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NW Trader's Journal

  #1 (permalink)
 
NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

I just started a journal a few days ago in the Elite Journal forum, but I am starting a new one here so I can be included in Big Mike's journal competition. I do believe that journaling brings an additional level of accountability to trading which can only help improve a person's trading. Many thanks to Big Mike and NinjaTrader for encouraging us to journal by sponsoring the competition and offering very nice prizes.

In my quest to become a consistent trader I have found the journals of other traders to be informative and encouraging. Even when the journal describes a massive failure, it helps to know that everyone struggles,, everyone falls down and yet many who persevere do become successful. I have genuinely appreciated every trader who has posted in forums everywhere, answered my stupid newbie questions and helped me along the way. I have found 99% of traders to be honest and helpful and I am grateful for their help.

When I first started posting in nexusfi.com I provided a bit of personal background that I won't repeat here. If interested, the link to the first posts is .

Since then I floundered a bit trying to find my "groove" in trading. Had some success, some more failure and found my account dwindling as a result. Finally I switched from Live back to Sim, searched around and found a course I liked, read more books, and finally went back Live 2 weeks ago. In a way, I am starting over again. I did switch my Trader Experience from Beginner to Intermediate simply because I do believe I have passed the point of thrashing around for a method of approaching trading and am concentrating my efforts in one direction. I won't go into detail here about books I've read or courses I've taken, though I may weave those into the journal later (or sooner if anyone asks). Many of the methods and procedures I will mention about my trading are not my original thoughts but have been gleaned from more experienced traders.

I am a discretionary price action trader. I only look for about a half-dozen setups during the trading day. I do still work a part-time job so three days a week I trade from about 0600-0930 US Pacific Time, and on the other two days I only have from 0600-0700 before I have to leave for work. On the short days I am lucky to find 1 or 2 trades, on the longer sessions typically 3-5, though sometimes more.

Since I am starting this journal at the end of the week, I will just summarize my first two weeks back on Live and include just the chart from my Friday session. My first week back was weird because I managed to have an exactly scratch week. My wins exactly equaled my losses after 5 days. Of course, once you calculate in commissions, it was actually a losing week. My second week, which ended yesterday, was better, posting over $1100 in profits. I am encouraged but know I've got a long road to achieve consistency. Once I've booked 4 months of profitability I will start to feel a bit more confident.

Currently I primarily trade Crude Oil (CL) and sometimes Dow Mini (YM). I am working on a scalping method for the S&P Mini (ES) but I find it a bit volatile for my regular day trading. Usually I enter with two contracts and work my stops aggressively. I normally have a risk based target for my first contract. I will use a target for my second contract in a choppy market but will follow the stop if the market is trending.

Friday: Trading Crude Oil (CL)
1. Thought I had a Breakout Pullback (BPB) but I was one swing too early and the price started reversing on me. I quickly moved my stops and got out +2 ticks.
2. Caught the same BPB on the correct swing this time, but the price still backed up enough to catch my first stop at +1 tick. The price then moved nicely in my direction hitting my second target at +27 ticks for a total of +28.
3. This was a simple Pullback. Managed to hit my first target at +10 ticks but then the price reversed and hit my second stop at +6 ticks for a total of 16 ticks.
Total for the day: 46 ticks ($460)

Have a great weekend folks!

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  #3 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 8,162 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 57,343
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NW Trader View Post
I just started a journal a few days ago in the Elite Journal forum, but I am starting a new one here so I can be included in Big Mike's journal competition.

Hi @NW Trader. To be clear, you don't have to have your journal in the non-Elite section to enter it into the contest. Mike puts these contests on from time to time, and there are always Elite and non-Elite journals entered. Basically, any FIO journal is welcome. You'll just need to put the link to your journal (either one, but only one ) in the contest challenge thread when it opens up.

I hope you enjoy your journaling, and good luck in the contest.

Bob.

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NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

Appreciate the information. Since I’ve already made the change, I’ll stick with what I’ve got.

Mike
NW Trader

There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
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  #5 (permalink)
 
NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

Well this was definitely an odd day. Not for any market reason, but for my astounding lack of discipline. Oh, it worked out okay but sometimes I amaze myself -- and not in a good way!

I started out with my usual PAT approach in CL, made one trade for a loss and was sitting here waiting for the market to show some direction. Now I've been working on a scalping method for ES in my spare time. It's not ready for "prime time" yet, but I do have my work in progress on a separate screen where I can access it. So while I was waiting for CL, I thought "I wonder what CL would look like in my scalping screen". So, I popped in the symbol and was surprised by what looked like very good trade signals. Against my better judgement (plus there was this little devil on my shoulder shouting "Do it! Do it!") I took a trade from the scalp screen, hit +30 ticks, turned around and took another trade for another +30 ticks! Holy cow! $600 in about 7 minutes. Now I'll admit, those are larger than scalping numbers, but the process is the same.

After that I went to breakfast and thought about this. Came back and, of course, did it again and took a loss! Went back to PAT, took a win, then back to the Scalp for 1 win, 3 large losses, a scratch and a final win.

I should NEVER have traded the new system live, I know that. But, it worked out okay and I learned a lot about the emotion of trading the new system. Since the new system is a work in progress I won't go into great detail until I get it worked out. It is completely different from my PAT trading in that it depends on indicators. My PAT relies on nothing except S/R and price patterns. I do have a couple EMAs and Volume for reference and I keep an ATR up to watch volatility but I don't trade off of any of those. The one I'm working on uses a couple VWAPs, a Keltner Channel and the MACD. What I want to do is add the S/R that I currently use and see if I can blend the two.

Anyway, I ended up with 11 trades, about twice as much as I usually do during a full session (which for me is usually 0600-0930 with a break somewhere for breakfast). Because of that I won't detail each trade today. And because the charts would include all trades with both systems scattered across it, I am only including a chart showing the first two trades on the new system.

Results for the day:
11 Trades
5 Winners $995
5 Losers ($890)
1 Scratch $0
Gross P/L $105

Mixed results to be sure but despite my impulsiveness in putting an unproven system live, I am grateful for the experience with the new system. You just never know what you've got until there's real money on the line!

Short week this week. No trading Thursday and I'm not sure I'll participate in the short Friday session as those tend to be real dogs. We'll see. Hopefully I'll settle down for the next two days anyway.

Happy trading everyone!

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NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

Today is one of two days per week when I have to go to work early. On these days I only have from about 0600 to 0700 to trade. In only 1 hour, sometimes I get one or two setups and sometimes I get none.

This morning on CL I got one setup. Price was in a downward channel and I waited for a half hour for it to make it to the top of the channel. Now, looking at the chart you can see there was a nice run-up to the top of the channel that some people would have successfully traded. Normally I only look for selling opportunities in a downward market, but there are exceptions. Anyway, after price exceeded the channel a bit, it started back down and I was faced with 3 possibilities. This could be a channel rotation, could be Breakout Failure from a resistance line or it might be a simple pullback (it had retraced to just above the 71% Fib). In fact, since I had a convergence of those 3 potential setups I traded the first pause in price I could get and hit my first target for +10 ticks. Since I had structure below that I opted for a target on the second contract rather than trying to let it run with a following stop. I set my target just above the prior day's low. As it turned out I could have set it at the bottom of the Opening Range just below that, but you just never know. Anyway, second target was hit for +26 ticks. And that's all I had time for before I left for work.

Day's results:
1 trade
1 winner
Gross P/L: $360

And the ironic thing is that I will now spend 8 hours at a job that will pay me less for that time than I made in about 45 minutes this morning! And that's the beauty of day trading!

Happy trading everyone!

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  #7 (permalink)
 
NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

Like most pre-holiday, shortened hours trading days, today's markets seemed to lack any real energy or direction. I have read that some traders skip these days altogether because the markets don't perform reliably.

As usual, I started out on CL, tried a Breakout Pullback and took a couple shots at a Complex Pullback but all I ended up with was two scratched trades for 0 ticks and 1 loss for 2 ticks.

Since it was so slow I turned to my as yet unproven strategy that I'm working on that I just call the VWAP-K since it involves a couple of VWAPs and a Keltner Channel. I've primarily been trying to develop it for ES though if you read my post from a couple days ago, you know I also took a swing at CL with it. Anyway, today I stuck with ES and made just two trades, one for a loss of 1 tick and a nice one for +19 ticks.

So, although it was a lackluster day, I ended up on the positive side of things and I'll never complain about that! The CL chart really didn't have anything to look at so I am only attaching the chart showing the ES trades.

Today's results:
5 trades
1 win: $237.50
2 losses: ($32.50)
2 scratches: 0
Gross P/L: $205

I'm not thinking that Friday will be a very active day, but I'm going to show up anyway. Whether I trade or not I'll post the week's wrap-up that day.

I hope all you US traders will have a Happy 4th of July, and for all of the rest of you in other countries, please don't blame every one of us for Donald Trump!

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  #8 (permalink)
 
NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

In retrospect, I think today was a lesson in starting out trading with the wrong attitude. This is the end of my 3rd week back on Live trading and I wanted to end strong. Last week I booked over $1,000 in gross profit and I was about $600 so far this week. So, I started the day thinking I just needed about $400 in profit to crack the $1,000 mark again. WRONG ATTITUDE!!

I have tried to learn that the market will give you whatever it gives you and the only thing I can do is trade my plan to the best of my ability. The numbers will be whatever they will be. That's why I don't believe in having a profit limit where I stop trading after a certain amount has been booked. Sometimes the market is rolling and sometimes it's not. By starting the day with a dollar amount in mind, I set myself up to do stupid things and make procedural errors -- and I did both!

When CL first started this morning I could not see the structure so I waited. But, while I waited I got bored and (knowing I needed to hit $400!!) I turned to the unproven strategy I've been working on for the ES -- and immediately took a $200 loss! I tried to re-set my intentions, went back to CL and made two nice trades for 12 ticks each so now I'm back to slightly better than even. Then I took another trade on CL and failed to check my ATR first. The only reason I have the ATR on my trade screen is to make sure I don't trade when volatility is near or exceeding my Risk limit. If your entry can't withstand the expected swing of a single bar it's just giving money away. And so I did! Now I'm back down $200 or so.

Once again i tried to re-set myself and while CL whipped back and forth I switched over to my other go-to market, YM. I found a nice Pullback and traded it for 63 ticks so now I'm back on top again. And, of course, that little voice kept telling me I just needed one more trade like that to hit my number. So, I see YM pulling back severely, it even drops down below the prior SL, so I'm thinking Trend Change! However, I failed to wait for the price action to actually confirm that, went short on what was simply s deep pullback and, boom!, I'm out 42 ticks!

So bottom line is that I did one stupid thing and made two very obvious errors without which I actually would have hit the target I was hoping for. Duh! Hopefully another lesson learned. Both the CL and YM charts are attached. I didn't bother attaching the strategy in process chart -- believe me, you don't want to copy that!!

Day Results
6 trades
3 winners $555
3 losers ($630)
Gr P/L ($75)

For the week:
23 trades
10 winners
10 losers
3 scratches
Gr P/L $595

Not where I wanted to be for the week but still my second positive week in a row for my third week back Live.

For the weekend I have a new book to read, The Art & Science of Technical Analysis by Adam Grimes. I just started it but it appears to mirror and reinforce much of what I learned in the only "formal" course I have taken which was from Lance Beggs at his YourTradingCoach.com website. (No, no "affiliate" status with anybody or any author). I find the markets fascinating and am a person who tries to learn all I can about a subject. With trading that can be counter-productive because there are so many approaches to the market. At first I read the "requireds" like Remembrances of a Stock Operator, Nison's Candlesticks, Trading in the Zone and of course struggling through Brook's Reading Price Charts. I took some inexpensive video courses through Udemy and watched countless YouTube videos. Some of this all sifts down to reach a consensus, but there is also a lot of conflicting information.

As most people have found, there is no Holy Grail, no magic indicator or secret strategy -- at least I haven't found one. I do believe that the study of Price Action is the only reasonable way for me to tilt the probabilities of trading in my favor. I think there are countless ways to make money in this game. There are algos, there are systems and strategies all over the place. I am basically a trusting person so if someone says they are making 6 figures with an EMA cross strategy, I have no reason to disbelieve them. Now, if they want me to pay $5K to get a look at said system, now I'm going to want to see a bit more proof. I said I am trusting, not gullible! Anyway, I think the most important thing is to find a strategy that seems to work and that you resonate with. "Resonate" is an important word to me. Yeah, that means "feel the vibe" or whatever, but basically you have to feel in sync with whatever you are pursuing or I think it is a waste of everybody's time.

Anyhow, that's my 2 cents worth. I hope everyone had a great holiday and an excellent trading week and that your weekend is enjoyable.

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  #9 (permalink)
 
NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084

Today was definitely a grinder. In short, I was up, I was down, rinse, repeat! At the end of the session I was at a Gross P/L of exactly zero, which means only my broker profited today. I have had Monday's which put me in the hole and that is psychologically troubling because you then have to have a great Tuesday to even be back to even. So, I am happy that I'm at least at scratch rather than a loss. The next question then is: Did I learn anything? And the answer is yes, so the time spent was not wasted. I put on 7 trades today, although one of those was a mistake: I somehow managed to enter one trade as I was exiting another. Duh! Not sure how I did that but fortunately managed to immediately exit for +1 tick.

So here's what I learned today:
1. First, you have to know that my method of trading is that I normally select my trade on a 3 minute chart (Trade Screen) and then perfect the entry on a 1 minute chart (Entry Screen). Using the 1 minute chart I can sometimes work a better entry/exit. Sometimes it works but you'll need to see lesson #2 below for further comment on that. My method for exiting trades (and I usually have two contracts) is to set the first target strictly based on my risk for that contract. So, using CL as an example, if my stop loss is 10 ticks under the entry, then my first target is at 10 ticks. Usually, though not always, I will move my second stop to break-even +1 once the first target is hit. Then, if things go well, my plan is to manage the second stop on the 3 minute screen. Depending on the situation I may move the stop according to SHs or SLs, or sometimes I may just trail the price by two bars that are the correct trend and making new highs or lows. So today I find myself in 4th trade (at 7:01 on the attached chart). I immediately hit T1 and moved S2 to BE+1. Then came the lesson. As the price kept grinding along higher, I had to basically sit on my hands to keep from hitting the Close button. This was definitely a lesson in discipline. At one point I was up $300 on the contract and my stop was sitting at $60! And yet, I know that in the case of a runaway trend, this is the way to take a trade that can frankly make your entire week or even month. So, I waited. Unfortunately, this was not that runaway trend, but by the time it backed down I had moved my stop up to where I still took 18 ticks, plus the 10 ticks on the first contract. So, while 40 ticks would have been nice, I was happy to take 28 and learn a valuable lesson in discipline.

2. I mentioned above about "working" my entry & exit points on the 1 minute screen after the trade opportunity is confirmed on the 3 minute chart. All well and good and it does work sometimes. However, by doing this I am picking an earlier entry point than would be advised by the 3 minute screen. Sometimes that means I am in early on a great trade. Sometimes, like today's 5th trade (7:25 on the attached chart) it means that I am stopped out because the price was not quite finished pulling back and by tweaking my entry all I accomplished was entering too early, getting immediately stopped out and suffering a loss of 20 ticks. This has happened before but what I need to do is track how many times this works and how many times it fails. Naturally I only remember the failures but I know it has worked too so I do need to record these separately and decide whether I am statistically ahead to keep on using this method.

Trading is a fascinating game, but it is a game of constant learning. And it is a game of probabilities so that you have to know that you will never be 100% right no matter how much you learn. As critical as anything else that I am trying to learn is that trading is a marathon, not a sprint. No matter how great your entries, how fabulous your exits, you absolutely must be able to survive today so that you can trade tomorrow or you are finished.

Happy trading everyone!

Today's results:
7 trades
4 winners $425
4 losers ($425)
Gross P/L: 0

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  #10 (permalink)
 
NW Trader's Avatar
 NW Trader 
Seattle WA/USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: CL, YM, ES
Posts: 305 since Sep 2018
Thanks Given: 495
Thanks Received: 1,084


Today is one of my short days in which I only have from about 0545-0700 to trade. With only an hour, sometimes I don't even find a trade. This morning, however, I found 4 trades.

CL opens at 0600 my time and I normally stay out until the market simmers down and finds a direction. There is, however, one circumstance that I will participate in the OR. When, just prior to the opening, I see the price veering out of its established range, especially if crossing some market structure, I will get set to fade the move. This morning it appeared to me that CL was moving up out of its range so I entered short just prior to the open at 0559. Sure enough, at the open the price plunged down. I had my first target at a risk based 10 ticks and my second target just above an S/R area. The price hit both and within less than two minutes I had booked 28 ticks ($280). Doesn't happen often but this is when you love trading!!

My next trade brought me back to reality as I traded what I thought to be a pullback from a breakout, but volatility caught both my stops before I could even protect myself and I lost 20 ticks. A few minutes later I tried to enter the same setup again, the price seemed to stall and wander but at least this time I had time to quickly move my stops for +4 ticks.

Finally, I took a straight pullback setup, managed to hit my first target for +10 ticks but then price pulled back and I got stopped out on my second contract for +2 ticks.

For having just an hour to trade I was certainly not unhappy with the results. I didn't make any major errors although I will go back this afternoon and look over that second trade to see if I missed something that would have prevented that loss. Sometimes it's just the probabilities that catch up with you but it never hurts to review those to see if there is something to be learned.

Today's results:
4 trades
3 winners: $440
1 loser: ($200)
Gr P/L $240

I hope everyone has a profitable day and, if not, that you at least learned something from this fascinating game!

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