Hey Traders, Like many i feel I'm close to becoming a more consistent , profitable trader. Still, i can't quite make it over the hurdle. Currently I'm live day trading the NQ but may go back to sim if results don't pick up soon. Hopefully with this journal and the help of the other ET'ers i can log what it takes to become profitable. Maybe it's just more screen time. I don't know. My current goals are to: 1. continue to have patience in trade selection 2. complete my trade worksheets which will track my entries, exits and mistakes 3. Review the days chart to increase my knowledge of PA and better understand my entries. The better I understand my entries and exits the less hesitation on execution I hope to have. 4. Hold my winners longer 5. Remember to treat each trade independently. Sometimes I'm taking quick profits just to get back to even for the day despite PA to the contrary. I'll soon post some charts.
Here's are a chart showing a couple trades from yesterday. Pretty indicative of how I'm trading currently.
My problem is exits. Surprising to me as i always figured finding entries would be the hard thing. OK, that's still a challenge too. Another trade from yesterday.
Definitely feels like I'm trading scared. Early exit from today's trade. That's all i got for now. Back to the markets. PS My hard stop loss placed with my entry is 3 points. I of course try to avoid that when possible.
Only the 1 trade yesterday. Had to leave the office before the last hour. Today sold the HOD failed breakout. Late entry - hesitated Just trying to book green on the first trade, but looks like a decent read of PA.
I like your charts. Very clear presentation of your reasoning for entries and exits. I have always struggled with exits when trading in a discretionary manner. There's always a reason to exit early, and that reason usually seems to be wrong. I've found it helpful to adopt some objective exit criteria (e.g., breach of most recent swing H/L, breach of H/L of preceding 5-minute bar, or whatever else works for your system), which if used properly can keep you in the trade as it develops. Your mileage may vary.
You sold right into support. When a level gets flipped from R to S, you buy, you dont keep your stop there. Very fortunate for you this is a easy mistake to correct. I would suggest you have 2 criteria to exit the trade. TL break might be one, but more important than TLs are horizontal price levels. Another suggestion would be PA momentum contrary to your POV. So if you go long, wait for a LH and keep your stop on a LL. This will let you in the strongest trends for a good time. All the best.
Appreciate the reply and i agree. Guess I'm still trying to get the gut in synch with what i think i should be doing. Thank you.
Here's what i need to work on for next week. More trades. One of the key things for me as far as increasing my pecentage of winning trades has been to have patience and wait for good trades. Sometimes i think i'm taking that too far, though. Yesterday and today during the "lunch hour", 9- 11 my time i've become more distracted and less willing to take trades during this supposedly slow time. And the markets do feel slower. But i'm seeing set up's i like but decide to just watch and they turn out to have been good entries. So next week more focus during lunch and a willingness to quickly enter good set ups during this time. Oh yea, different topic. This morning i placed a trade and i get a fill 2 points above the market. Ninja shows my pnl down 2 as well. WTF right ? then i see that i'm not getting quotes. i swear i just had been. I immediately close the trade and my fill is half point from my entry. Close and reopen NT and now there's the missing price bars. Bad quotes, bad internet , i don't know . It's never happened before. For now i assume a one time glitch.