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Not Another PAT Journal

  #1 (permalink)
 DoubleClick 
California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: MT4, TOS
Trading: /ES /CL
Posts: 118 since Feb 2012
Thanks Given: 15
Thanks Received: 127

I'm not much of a new year resolution person, but decided it would be good to start a journal to keep track of my trades for both accountability and self-review purposes. As the title suggested, I am trading using price action highly influenced by Mack from PAT. There is enough on the internet about how Mack trades so I won't go into too much details.

I started trading live about 2 months ago using micro ES to keep my risk low and practice at the same time with real money. Since I have a full time job, I only trade the first two hours each day (west coast PST).

I have a NJT account that I trade through but I use TOS for its charts.

My goal is to double my current account. Once I do that, I will fund a bigger account to trade the ES.

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  #3 (permalink)
 DoubleClick 
California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: MT4, TOS
Trading: /ES /CL
Posts: 118 since Feb 2012
Thanks Given: 15
Thanks Received: 127


12/31/19

Happy New Year Eve all! No work today so I got to practice a full day of trading. I thought today would have been a slow day but turned out to be a day full of trade signals. Not a bad way to end the decade



[A] - Did not take this trade it was overnight. But wanted to highlight this is one of the perfect trade entry I would look for.

[B] - Was still sleeping so missed this trade. Bullish engulfing off MA. Double wick bottom.

[C] - Pinbar and second entry long. No brainer trade. +2pt

[D] - Entered at pinbar but position strengthened by second entry short signal. All off support turned resistance and MA. +2pt

[E] - Kicked myself for not taking this one. Bullish engulfing, MA, support turned resistance. This is a no brainer but I wanted to wait for a second entry.

[F] - This qualifies for a trade entry signal but I was beginning to see the bearish momentum slowing. Price also very near the recent low so I passed on it.

[G] - As suggested above, I was feeling a decline in bearish momentum so bias is bullish. Took a long here off the pinbar/double bottom/second entry long. Price didn't hit my 2pt target and instead reversed and took me out for -2pt. Maybe I should've tightened my stop? Note for next time.

[H] - Very similar to [D]. Standard second entry short. I was AFK so missed this one.

[I] - Still AFK so missed this also. Pinbar off MA with bullish strength.

[J] - Same as [I] except also on resistance turned support. Easy long for +2pt.

[K] - Had to reach fast on this one since it occurred very quickly after trade [J] closed. The pinbar at the top followed by a sharp bullish rejection off MA in the next bar suggested to me trapped sellers above the pinbar. I played a buy stop above and was able to capture +2pts to end the decade. I remember in my head I had doubt whether I can get +2pt here since it would be 1 tick shy of the HOD at that time. But it turns out the market wanted to close the year with a big rally

Total net +6pts for the day.

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  #4 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 8,162 since Jan 2013
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DoubleClick View Post
12/31/19

Happy New Year Eve all! No work today so I got to practice a full day of trading. I thought today would have been a slow day but turned out to be a day full of trade signals. Not a bad way to end the decade

...

Total net +6pts for the day.

Congratulations for starting your journal. Yes, it's another PATs journal, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I tried to follow your trade notations but found it hard to do, because of the way you've displayed your chart. With the chart image down below the text in a thumbnail, a person can read the text or they can expand the chart to look at it, but they can't do both, without a lot of juggling between them.

But when you import the image file, there is an "Embed" button you can use, which will embed the chart within your post at the current cursor location. It will then appear, in slightly smaller than life size, as part of the post. Since it's not quite life-size, readers may still want to expand the image by clicking it in order to see the fine detail, but many people find it more clear.

Here's where you can do it, after uploading the image file:



See if you like it.

Good luck with your journal. Journaling can be a big help.

Bob.

When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
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  #5 (permalink)
 DoubleClick 
California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: MT4, TOS
Trading: /ES /CL
Posts: 118 since Feb 2012
Thanks Given: 15
Thanks Received: 127


bobwest View Post
Congratulations for starting your journal. Yes, it's another PATs journal, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I tried to follow your trade notations but found it hard to do, because of the way you've displayed your chart. With the chart image down below the text in a thumbnail, a person can read the text or they can expand the chart to look at it, but they can't do both, without a lot of juggling between them.

But when you import the image file, there is an "Embed" button you can use, which will embed the chart within your post at the current cursor location. It will then appear, in slightly smaller than life size, as part of the post. Since it's not quite life-size, readers may still want to expand the image by clicking it in order to see the fine detail, but many people find it more clear.

Here's where you can do it, after uploading the image file:



See if you like it.

Good luck with your journal. Journaling can be a big help.

Bob.

Thanks for the tip Bob, just fixed.

Happy New Year!

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  #6 (permalink)
 DoubleClick 
California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: MT4, TOS
Trading: /ES /CL
Posts: 118 since Feb 2012
Thanks Given: 15
Thanks Received: 127

1/2/20

Here are today's trades and thoughts. I stopped trading after [G] and went to work. But it looks like there weren't many trade signals other than [H] which occurred later during the day. Commentary in chart. Ended the day with +2pt. Could've been +4pt if I didn't miss the one trade.


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  #7 (permalink)
 
AllSeeker's Avatar
 AllSeeker 
Mumbai, India
Legendary Pratik_4Clover
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: TradingView & ZerodhaKite
Trading: NIFTY, BANKNIFTY
Frequency: Daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 1,423 since Jan 2019
Thanks Given: 5,245
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Clean nice charts, something I need to learn. Will sub and follow you my friend. Please keep em coming. Good luck

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  #8 (permalink)
 DoubleClick 
California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: MT4, TOS
Trading: /ES /CL
Posts: 118 since Feb 2012
Thanks Given: 15
Thanks Received: 127

1/3/2020

Bad day today. Not in terms of market actions but because I made a series of bad mistakes.



It started with trade [B] where I was waiting for a short signal to crystallize. Why would I do that? The market does what it wants and I am forcing a trade based on what I want the market to do. The preceding bars have been congestive. Bearish momentum is weakening, the blue support line is holding, and there is a double wick/double bottom in bars prior to [B]. All to suggest that this short trade is not a high probability trade. Not only that, there is no room for profit to come to fruition with the support line so close to entry. Dumb. Punished with -2pt.

Trade [C] came along and I thought we are going to be in a range market (which I am not wrong on in hindsight) so I entered through the first bear bar and was shaken out pretty quickly (-2pt). I should've followed my rules in that I need second entry long/short and confluence for CT trades. Before I even had time to think about my action, bar [D] came along and immediately I thought double top/second entry short. Not long after I entered, I immediately got punished with another -2pt.


This was when I took a break and stepped away from computer to cool myself off. Missed potential trades [E] and [F] because of it.

With the other 2 winning trades, I ended the day with -2pt. It's not too bad but the mistakes were terrible. These are mistakes that I should not be making. Will need to spend more time self-reflecting this weekend.

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  #9 (permalink)
 Trailer Guy 
Aguanga, CA USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Ninja Trader 8
Broker: IB, NinjaTrader Brokerage, Schwab
Trading: ES
Posts: 215 since Sep 2014
Thanks Given: 68
Thanks Received: 387

Reflections on Friday.

Yes, Mack says don't listen to the news and I mostly agree.
BUT- Unexpected geo political risk made the euro zone traders wet the bed. Then the pre open US based traders (or someone) stopped the decline at existing support. By the time your chart opens we are into a major retrace. I always have (cause of an ana app) the overnight high and low on my chart. Also, after a really big drop like Thursday night I run the fib re-trace tool. So all said at the cash open it was up trend day rules for the first 30 minutes.

So as soon as the EMA 21 was broken to the upside around 6:31 Western Time I said to myself, no such thing as a double test of that opening price low for now. 40 minutes later that ugly pullback to the EMA did the classic double test before trend resumed. I passed on another long because the candles looked too messy and we were there at the 50% retrace. But as you showed it was a good entry.

Anyway that first trade was a monster if you caught it, but following the rules for regular days you would have passed. You had to have decided trend up day to grab the EMA break.

Long way of saying watch that overnight action. Mostly a waste of time but when it pays it ways well.

Next news to note is when the Federal Reserve New York is conducting open market operations. Go back over the week and look at price action within 5 minutes of the Fed announcing the results of a repo event. My personal opinion is no shorts when the Fed is handing out money, gotta wait for a decent trend change first. Look at Thursday, just after 8:30 Western the Fed handed out 7.5 billion or so for 14 days. Bam, second leg of the big move from overnight (triggered by the Peoples Bank of China).

Finally thanks for the dedication to do a journal on Price Action. It is good to have a porch light on so that the wandering have a place to go after their quest for the perfect indicator set up leaves them lost and in the dark. No offence meant to anyone searching for the perfect indicator, but bookmark this porch light "just in case".

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  #10 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 8,162 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 57,341
Thanks Received: 26,267



Trailer Guy View Post
Reflections on Friday.

...

Anyway that first trade was a monster if you caught it, but following the rules for regular days you would have passed. You had to have decided trend up day to grab the EMA break.

Long way of saying watch that overnight action. Mostly a waste of time but when it pays it ways well..

It certainly does.

If you look at volume in the ES and other US equity futures, you will see a reliable increase every morning at about 2:30 to 3:00 AM US Eastern Time (Europe is generally about 6 hours ahead of the US East Coast, so this is their start of the business day.) Then at 9:30 ET there is, of course, an explosion of volume at the NY open as US-based traders come in. Then at about 10:30 to 11:00 ET, there's a noticeable decline as the Europeans check out. All of this activity moves price.

This reliable and significant phenomenon is worth some money, some of the time at least, as is any reliable phenomenon. When significant European buying or selling pressure overnight moves price during the time between the NY close and the NY open, which it sometimes does, traders who only look at the RTH prices will see a gap.

The long-standing explanation of opening gaps has always been that US traders have spent the overnight hours digesting the prior action and any overnight news, and had orders ready to execute at the open. This is doubtless largely true, since US-based traders swing a lot of volume, but it is also true that Europeans have not only digested any developments, they have actually traded them and moved the overnight price. The opening price has no choice but to be strongly affected, in large part at least, by the overnight price.

You may also see a continuing price trend from the overnight, or a consolidation after an overnight price trend, all of which can give an RTH trader worthwhile information.

So the short version of all this is that everyone, whether they care about trading the "overnight" or not, should have their eye on it. It may or may not be a help, of course, depending on what happened, but it can be a worthwhile input to consider. Most of the time I don't think it matters that much, but some of the time it truly does. It doesn't hurt to know what went on then, in case this is one of those times.


Quoting 

Finally thanks for the dedication to do a journal on Price Action. It is good to have a porch light on so that the wandering have a place to go after their quest for the perfect indicator set up leaves them lost and in the dark. No offence meant to anyone searching for the perfect indicator, but bookmark this porch light "just in case".

I agree with this, too. I do use indicators (there are no perfect ones, and no perfect method, either, "price action" included ), but being aware of the pure action of price is a very good backbone of anyone's trading, at least in my opinion.

Bob.

When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
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Last Updated on December 20, 2020


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