1) Increase trade performance analysis/feedback
- Enhance trade tracking (probably migrate to Trading Spreadsheets)
- Record video (Camtasia) of my discretionary trades, post in journal
- Find a group of peer traders to trade with, people I can meet with face-to-face on a weekly basis and go over trades
- Find new outlets to help other would-be traders
2) Trading
- Go live with new automated strategies I've been working on
- Increase average win size / loss size ratio
- Increase expectancy
- Migrate live trading to NT7
- Enhance data mining skills for greater quantitative analysis skills of markets
- Spend a lower percentage of profits on commissions, most likely by trading higher time frames
Monday, January 3rd, 2011 - FIRST TRADE OF THE YEAR! failed.
I took a first-hour trade on TF, entering on a 10 tick pullback so I could target 30 with a 10 ticks stop. I accidently had a 30 tick stop and a 10 tick target, which helped me survive the initial big down move while I was not watching it, but I corrected the situation when it went back to break-even and ended up losing 10 ticks as it made another move down.
TF: -10 ticks
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One thing i suggest is for you to do some stats and see of all the indexes you trade, how many are the best performers.... I can bet you that the ES is better at gap fills than a trendy instrument like the TF( i could be wrong, since i haven't done any stats on this)....
Then adjust accordingly.... Your goal is to increase profitability, reduce losses, so you can increase size.
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Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
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Trading: NQ
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Scott
One instrument you could try is CL. It may not fill its gap but it almost always goes half way to gap fill, and the half way on CL can be fairly large. Typically enter at 9:15 one tick above/below the first bar (of course in the direction of the gap). Market will generally go away from gap first, then turn rapidly and go to at least to the half gap fill point....any way, just food for thought...
Thanks again for the spreadsheet
Papa15
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I've studied CL gaps a bit. The trick with gaps is not so much whether or not the gap will fill, rather, how big do your stops need to be and how to take your entry.
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Tuesday, January 4th - I set up to fade gaps in all 4 markets, but only ES and TF opened in a favorable zone. The gaps were of a nice size and would have yielded me +18 ES ticks and +34 TF ticks for a total gain $665, assuming no slippage. However, in NT7, after you add a strategy to a chart, the strategy won't run unless you enable it from the Strategies tab. This was not the case in NT6.5. I learned this yesterday after setting up some ATS that I am testing on SIM, but forgot about that fact after setting up my gap fading ATS. I guess now I have really learned it.
My wife is sick this morning so I had to get the kids ready for school and, hence, missed a nice first-hour low breakdown. Overall, a bad day of missed opportunities.
NO TRADES
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