A Jedi Trader's ES Journal

Discussion in 'Journals' started by Financial Yoda, Mar 17, 2011.

  1. Hello,
    Welcome to my journal.

    I have been trading the ES essentially full time for two years.

    I follow a technical approach that I'd like to automate or semiautomate but that is another topic.

    I plan to post my daily results and discuss my journey toward extraordinary trading results.

    I'm not trying to stroke my ego by posting but want a place to discuss my daily journey. I may post some charts/trading log

    I'm a fan of Star Wars and a beginning meditator, and think some of the quotes of Jedi Master Yoda as they relate to trading.

    My goal essentially is to double my account equity monthly.

    I'm starting with the proverbial $5,000.00 account.
    Generally I trade 1 lot per $4,000 and do add on to winners.
    Stop is 8-10 ticks and manually adjust based on price action/support resistance and volatility.

    I welcome all constructive discussion relating to trading and the psychology of trading.

    I'm pretty busy during the day trading and likely will not have time to post my trades as they unfold.

    I use traditional technical analysis such as chart patterns/trendlines, fibs, support and resistence, trend following and countertrend approaches to trading

    I began trading this account on 3/15/2011
    I have developed a trading log that list beginning equity/Daily goal in $/# of contracts/Daily running % Return/Actual running %/Variance from goal %/Acutal Daily % return from previous daily Equity number/Daily Profit/loss/End of day Equity/# of trades/% Runup or drawdown

    I welcome any suggestions on improving the spreadsheet.

    Thanks,

    FY
    last 3 days results
    http://screencast.com/t/YriovNncN
     
  2. Some quotes I find useful and humorous:

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Yoda

    Grave danger you are in. Impatient you are.
    -- Yoda

    Always in motion is the future.
    -- Yoda

    Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
    -- Yoda

    You will find only what you bring in.
    -- Yoda

    [Luke:] I can’t believe it. [Yoda:] That is why you fail.
    -- Yoda

    But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
    -- Yoda
     
  3. Didn't sleep well or prepare for the trading day, kinda rolled out of bed without proper preparation(eating, medition, physical excercise, which I do before I trade) for the trading day and considering it was a friday and expiration to boot. Lacked focus.

    I did a poor job of controlling risk. I added on to a winner but too aggressively and failed to control the downside.

    I have to admit yesterdays large win seemed to affect my trading negatively. I think I was giving myself more slack that I would normally.

    example, I had $287 profit (almost my daily goal!) and failed to read the tone of the market and due to being negative(had a net loss on the day) and desired the position that was working well to continue to do so, which it didn't. Using Hopium!

    http://screencast.com/t/ew2HR6bm

    I violated my rules and increased my daily loss limit which ultimately led to a bigger loss than I had planned to take, perhaps that was abit of revenge trading/wanting to end the day in profit that prompted me to do it. I

    far too much volatility in my trading and that reflects being too loose and not having a defensive mindset. A little impatient as well for realizing the great results. I don't feel the plan % are pushing me to overtrade but I use the plan percent as a minimun expected profit for the day. The goal is to trade beyond that point but to stop at the point when my daily proft comes down to that level. One thing I did well yesterday was to trade smaller and not add contracts my base of profit was built in order to avoid giving back too much.

    Monday is a new day!
     
  4. Dug myself in a hole by increasing size too early and taking on too much risk. I had an expanded daily loss limit (from the previous session) which I ended up using rather than doing the disciplined thing and quitting on my own at the dollar loss level I had established earlier. Also caught too many reversals in this side ways market today.

    I am behind schedule but will focus on controlling downside by strich position size and stop placement as the market is making deeper pull backs to .786 retracement and I need to adapt better to these changes.

    http://screencast.com/t/VbFp1Zoxu5
     
  5. Sim/demo alert! Go fish!
     
  6. Thanks for visiting to heckle! but........

    Ah, I'm not sure what your talking about.

    Are you saying these are sim/demo results? I didn't bother to check my screenshot and yes it is missing the PNL from my DOM

    Unfortunately, when I took my screen shot my PNL(which I've shown every other time) it didn't get selected and since the day session is over I cannot go back and bring it up, but believe me these are NOT Sim/Demo results!

    If you knew the platform I use to trade you would know how the DOM looks in Sim mode and how it looks with LIVE MONEY!

    FY

    PS, your the first to comment and I guess you gave it a 1 star rating, whatever! LOL :)
     
  7. Anyone who uses Infinity knows that the demo platform is blue in hue and the live account is gray. Those DOM screenshots are legit in my book.

    This is a good way to write off trading videos on youtube as well. If you see that the outline of the Infinity DOM is baby blue, the person is a hack.
     
  8. Challenging day, been in a trading range for last 2 days.

    Will be lowering my daily dollar risk, which will help to limit my position size.

    http://screencast.com/t/i8vse5uRMW7
     
    #10     Mar 22, 2011