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Trailer Park Capitol

  #281 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
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Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
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Can you have an opinion and still not have bias?

So many questions, so little time. Anyway. We're back in business here in 2 hours. Looking forward to that. It was a weird weekend. Weird because I used to really enjoy watching trading videos, but this weekend everything that I watched felt inaccurate and stale. This could be because I have this cold that's been kicking my ass, or maybe it's because I don't need them right now. It may be that it's time for another kind of trading video that focuses on some other aspect of trading.

It's kind of a bummer. Anyway- there's a lot of analysis out there. A lot of it seems ...less than committed to me. I see a constant pattern in way some people forecast price change that goes something like "The price may go here, but if it doesn't, it will go there." which always translates in my head to Price will either go up, or down. All that said, I have my idea of what will happen tomorrow.



My idea is based off the momentum and range of last week's trading in conjunction with the proximity of price to the 200-week moving average, also its a big round number. It's a big move, and a tempting target, and if I were a market maker and my goal was to fuck other participants out of liquidity, here is a place I would do my business.

Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #282 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563

Night shifts suck.

I can hardly wait until the day that I'm a profitable enough trader to escape the rat race but wait I must- the market rewards patience. I need to make this quick so that I can go back to bed. This cold is kicking my ass.

I went to bed as soon as I got home this morning. When I woke the market had gone where I thought it might. Last night I was so tempted to naked sell it at the open to 4300 on 2 contracts with a huge stop loss, but right now I'm focused on live trading. I woke up just before noon. Here it looks like I caught the buying climax for the day. In the near future I expect price to form a range around 4300, after that we'll have to see who wants it more.

I took 3 trades today for a profit of $313.36. Being in profit is always good, but I should have caught more of the move and wasn't able to do so because I was distracted by my girlfriend and my dog. I'm going to have to work to isolate my focus when I trade- might have to put on some headphones and close the door. As clumsy as these trades were, I was able to profit because the buying pressure was strong, thus proving that I'm finding good times to enter the market. From here it's just a matter or refining those entries slightly and holding as long as price continues to go my way.





I'm now 16 trades into this set. If I can hold and improve these stats through 50 total trades, especially if I can better manage some more losing trades, I believe that will be sufficient to once again trade on my live account.

Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #283 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563


Learning to lose like a pro!

I've now set my stop loss to 5 points. I will not move it. I can handle losing 5 points max. I'm not good with draw down during a trade, but I can handle draw down in my P/L. This seemed to work well for me today, and is reflected in the stats.



I've identified my edge, which is finding a bias and momentum on smaller time frames. I'm now starting to really understand how to lose trades, but not lose my shit when I do. My final challenge will be to resolve whatever issues that make me so fearful when it comes to holding trades when I am winning. I'm leaving a LOT of profit on the table right now. To this end I am reading a great book that addresses these performance issues directly. For all that, 11 points a day is good, and if I can replicate these results daily, say for 2 weeks, then I will be switching back to live trading the MES to validate. The key I think will be holding that stop loss at 5 points no matter what, cutting losers quicker than that, continuing to refine my process of finding momentum, and trusting myself to hold the trade when all the evidence clearly shows the momentum is there.

It will be interesting to see where the market takes us from here. Today the market confirmed it's in a range, I'm going to call it 4300-4425, that's 125 points to play in, and that's not bad. To me it looks like we're in a fat ass channel that's weakly angled upward, so my long-term bias is bullish, but I'm going to continue to trade what I see before me minute by minute and see where that takes me.


Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #284 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563

The struggle is real

Ended up in profit for the day- $418.00, but it wasn't easy. At one point, I was down about $979.00, but I kept busy doing what I do and it resulted in a profit. I don't really think of it in dollars, I think of my trades in points. Right now I think 10 points a day is a good result, and if I can maintain that consistently, I should be good to go. Two days is by no means consistent, but the fact that I could keep my losses manageable, and trade through the drawdown this round is a big win.



The losses that I took today were because I was trading after hours where the volume and volatility were not present, and one time where I was flat wrong. These three losers hit my stop loss for 5 points a piece, but in my strategy, that's why its there. More and more of my losers I am catching well before, and often I am right in doing so. This gives me great comfort, knowing that at worst, the damage is 5 points. Some of my trades I am holding a little longer, this helped me survive the drawdown, but all in all, I don't think this is as absolutly nessesary to how I am developing as a trader as the ability and the deep understanding of cutting losers and not moving my stop-loss.

This is what the chart is looking like these days. I traded this session in Heiken Ashi, and it turns out I like the way that it hides some wicks, so it might stick around. I've also added volume, but I haven't used it yet to see if it's going to add anything to the mix, my gut feeling it I might find it distracting- we shall see.



Got to work tomorrow, so this is probably my result for the week- 19.6 points, but the real win for me this week is working through the drawdown. I now hope to add to these 34 trades so that I can truly measure where I am as a trader, but I strongly feel that I am now very close to having an answer for the live market.

Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #285 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563

An expensive lesson, but worth it

Account dropped $527.18 today. Here's what almost every mistake in the book looks like.



It's not all bad. Even though I got whip-sawed, revenge and over traded, and tried to scalp utter flatness, today I kept my losses to something manageable, and that in itself is a major victory for me. Here's where my account stands longer term.



My set-up is improving, but it still lacks definition. Looking at the chart the big problem here was a combination of over trading and not appreciating the fact that a market can trade flat for as long as it likes. Also, at one point I was up 7 points, I could have walked off the field there. Lesson learned. Here's what the chart is looking like today.



That big-ass flat spot on the top wrecked my P/L today, but by obeying my stop-loss rule I was better able to leave the field today with a flesh wound and not a mortal one. There's so much room for improvement here, but I know now that I am heading in the right direction. If I can continue to trade this data set and hit $3000.00 profit, then my plan is to take the Apex Trader evaluation, but in order for that to happen I'm ging to need to make continuous, constant improvement.

Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #286 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563

My ES Forecast for 2.1.2022

We're currently at 4491. We're starting a new monthly candle tomorrow and, price is moving higher into a strong area of support on the daily @4526. I will be looking for price to tag this next level. If it blows through this level, I think it will rip higher, but I'm thinking with the way the ES has been behaving, its going to form a range between this new high and the previous resistance level @ 4425.


Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #287 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
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Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
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Thanks Received: 563

Not what I'm looking for. I will try again.


Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #288 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563

Chart update

Nothing fancy. I've removed the MACD, all but the 200 EMA and bumped up to the 2-minute time frame after looking what was working and what wasn't. The trigger for my successful trades is based only on price action at various levels when I am able to identify them and then nut-up and take the trade, so that is where I'm now focusing.


Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #289 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563

A little better.

In the aggregation of marginal gains every little bit counts! Decluttering my charts has helped pay better attention to just what price is doing and where. Once again, I was able to think about and ask myself- Who's in control right now? Where might price go, and what will happen to it when it gets there?



I'm starting to think that my go to set-up is to look for and identify patterns of consolidation and then trade the breakout using price action to confirm the set-up. Here is a great example of what I'm talking about. This period on the 2-minute chart was the final squeeze on the hourly before she busted loose.



This was a pretty big move and, in the future, I hope to catch these and ride them to big profits, but I don't know if I can hold them. I'm scared, and that's something that I need to work on.

Learning on the job.

Here's how I performed today after I pulled my head out of my ass.



Still looks like dirty scalping and fear to me, but there is some profit there too. MY trading plan right now is to continue to refine what's good and resolve what's not. In the near future I hope to take and pass the Apex funded trader evaluation, but to do so I'll have to get really consistent, so I'm focusing on that and my set-up. I have proven to myself that I can be patient and by trading this next set up to $3000.00 will demonstrate that I have the discipline to make this work.

Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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  #290 (permalink)
 
michaelroth's Avatar
 michaelroth 
Gillette Wyoming
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: ninjaTrader
Broker: NinjaTrader
Trading: futures
Posts: 330 since Jun 2021
Thanks Given: 739
Thanks Received: 563


a LOT better

Night shifts. ugh. Got home today, went to bed. Woke up at noon and banged out these 3 trades easy-peasy for a net profit of $288.36. This is how the account is looking after 2 days. My long-term profit target is $3000.00, and now with my account balance sitting at $50,615.08, I'm 20.5% there, pretty cool!



Today, these were clean scalps. I took all three trades with my ATM strategy throwing out an OCO bracket with a 16-tick stop-loss and an 8-tick profit target. I'm also developing a "scalp and runner" strategy, but I don't think this is the time. I've continued to clean up my chart. Here's what that's looking like.



Look at that consolidation at the end just wrecking everyone! Here I've utilized the swing indicator that comes with NinjaTrader, a 50-period TEMA and those yellow lines are S/R. The TEMA is there just so I can see the shape, but really all my trading decisions today were made using the swing points and price action. Today's results speak for themselves. Here is how I think what we are looking at in the bigger picture.



I'm using the daily pivots on the 60-minute now. So far, I like what I see. Today was kind of a rangy day to the upside where price stalled out at R1. On the daily momentum seems to be slowing a bit so I'm thinking that the market is going to make a cautious start and I expect the over-all range for the day to tighten up a bit. In my humble opinion I'm not seeing any big moves tomorrow, and my big picture outlook is bullish. I'm going back to bed.

Day trading, so easy a caveman could do it.
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