Awash's Journal

At least I was able to eliminate my fear of entering the market today.

Trade#1 – [Short 1048.75 9:58 EST & Cover 1049 10:15 EST] [ P/L: - .25 ] Took first divergence signal but decided to cover after not much follow through. Good trade management!

Trade#2 – [Short 1048.25 10:19 EST & Stopped 1050.25 16:08 EST] [ P/L: - 2 ] Re-entered again 4 minutes later just to see if price would sell-off and this turned out to be a bad trade. Poor trade management!

Trade#3 – [Short 1049.50 10:35 EST & Cover 1049.25 10:54 EST] [ P/L: + .25 ] Weak divergence signal but looked good to short. However, I failed to exit at my initial target of 1048.50 thinking the market had more room to pullback to 1048 (Greed). Poor trade management!

Trade#4 – [Short 1049.50 11:20 EST & Cover 1048.50 11:36 EST] [ P/L: + 1 ] identical divergence signal as trade#3 but I was determined to exit at 1048.50 if we didn’t break it. Good trade management!

Trade#5 – [Short 1052.50 12:02 EST & Cover 1052.25 12:28 EST] [ P/L: + .25 ] Market moved up quickly and I took this trade off a resistance level because I remember 1052.50 being a strong area in the past (check past charts). I wasn’t looking for much with this trade and my time stamp took me out. Closed because this trade had a low win probability.

Trade#6 – [Short 1053 13:26 EST & Cover 1027.75 13:58 EST] [ P/L: + .25 ] Mistakenly entered off a stop order and got filled at 1053. I was doing a test and I got filled!

Trade#7 – [Short 1054.25 14:27 EST & Stopped 1056.25 14:57 EST] [ P/L: - 2 ] Awful trade because I was trying to short in an uptrend. I definitely paid the price for it. I have a rule that if I get stopped out 2-3 times per day I’m doing something wrong. Stopped trading at 15:00.

 

Awash, have you ever considered pulling back to a longer timeframe? In looking through some of your trades, it seems that you feel comfortable with your entries, and have a good degree of confidence, but you are getting thrashed about in the chop during the trade.

Look at a five minute chart today (11/12), for example, and it was uphill all the way. As an outside observer, I just don't see you reaching your goals living in the noise.

Ask yourself. Have you felt improvement? If not, then take another track. It may very simply be the wrong timeframe for you.

 

First of all, I have to agree that you will probably do better on a higher timeframe, maybe 3 min? Ok, on to the chart. Your first entry was good but why did you not exit and reverse at the positive divergence? You could have easily broke even on the short and made half a point on the long. On your second trade (short again), why did you enter? Also, why did you not reverse after the positive divergence 2 bars later? Your 3rd trade you could have closed a bar earlier, right after the positive divergence, and taken half a point of that bar with a long. You also missed another short right after and a long a few bars after that which could've easily gotten you a point. Your last trade is inline with what I would've done. Hope this helps

 

Any reason why all of your trades were shorts today?
Sorry in advance if I missed something about this earlier
in the journal.

 

nothing wrong, the method work for diff kind of day, when method fail just be aware of what kind of day it is.

 

Lindq,

….longer timeframes? I’ve never considered taking signals from higher time frames, only the 1 & 3 minute charts. My technical indicators will not show numerous buy & sell divergence signals in higher time frames.

As a general rule with my system, the higher the time frame the less signals generated, the lower the time frame the greater the signals.

One thing that I fail to do is use the higher time frames as confirmation in conjunction with my lower time charts.

For instance, if I get a sell signal on my 1M but my 5M doesn’t confirm a signal, then I should reconsider going short until a higher chart confirms the signal. Several traders have suggested this to me but I’ve failed to work it into my routine.

Now that all of you are pointing this out to me, I’ll make a concerted effort to confirm from higher time intervals, especially trending days.

One bad thing about the 1M chart is the noise and sometimes it’s hard to filter. If you have any recommendations, just let me know but I don’t want to eliminate the 1M chart from my system.

 

Awash, I think you should definitely put up a 5 min. chart. I was having the same issue where I would enter on a lower time-frame (1 min. or even 100-tickbar) and the signal would be good, but it would be against the higher time-frame so I would either bail with a small profit (2-4 ticks) or get stopped out.

-Fast

 

hello Awash,

I have enjoyed your journal thus far (I am also a newbie trading ES). I take my signals off of lower time frames, but I always make sure it is within the "context" of higher timeframes. For instance I thought about going short a couple times today on the 5 min chart, but when I consulted the 30 min chart, I could see no reason to go short. By consulting higher time frames, I am comfortable using wider stops, and if I am wrong, I can usually bail on the trade with a small loss with out my stop getting executed.

Keep up the good work,

fan

 

fan, i like what you are doing. by filtering your signals through higher time frames, you are basically adding another filter, and is price action. most everyone would agree that price is the most important aspect of the game, and by making sure you are trading in the direction that the price has been taking you will win more often than not. you said you were new to es, how have you been doing, performance wise?

 

Have been daytrading fulltime for 8 months. Down about $1,500. This time last month I was down $268.00. Right now I am up $50 for the month (trading 1 contract). After reading several threads regarding stops and analyzing my past trades, I have realized that tight stops were killing me. By using looser stops, I better be sure I have a compelling reason for taking the trade.

fan