Hi guys welcome to this thread. I've been trading for 2 years now full time and will attempt to live call them in this post and see how things go. I trade a variety of futures including equities, currencies and bonds. I will try to keep this blog as updated as best as i can. I am normally in and out by the end of the day (6pm gmt) and I will post my strategies for the day with a short analysis as to why i favour a certain direction before i enter. I hate hindsight trading. Hopefully this can give some of the guys here an idea as to the ups and downs of a pro trader and how often losses actually occur. Black Dash = Entry Red line = Stop Green lines = Target 1 & 2. My entry will always be a few pips before actual entry and my stop with be approx 4-6 ticks beyond the stop. I never place my actual orders on the line. So here goes! Will post my first strat shortly
Good question - maybe pro is the wrong word as theoretically everyone is a trade away from getting wiped out. I guess am more accurately a full time trader. I think ive chosen the wrong day to start this journal as I expect these markets are going to be pretty quiet leading into the FOMC statement tonight at 7pm. I've been bearish this euro ever since Drahgi's forward guidance 2 weeks ago and am amazed why we are still hanging around just below 136 and have not made a new year low. If anyone has any idea as to why this euro is still up here please enlighten me.
Market is dead? No way! I see gzilions of opportunities My day in life of real trader - I get up, go to personal gym, eat something, do some emails and calls, go surf, spend time with family and eat eat eat, at the evening and check if everything worked properly and then go sleep Quite boring, I have to keep myself busy, so I sometimes read ET and other PHorums BTW FOMC Statement is nice opportunity to make money... some statistics about it (after you will use google translator) http://effectivetrader.blogspot.cz/2014/05/fed-days.html
You've said you're trading bonds, futures, equities and currencies. I'm 100% confident one of those markets you're trading will not be quiet today on FOMC unless you're going to focus only on the Euro and ignore everything else. Simply, today is good enough trading day to start your blog in comparison to any other trading day that does not have a FOMC announcement because you trade so many different types of markets.
US cash open in 20 mins and I have my eye on this euro strategy. Short at 1.3593 with stop above 1.3603. Target 1 at 1.3563 and target 2 at 1.3543.
I don't plan on trading the FOMC tonight as I find the action to be too whippy and am not expecting the FED to make any changes to their taper commitment of 10bn per month. Much rather come in 2mw morn and catch a retrace once ive digested the news and seen the markets initial reaction to it. I do keep an eye on bonds but haven't traded them this week as i also like to understand why bonds are behaving in the way have been recently. In theory they should have an inverse correlation to equities due to them being considered a safe haven asset and recently they have been rallying alongside equities and i have no idea why. I can understand riskier bonds like italian notes rallying along with equities but when you having positive correlations with bund, tnotes and equities then i tend to stay away. What markets do you like to focus on?
I mainly trade Russell 2000 Emini TF futures but sometimes trade other markets when TF is consistently being too problematic. That's the main reason why I monitor other key markets every trading day so that I'm prepared to trade something else when TF isn't coughing up any trade opportunities or the trade opportunities are too small of a reward for the effort.