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Yesterday, I solidified my Ninja Trader setup, for how I want it displayed. I also SIM Traded for the hours that I can watch the market. I had 15 trades, 1 - 12 were pretty good, but 12 -15 where absolute crap, as the market went sideways and I gave back most of my profits.
Key takeaways: I decided that I like NT setup as per the photo.
1) Right side, is the DOM, with my accounts above.
2) Middle is my Volumetric 3 min chart, with POC and imbalances being shown.
a) I have the POC and imbalances turned on, as well as the Delta Analysis Bar
b) For the Delta Bar, I have selected Trades / Volume, Delta (Bar), Delta % Change, and Cum Delta
I like the Trades and volume, as it shows me how many players are in the market and the volume they are trading
I like the Delta bar, as I like to see the change, but I'm not sure how useful this is, yet. Other than showing how the Cum Delta is going to change.
I like Delta % because I believe that shows how aggressive the buyers are....
I like Cum Delta as it shows whose in control and the overall divergences
3) On the left side I have a 15 min chart, where I will draw out patterns that I see, and I have the Order Flow Market Depth that shows me where the Limit Order are.
So in my brain I see:
1) Support and resistance by the Order Flow Market Depth, I can also see when orders get pulled faster than I can on the DOM.
2) A rapid change in imbalances, or a market sweep on the 3 min chart, to show signs of reversals and aggressiveness of the traders
3) the overall market DOM, where I see areas of liquidity.
As you can see from the accounts, I started off on the SIM trading this morning around 7:45, I saw the long setup, or what I thought was a long setup, and my profits confirmed my hypothesis.
So I switched to live trading
1 did 4 trades, 2 scratch, as I second guess myself around the lower support area.
1 I pulled to early, as it was on the first bar down, and made a tiny profit, like .60 - I find that I'm getting into the market a little early on both my SIM account and my real account. I really need to work this out.
Last trade was bought to high, IMO and my stop was hit.
Any tips, recommendations, etc... I'm all ears....
It looks like you are using a discretionary intraday approach, with guidelines for entering and exiting trades but not the hard rules of a mechanical trading system... if that's right, my suggestion would be to spend as much time as you can going over charts from the past few weeks or months, focusing on the daily time period that you like to trade in, and practicing and refining those guidelines for entries and exits.
My own preference has been to scroll a chart showing past data forward one bar at a time manually and make decisions as if I were trading live. I'm a big fan of Brett Steenbarger's books on improving trader performance... his recommendations and those of others regarding the usefulness of "deliberate practice" have been very helpful to me.
It is easy in Ninjatrader to set your account to show commission. It can add up so I would include it.
Also be realistic. It looks like you are trading a $1000 account as your real funded account. Even $22 profit would be a 2% return in a day.
Don't try to make good money at this stage, just focus on trading well and following your rules and learning from what you are doing. Consistency will grow an account and allow for scaling up but rushing to make money risks blowing out a small account.
Good luck.
You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
I absolutely concur with what your saying. I’m focused more on the trade execution and getting that down than worrying about the account balance. Playing with $1,000 keeps me from making dumb decisions, I think... No proof in that, yet, but I don’t think I need to add more money to the account, YET. Another thing, it’s easy to build a position of 10 contracts in SIM, I find that I’m not that keen on doing it in live. And have kept my largest position to 4 contracts.
@Sloptrader That’s a good idea and I might start doing that, but I have found in the past, I would just go wild with a position since I knew the outcome.
It’s my lack of self discipline that I’m finding to be an issue. So honing in on my psychology is key for me.
From one underfunded trader to another, its best to trade with what you are comfortable losing. Even if it means trading for less profits. Its a very common stumbling block, I think most of us have been there, so no need for proof.
Also, might want to consider dropping SIM at this point, I find it creates more problems than helps. But this is just my opinion and experience with it.
The one thing I really like SIM trading for is to validate my ideas, without spending real money to do so, with my trading setup, I'm expecting to see certain events, and I want to validate them. Utilizing my SIM account here, lets me focus on the process not worrying about the P&L.
So I'm not ready to remove my SIM practicing just yet. Another aspect that I like SIM Trading for is running the drills that I mentioned earlier. The one drill, staying in the market, I do not want to do with real money. As I would have a heart attack :-)
The one thing that I've found with the SIM is that I like validating my ideas. The one thing I hate about the sim, is it cannot replicate having real money on the line.
Well, I can only chime in with story of my own struggle with it as an example. I had similar thought for whole 2019, I even had a sim journal here, and I've been a millionaire in SIM during those periods. Guess how much money I made trading those exact same ideas validated through SIM? I lost more than I made
Trading is funny little business, and money is even more funny business, it changes everything. Its just far better to test ideas on smallest tradable contracts than on virtual money. Especially if you are doing it discretionary. Again, its just personal experience, there have been many smart people here who have made good use of SIM in their own journey. I wish you similar fortune.
You're correct! So today I decided to do both SIM, then read your post and put on my big boy pants and went live. Here are the results, now mind you, I just hit close on the SIM account, versus playing the zones....
I had a short bias coming out the gate. Please note I only had 1 trade, for a positive $10. I'm done for the day, unless I see a full correction down on the 15 min chart. I saw a large order sitting around the 46 mark and went short into it. My original price target was 43, but I hit close and with slippage got the $10 gain. I have to be willing to hold just a little longer.
ON the bright side, I didn't lead the market I waited until my price point hit to enter. Normally I would have done those shorts going into the bigger more. STupid trades!
Oh and my analysis is that the large volume + positive delta is showing a mini top for now now we either build a base, or pull back a little. This is based on the extended 15 min chart, and the Volumetric chart.
Now I get to see if I'm correct!!! Time Stamp: 8:44
Time Stamp 10:31! WOW... what a move to the downside into some serious volume around the 38 area!!!! To bad I missed it, as I had to work. I'm still happy with my $10 move :-) and being able to read the information presented by my setup.
On another note: I do think being happy with your UI (NT8) is very important. I say this with my 5 days of NT experience
