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I don't think I've ever had any "no trade days" when I was actually watching the markets, so this is a first. Today is one of my short days anyway when I only have about an hour in the morning before heading out to work. But in addition to that, I just sat and watched and compared a couple different strategies. I almost had a couple trades worth trying and I missed a couple others because my main mission today was just to watch and compare. Tomorrow I will have more time but I'm not sure how much trading will actually occur. I may take a trade or two but if I do they will be mostly experimental in nature. We'll just have to see.
I want to be very deliberate in this "regrouping" process so I'll take whatever time is needed. As I make progress I'll journal the results and try to post my "experimental" trades as I go along.
Hope everyone else is having a great week!
Mike
NW Trader
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
I did take some trades today but I am still in experimental mode so nothing really to report. Once I have a plan I'll update what changes I have made, what's working and what's not and get back to consistently posting some charts. For the moment, here's today's results:
Short day, only an hour to trade this morning before heading off to work. Still in my "rebuild" mode but I did find two trades to try out in ES. On the first I thought I was shorting at the top of the current channel but I happened to choose the moment when the trend changed and I lost 6 ticks. On the next, after the OR settled down a bit, I did catch a small pullback in the new direction for 10 ticks.
Had a variety of trades today, mostly losers. I am still playing with time periods, targets and other things so I don't expect consistency at the moment. Hopefully, I can keep the losses manageable during this period of adjustment.
I have always thought that tick charts gave a more accurate picture of the markets but I often find that my entries are better with time charts, so I go back and forth on those. Also, my targets in the past have mostly been structural elements like S/R areas, OR ranges and so forth. I am experimenting a bit with measured moves right now. Once I have these things worked out to where I feel confident I will be able to stick with those choices and then concentrate on the trades themselves.
I started out this morning in CL using a tick chart, which was moving so slow it was like dancing in peanut butter. The trade stalled and my experience with stalled trades is not good. Once in a while they will break loose but more often than not they will back up on me so I try to be disciplined about scratching them. That's what I did here for +2 ticks.
Staying with a tick chart, I took what I thought would be a pullback in ES, but it was a complex pullback instead. -8 ticks.
I then switched back to a time chart and took a pullback in GC, but it failed for -10 ticks.
Staying with the time chart, I took another trade in ES. This one ran in my favor and I could have closed it for a small profit but I was experimenting with targets so I let it run and it wobbled back up and stopped me out at BE.
The last trade, still with time charts, I took another trade in CL. Again it ran in my favor and I could have bailed out but I had a measured move set that I wanted to see if it would hit and it did not. Backed up and took me out at - 2 ticks.
Not a stellar day but as I said, not unexpected given what I'm doing at the moment. I hope to have it all sorted out in another week or so and then get back to just trading with a bit more confidence.
Happy trading y'all, and have a great weekend!
Mike
NW Trader
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
Hi friend, I read your diary from the beginning and I see that it operates several indexes, not thinking about focusing only on one? So get to know that market better and improve your effectiveness when operating
I think we have to tame one lion at a time
Greetings from Peru I wish you much success in your trade
Knocked out early today. Took a slow pullback about 30 minutes before the open hoping it would develop before the open hit. It lingered and about 30 seconds before the open I had the chance to scratch at BE. I decided to take a chance that Monday morning optimism would have early buyers that would push the price to my very conservative targets. I was "close" to being right, but as we all know close only counts in horseshoes, dancing and hand grenades. There were just enough sell orders to exactly hit my stops for -18 ticks before reversing up to where my targets had been.
Later I took what appeared to be a fairly nice pullback but it reversed and took me out for -20 ticks. And, even though I am below my maximum allowed daily loss, I decided I'm out for the day.
Today's results:
2 trades
2 losers: ($475.00)
Back at it again tomorrow. I don't like trading the micros but I may switch to that for awhile to preserve capital.
Hope everyone has a good day!
Mike
NW Trader
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
It was my normal short day today, but then it turned into a VERY short day. My internet connection is normally very stable, but this morning it went down for a couple of minutes and then came back up. Strange. So I was wary for a few more minutes but everything seemed alright so I went ahead with my business. Entered a trade in ES and while adjusting my stops i managed to delete one instead. I've done this once or twice before when I'm paying more attention to the chart than I am to where my cursor is. Anyway, today, right after I deleted a stop, the internet went down again. So here I am with an open trade, no stop and no internet. NT doesn't have an app like TS where I can close everything with my phone, but they do have an emergency trade desk number for this sort of thing and fortunately I keep that close by. I called, they closed my trade and it was only at -1 tick. Probably would have been a good trade!
Anyway, that's my trading day for a Tuesday, 1 trade, gross loss ($12.50). Could have been a heck of a lot worse, glad I keep my emergency numbers handy!
Happy trading everyone!
Mike
NW Trader
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
My first entry on ES this morning was after it broke above R and confirmed. I took +4 ticks with the first contract and moved my second stop to -4 ticks. Price wandered for awhile then finally hit my S2 for BE.
My second entry was a breakout pullback, once again I took +4 ticks with contract #1 and moved my second stop to -4 and once again price wandered, stalled and finally hit S2 for BE.
My stop placement is one of the areas I've been working on. For a time I was using Mack's (from PATs) system of scalping +4 with the first contract and at the same time moving my second stop to BE, that way being assured of +4 minimum. But I sometimes found price just hitting that by a tick or two and then moving on in my direction. So I decided to modify that a bit. Those first two trades this morning would have netted me $50 each had I stuck with Mack's strategy. I'm still struggling with that a bit.
Plus I am trying to place my initial stops well below structure rather than at an arbitrary figure like -8 ticks. That usually means I am taking a larger risk that I am used to, even though the R:R is still fine if you consider the targets on both contracts. The larger risk is new to me and I guess I'll get sweaty palms until I'm used to it.
My third trade on ES was also a breakout with confirmation. That one hit T1 for +4 ticks, then moved on up. It stalled near my T2 which was a couple ticks below R. After a few bars I got nervous and closed the second contract for +8. Price finally did move to where my T2 had been set, but I never regret taking profit.
Finally, I did find a nice pullback setup on CL. I entered the trade but somehow managed to delete my stop and target for one of the contracts. Rather than fiddle with it, I just closed the trade for +2 ticks and called it a day.
I actually felt more in control today than I have in a couple of weeks (despite fumbling the CL trade). I have been going back and re-reading some of Grimes' book. I am finding that some of what he has to say makes more sense now that I've been trading a bit longer. I'm going to continue reviewing that and some of my other reference material and see if I can continue working back into a position of confidence. It was a good day!
Happy trading everyone!
Mike
NW Trader
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
Well, I have banished myself to the micros for the time being. I'm being overly dramatic, of course, but I was surprised by how much of my ego has been tied up in trading the larger contracts. On the surface it would seem an easy, logical decision that comes from a simple statement:
"Until you are consistently profitable, you must stick to Sim, or at the very most, micro trading."
That seems simple, right? But when I finally got around to embracing that reality last week, I found myself having visions of sitting at the the kids' table at Thanksgiving, or putting a dent in Mom's car and being relegated to the old pickup truck, or, well, you get the idea. I had not realized how wrapped up my ego was in this trading venture. I have always felt, and to some extent still do, that trading the micros was only slightly more stimulating that trading Sim, and that trading Sim is akin to watching paint dry. Yep, that's ego talk and so I had to have a little "Come to Jesus (Buddha?)" talk with myself over the weekend. I've had to remind myself that I am not a trader, but am a student of trading and that I've got a ways to go yet before becoming a trader. And of course the best way to learn, best way to make mistakes, is to do so by wasting as little money as possible so that when the time comes to be a trader I will have an account to start with.
I've had some success, some failure but overall the key work is inconsistent so I need to buckle down and work on that. While I was going back over my records for the past couple years I also noted something interesting. After decades of on-again, off-again trading in stocks, options, mutual funds, ETFs, Forex and commodities, I decided a couple years ago to get serious. For various reasons I decided that futures and options were the two avenues I would pursue because they suited my personality and my goals. At first I did both and then decided that I needed to pursue one or the other due to time constraints and so I went with futures. What I was reminded of over the weekend as I examined my trade records from back then was the my options trading was actually profitable, but I found futures trading more interesting. Odd, I know, but I think I like the process better in day trading. Anyway, besides coming to grips with the fact that I need to embrace the Sim and micros in futures, I decided that I would also re-open my options account and pick that up as well. Funny how all these things seem to evolve.
So, fast forward to today when I found trading the MES was like dancing in peanut butter. It just didn't seem to want to go anywhere, or at least anywhere that I found "trade-worthy" (I'm perverting an old Seinfeld saying ). Nevertheless I did find 3 entries. I took one pullback and got 6 ticks off the first contract while the second broke even. The second trade on the chart was an error. Somehow NT had moved my ATM to "none" and I didn't notice so immediately after entering the trade I scratched at BE. The third trade was also a pullback, also got 6 ticks and a BE. Finally took a pullback that stalled and lingered forever which is normally my clue to scratch. But I didn't, hoping for the breakout that didn't come so I took a 16 tick loss. And then it was time to go to the gym.
No trades today. I didn't find an entry in the first run-up of MES after the open and I only have about 30 minutes after the open to trade on the days I have to work. Hopefully the action will continue for the rest of you.
Happy trading!
Mike
NW Trader
There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.
I'll update what changes I have made, what's working and what's not and get back to consistently posting some charts. For the moment, here's today's results: