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Zimmer's Journal: Naked Chart Reading


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Zimmer's Journal: Naked Chart Reading

  #171 (permalink)
 
kareem40's Avatar
 kareem40 
Dallas, TX
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Nice Trade Zimmer. Hope for many more.

K

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  #172 (permalink)
 
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 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
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Nothing much for me today. I had one longer-term setup on the ES today that I passed on because I don't like to take those longer term setups as day trades and risk getting tied down to the computer hours after noon.

I've taken all of one day-trade this week. Despite that decrease in frequency, this has been one of my largest winning weeks from my other strategies/systems (longer-term).

I feel that adding long term strategies to my portfolio has actually improved my relationship with trading significantly. I no longer feel pressured to make all of my gains from daytrading, because I know I can generate alpha from my other two long-term systems. Some would find it distracting, but I find it reassuring to manage multiple strategies/systems simultaneously.

Towards the end of August I may attempt to alter my rules to increase trade frequency in my day-trading. This week I have taken only 2 trades!

Hope everyone traded well today.

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  #173 (permalink)
 
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 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
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One trade by the rules today. Kinda sucks to get beat up by the market but I executed on my trade plan and that is all I can do.


Trade 1:
Trend Continuation:
-Russell was ripping higher with hardly any corrections.
-I entered on a very small swing and was stopped out by a few points before price proceeded towards target.
-Perfect execution despite the less-than-ideal result.
-Risk Reward was 2.8:1

100%



Results:

1 loss
-.54 R

Thoughts:
I definitely need to increase my trade frequency. I took a total of three trades this week.

If anyone has ideas regarding trade frequency, please share!


My concern with reducing the specificity of my rules is that my frequency will increase at the cost of quality. Perhaps retaining the same rigid set of rules but applying it to many more markets would improve frequency whilst keeping quality at the same level?

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  #174 (permalink)
 
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 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
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mtzimmer1 View Post

My concern with reducing the specificity of my rules is that my frequency will increase at the cost of quality. Perhaps retaining the same rigid set of rules but applying it to many more markets would improve frequency whilst keeping quality at the same level?

Of the two choices, I would go for the latter. Each market, to an extent, does operate a little differently. By trying out other markets you may find a few that respond better to your system. I would try that before starting to loosen up your rules. If, after trying several other markets your rules are still too tight to allow adequate trading, then maybe start adjusting just one criteria at a time. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.

Have a great weekend!

Mike
NW Trader

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  #175 (permalink)
 
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 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
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Thank you! I think that is the way to do it. I will setup charts over the weekend for currencies, treasuries, gold, and crude.

Maybe next week I will just observe the new markets and note valid trade setups post-session. If the system applies itself as well as it does to equities then I will start trading it on all of the instruments the following week.

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  #176 (permalink)
 
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 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
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Experience: Intermediate
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It seems my initial expectation for ES has been nullified. It looks to me like an ABCD is forming within the larger bearish swing. To achieve this the bulls will have to break through that clear area of supply that has been tested twice (marked by the blue channel.)

I don't like the prospects of taking longs here, simply because I know there is a high likelihood for price to change direction in that supply area. Regardless, my exposure is short and for that reason I will be looking for longs with a tight stop as we trade into this area.

If the bulls bust through, I will get long and hold for the measured move to complete.
If bears step in where I expect them to, and provide a good entry trigger I will take the short out of the supply zone as well.

That is my game plan for today. Trade well everyone!


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  #177 (permalink)
 
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 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
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Hi all,

Received some unexpected news yesterday that has rocked my boat a little bit. I’ll be taking the rest of the week off from trading to spend more time with my family.

August hasn’t been a very good month for my daytrading results and I feel that I need to rework my plan from bottom to top before I continue trading. No sense in trading a plan with a negative expectancy.

Thanks,
Zimmer

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  #178 (permalink)
 
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 kareem40 
Dallas, TX
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I hope is better soon Zimmer. I look forward to seeing you again next week.

K

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  #179 (permalink)
 
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 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
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mtzimmer1 View Post
Hi all,

Received some unexpected news yesterday that has rocked my boat a little bit. I’ll be taking the rest of the week off from trading to spend more time with my family.

August hasn’t been a very good month for my daytrading results and I feel that I need to rework my plan from bottom to top before I continue trading. No sense in trading a plan with a negative expectancy.

Thanks,
Zimmer

I wish you the best of luck with whatever challenges you are facing and look forward to seeing you back in here!

Mike
NW Trader

There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
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  #180 (permalink)
 
mtzimmer1's Avatar
 mtzimmer1 
Upstate NY
Recovering Method Hopper
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TOS
Broker: TD Ameritrade
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Thanks Given: 2,201
Thanks Received: 1,918


Quite a lot changed in my life this week, prompting me to re-assess everything.

My grandfather passed suddenly, although not unexpectedly, after battling leukemia for one and a half years. The greatest lesson I learned from him was to work hard but always put family first. The family my grandparents built is the most tightly-knit family I could ever have been born into.

I turn 20 years old today. While I know that it is perfectly normal to be totally clueless throughout ones 20's, I feel the drive now more than ever to get my shit together.

Where do I stand with my Trading?
I need to start from scratch and develop a methodology for day-trading that allows me to apply my edge consistently and take profits out of the market. Thus far in my live-trading I am a break-even trader. I am thrilled to 'pay' as little as possible for my trading tuition, but at the end of the day my goal is not to be a break-even trader, but a full-time professional.

What Issues have I run into?
-Emotions creep in when I least expect them.
-My analysis exceeds my execution for the aforementioned reason.
-My trading, while rule-based, still allows too much room for discretion, which opens the door for my emotions to run wild.

What do I need to change?
-I trade several fully automated strategies on the long term that I execute with zero emotional involvement. This is due to a couple of reasons. I've backtested the strategies on SPY since inception and am comfortable with their past performance during all market conditions. I have complete faith in these strategies because I have put them to the test and know that they are likely to continue working as long as I follow the entry and exit triggers to the cent. A few weeks ago, one of the strategies suffered its third worst intraday drawdowns in history. I didn't bat an eye because I knew that my job was to follow the rules and not intervene. I ended up getting an exit signal for 1/10 the max drawdown a couple days later. Good thing I didn't break the rules and close early out of panic right?
-I have tried to code numerous intraday strategies and have yet to find any edge that is trade-able.
-I don't have enough faith in my current day-trading strategy to trade it without second-guessing.
-I need to change my strategy to something that I can at least visually backtest, if not with an algorithm. This will allow me to develop faith in my system.
-What bothers me most about trading is getting stopped out and then watching price do exactly what you expected it to do. I would like to develop a system that allows me to trade with a much wider stop, or a time based stop such as close of day. Most of the time I would be able to close out losing trades when I recognize that they are not working before they hit the max stop loss/time stop. To facilitate this change in style I would need to greatly reduce my position size, likely from 1 e-mini down to 1-3 e-micro's to start.
-I dislike watching an entire session, waiting for the stars to align, and not getting a single entry signal. I would ideally like to discover an edge that applies to all markets so that I could find a viable trade by 10-11am EST every morning.


What is my course of action?
-Continue coding strategies to develop even a small intraday edge. i.e. 55% chance of closing either up or down on the day. This would afford me greater confidence trading with a close of day stop.
-Further investigate how waves nest within each other to create the wave of the next larger degree. A correction on a small timeframe is simply an unnoticeable blip in the trend of a larger time frame.
-Learn about volume profile and decide if it adds any value to my trading.
-Take time off/SIM trade until I am confident in and faithful to my strategy.

In other news, I decided to go Elite and check out all the valuable journals posted there. I've been inspired to learn new techniques from many of those contributions in the Elite section. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this journal and by extension my trading career thus far. When I return to trading with a rock-solid strategy (ha!) I will be posting my journal in the Elite section.

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Last Updated on September 30, 2019


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