Given: 98
Thanks Received: 284

Hey Naesm,

Just wondering if I have the same person, your a member of CT?

If so, have you gone through some of the content about building statistical edges you can use to structure parts of your trading plan around?

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #30 (permalink)
naesm
Fort Collins Colorado
 
Posts: 144 since Nov 2016
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 137



Rrrracer View Post
Sean, that's a very good question. You're obviously not a beginner, you are knowledgeable and I appreciate your transparency and willingness to put it out there.

You mention in your OP that you saw some success back in 2013... I'm sure a lot has changed in the five years since, maybe getting back to your roots might be a good place to start?

Yes I did, but I was referring to success in another endeavor. In 13' I had a performance marketing company and did well. In trading I have yet to have success. My last time trading was in 16' and traded for about a year and a half but went from live to SIM multiple times but stopped after being emotionally burned out and overall was about breakeven. I traveled for about 7 months in Central and South America and said I was done trading. But here I am giving it another go. It is a fine line between consistency, tenacity, discipline and continuing to persevere until success. This is something that takes extreme dedication and discipline, something I have lacked in the past but something I seem to be developing more as I mature. Seems it's a habit to be practiced like anything else.

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:




Last Updated on August 24, 2021


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts