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My Trading Quest - a 90 day Trading Course Challenge
Today, is a review today to ensure that I am on my path to profitability within 90 days.
I believe, I have started well, but after reviewing a few things I need to make a couple of changes.
Actions I took:
Yesterday, I tested sim trading by entering 3 trades
Reviewed another traders record of trades
Reviewed the effectiveness of the ETX trade to meet my goal
Studied some extra setups
Reviewed the valid trades for the day
Sim Trading:
It is one thing to identify a trade, but it is important to ensure that the trade flows from entry to exit. The three trades performed as expected.
Valid Trades Review
I was testing outside of the US open and the trades were few and far between them. I know each day is different, so I asked another trade if I could look at his record of valid trades for the last few weeks.
The results identified that the ETX trades currently have reduced in frequency. So it supported my decision to include a couple of other setups from the TX series. The results showed that the TX trend and Divergence setups achieved great results and occurred frequently.
Naked TX Trend Trade
This is a very simple trade to identify.
The first 2 rules are as per all TX trades
Setup must be a Reversal bar
An exhaustion box with a trapped order must appear on the end of the bar
The additional rules are:
That the current bar DR (trend indicator) and the prior bar DR must be the same color
The next important rules are based on Reasons Not to Enter:
Not within 5 minutes of Market Open, Close or Government News
Not directly into a stack of 3 or more OP Levels
Not enter when 2 clusters appear within 3 bars of the and including the entry bar
Congrats looks like your having some success on your new trading system.....from your avator you're in Oz? - are you trading the Oz night to access the ES day session ?
As I complete my backtesting, I will determine what the the best time of day to trade this system. It would appear that for Australian's the Euro Open would achieve good results.
When I do more sim trading and then live trading, I will be trading and testing the system for at least the first couple of hours of the US session.
DAY 7 – Apex Sniper Trading Bootcamp – Testing and Learning …
Today, I continued to review the trades for the last 24 hours and learn more about the new setups.
Actions I took:
Clarified the rules for entering and not entering with the new setups
Reviewed the valid trades for the day on a static chart
Daily Valid Trade Review
The following, shows all the trades I identified for the Tuesday ES trading session. The session starts at 18:05 Monday and ends for me at 15:50 Tuesday.
Please note, this is a deliberate learning process for me to learn to identify the trade setups, when to enter and when not to enter. I have a trader review my spreadsheet and we discuss the validity of both the entries I took and didn’t take.
The process takes a fair amount of time but helps me learn much quicker.
The following is the legend for the trades sheet:
Comments on Results:
The results look positive.
I will report back tomorrow on my progress and any lessons I learn
DAY 9 – Apex Sniper Trading Bootcamp – Studying the Setups …
Today, I continued to study the setups and review the trades for the last 24 hours.
Actions I took:
Listened to 2 new webinars on how to be successful on the Sniper Bootcamp
Clarified the setups in my trading plan
Watched the live market and the commentary during the first 90 mins of the market open
Reviewed the potential trades for Wednesday
New Webinars
This week Apex held a number of excellent webinars to help with my understanding of the setups. Learning when not to take a setup has been the most difficult part of learning to be successful.
Live Trade Room and Commentary
I found the moderators very helpful in clarifying the market during the US Open.
For a new person, the learnings were excellent but I still would recommend, first having a reasonable understanding of the rules before attending the sessions.
Live calls were made with explanations when possible. Some of these calls matched the Sniper Bootcamp setups and others were based on the experience of the moderators. Most of the calls would have allowed a trader to enter in time for the trade.
Wednesdays Potential Trades
Wednesday was an interesting day. I saw more chop in the market around setup bars. Chop is one of the reasons not to enter. The market chop kept me out of a lot of trades and if I had not have studied the Reasons Not to Trade, I am sure I would have had a number of losses.
Instead, I only identified winners, from the small number of trades.
Please consider this is on a static chart where I am moving it bar by bar to make my decision. So when in Sim or Live where the decision is needed quicker, I may have a completely different result.
That is why doing this Deliberate Practice is critical to my success.
Practice doesn’t make Perfect, Perfect Practice makes Perfect.
The other important process is having someone else check your practice of identifying valid trades. Feedback is critical to my growth.
The following is the trades sheet for Wednesday
I will report back tomorrow on my progress and any lessons I learn
DAY 10 – Apex Sniper Trading Bootcamp – More Testing and Learning …
Another day in a market that didn’t give many valid trades. But still a good day!
Actions I took:
Listened to more training webinars and refined my notes
Watched the live market and the commentary during the first 60 mins of the market open
Reviewed the potential trades for Thursday
Live Trade Room and Commentary
I find that listening to the Live Room when the two moderators are in the room highlight and reinforce the trading nuances necessary to be successful.
Thursday Potential Trades
Thursday was another slow day but full of lessons.
After I went through the daily process of bar by bar static chart review, I looked at the trades I didn’t take and asked myself what would have happened in the live market. There was one trade I am sure I would have taken and lost. This one was not on my sheet as I had sufficient time to analyze it on the static chart. This part of deliberate practice is proving to be critical for building my skills.
The major lessons are around … When not to take a trade.
The other important process is having someone else check your practice of identifying valid trades. Feedback is critical to my growth.
I added a second setup column so I could record if there were 2 setups on the same signal
I will report back tomorrow on my progress and any lessons I learn
DAY 11 – Apex Sniper Trading Bootcamp – More Testing and Learning …
Another day in a market that was slow and didn’t give many setups … but still enough!
Actions I took:
Watched another live webinar
Watched the live market and the commentary during the first 150 mins of the market open
Reviewed the potential trades for Friday
Live Trade Room and Commentary
With the speed of the market being slower, more time was spent on questions, reinforcing lessons form the market and the webinars along with trade calls.
Friday Potential Trades
Friday was another slow day but full of lessons. The slow days test your discipline.
Again, on review on the day’s trades I identified some trades that I may have taken live which were not valid. This highlights that I need more practice on both a static chart and with Market Replay using a fast speed to help my decision making reflections.
Identifying the trade is easy, but seeing the reasons not to enter can sometimes be harder.
I will report back tomorrow on my progress and any lessons I learn
DAY 12 – Apex Sniper Trading Bootcamp – Review Day …
Time to review where I am currently at, in the challenge.
Actions I took:
Reviewed my current status with the course to see if I am on track to meeting my goals
Reviewed the 6:3 Apex Rule
Current Status
I am happy with my progress, having gone through:
all the online videos
updating with the weekly webinars
learning the setups and rules around entering and not entering
daily review of possible trades
peer to peer review of my daily review
sim trading for 1 day to check that the process works
Apex Investing
Generally, I am very happy with the course and Apex Investing.
Best Features:
The sniper setups appear to work (still to test in the live market)
There are plenty of people in the community who will answer any questions or give you advice or how to find out the answer
Apex team are very knowledgeable and want to help and make the information more understandable
Possible Improvements:
The Bootcamp Sniper Training page has all the information and links for the course. It could be simplified and reordered to make it easier to follow.
The course is evolving due to the market and Apex trying to simplify it for new people. This comes across as Apex changing things too often. They are only small changes but it can put you off. I find that they are just clarifying things to help the students
When the moderators are in the trade room it can get confusing for the new people, as some of the trades are not sniper trades.
If you miss the moderated room time then you will often miss great nuances to help you trade. I record the sessions so I don’t miss these gold nuggets.
What has held my progress up?
The biggest area that I have been slow to learn has been around when not to enter a trade especially around some types of chop. I have completed several other courses, but I find that in this course it is more important than in the others.
Am I on Track to my Goal?
At this time I see that I am on track to profitability within 90 days.
The 6:3 ratio means that on any given day you can only lose 6 net trades and win 3 net trades before you stop trading. Apex state that is highly improbable to lose 6 net trades.
Too many people keep trading and don’t know when to stop.
Net 3 winners
This idea is based on wanting you to be profitable for 3 months before you start increasing your contracts. They also suggest that you withdraw 50% of your profit weekly.
If you trade ES with an 8 tick target the that means:
3 net winners = $12.50 x 8 = $100 x 3 trades = $300 per day minus commission.
Weekly = $300 x 5 = $1,500 – commission
Monthly = $1,500 x 4 = $6,000 – commission
Net 6 Losers
Again, If you trade ES with an 8 tick target the that means:
6 net losers= $12.50 x 8 = -$100 x 6 trades = -$600 per day plus commission.
I like the idea of having the rule to stop trading. I have not seen any loss of 3 trades which resulted in 3 net losses. The only time this would occur would be if mistakes were made. So based on these results I will stop trading if 3 net trades occur on any 1 day. This will then allow me to identify and fix any problem before I lose too much financial or mental capital.
The idea of stopping when I make 3 net winners means that I will achieve my original goal and limit the risk of overtrading.
I will report back tomorrow on my progress and any lessons I learn
.....from your avator you're in Oz? - are you trading the Oz night to access the ES day session ?
