I see the glimmer of light at the surface of the ocean, but I am not yet convinced I will break the surface. The life of a REAL swing trader, and not the shitjerk fakers that pervade this forum. My tolerance for them is running very thin.
Still holding. I am convinced all three positions would have made much greater strides had Powell not killed the mood at 11 AM ET when he went on about tapering. I thought people knew this was coming for weeks? Guess they were just hoping he'd reverse course, and THAT is what was priced in. The taper tantrum starts...
Continuing from old trade #83... I reset the time range, so trade #83 now appears as trade #1... Well, that was a hell of a ride down. I believe this was the longest time spent in trades thus far. 7 1/2 weeks? Good Lord. In times past I would have bailed at the bottom, but I think I have nailed down sticking to the buy, hold, roll plan. It sucked watching these positions going -6K at the bottom and recovering, as that was the opportunity cost lost. But that is the plan. Stick to the plan! Since I locked myself into having only 5 contracts open at once, I saw an average-in opportunity in the MNQ after closing the MES and MYM trades. So took it, heh. What sucked even more was the opportunity lost when some Nor'easter decided to blow through the area and ravage the MA coastline. Lost power around 1AM ET Wed morning 10/26, and power did not come back on until Thursday around 3PM ET. I lost the mojo of following the flow of the markets in that time, so took today off. Missed a nice run-up today because of it. +200 on the NQ today? 'Tis the season for big tech! Bollocks! And for some reason I will never fully understand, the journaling broke again during the power outage with the following trade that is not showing up... That trade was entered on the Wed open in the 6PM ET hour Tuesday night, and I had a profit target set which was hit somewhere in the 9AM ET hour Wed morning. Once again, in my guesstimation; since the PC was off when the exit occurred, NT software did not get the message from the exchange that the target was hit, so the entire trade was not recorded in the journal trade screen. The entry shows up in the execution window though... So just add that +$557 to the Cum. profit column. Very annoying. Flat for the weekend.
Continuing from trade #6... Oh my lord, don't know how to explain this one... In summary, I entered 2 MNQ on Monday, Closed on Tuesday. After Powell's speech, entered 1 MNQ Wed night, closed Thursday morning. Remember that missing trade from last week that was not showing up in journal, that was entered at 15569.5? Well, this is how Ninja7 decided to resolve itself. By showing they closed at 15963.75. No, that was the Tuesday trade that was entered at 15893.75! The last trade exit in that list is the Thursday trade, but the entry was 16140.75! Strangely, when all is said and done, the totals actually reconcile correctly across the date range. But the details get all wonky when you have overnight trades! As for the psychology of it? Left a LOT of money at the table after the FOMC. Did not expect such a strong positive reaction to Powell's no-hike-news is good news deal from 2:30 PM Wed to midday-today. That was a LOT of up action missed, but the ATH have made me nervous for a while, especially after the drumming I took in September. I have been waiting for a decent pullback to get a bit more aggressive. I hope this is not a case of waiting for the pullback that does not come through end of year, but it sure is shaping up that way. Flat for weekend.
Continuing on from trade#9... K, by resetting the start date of previous exit, looks like the journal has resolved itself... You can see that old trade #9 that was entered on Thursday's session in the overnight at 16140.75 is showing correct entry and exit times. For this week, played around in MES as you can see, and while it was floating around in a tight range since Wednesday entry I had plenty of opportunity to exit with profit. But I wanted that 20 point profit damnit! And while it hit this morning, it went up another 16 points above that. Alas, but stuck to the plan. On Tuesday, after the morning drop, I entered the MNQ thinking it was the bottom. Well, it wasn't, and then came Wednesday's 1.6% drop. It is slowly recovering...*sighs* More journal annoyance again, because it's open over the weekend. I just wish for the simple things in life. Like a NT7 journal engine that knows WTF is going on in real-time.
Continuing from trade #7... That open MNQ trade resolved on Wednesday (AND NT7 JOURNAL CALCULATED IT PROPERLY *FAINT*), but I had a higher target of 100 points and had lowered it. Well...Look at the MNQ NOW. Psshhaw! The last 2 entries listed, I tried a scale-in! Wooo! Up to 3 contracts! I'm a risk-taker now! *The sarcasm meter is at full* And I went in on the MYM but had my target 20 ticks too high last night (drat), so am open through the weekend. Onward.
Great journal. You just about motivated me to do some swing/long term trading when the markets pulled back a small bit last month, and I should have. I have a hard time doing it in the futures for no other reason than psychologically I have been daytrading them now for so long. The micros, like you are doing are actually close to perfect for getting back to it.
Glad that it provided you some inspiration. I think you're the first person in the thread to directly indicate that it provided value to a trading mindset. As can aside, I was going over that MNQ trade opened the previous week, the one where I was looking for a 100-point target (#10 and 11). It was an average in, with the avg price of 16262.75. I was bummed that I felt the need to pull back the target below the original target of 16362.75, but on the exit that is exactly what position #2 of the scale-in did, to the tick! Total coincidence on the target. So I guess the original target was MOSTLY hit. heh.