Hey guys, completely new to the forums, first post. Let me introduce myself, just graduated from college with a finance degree. Job market down here in Miami for finance grads was extremely crappy, so i took an easy job at as a commodities broker. I knew absolutely nothing about commodities. I got my series 3, and then i started getting ENGROSSED in the markets at work. I started paper trading at work, just eyeballing the quotes on the screen and jotting down longs and shorts at various times with diff contracts, and it was very easy to make money, as it seemed. Eventually, I figured I could BEAT these markets . So I pulled together my funds in my stock portfolio, and opened up an acct at IB for 10K. I made some really stupid mistakes, one, taking on an extra contract instead of closing it out. Another costly one, trying to trade wheat in aftermarket. And one more, not knowing when gold closed and taking on a contract right before pit-trading closed. First Week: Day 1: I held onto a losing short, lost around 500 or 600 on my first trade. Day2: Traded wheat aftermarket and it killed me. Day 4: Made around 300 in ym, coulda made alot more if i didn't hold onto losing trades. Used the IB 5 min chart with 15s ticks to trade. Made almost all the profit from riding the 3pm spike up, then riding it down. Day 5: I lost 258 today in the YM doing 36 trades, erasing my profitability there for the week. Traded 2-4 contracts all day, so I think the loss is negligent. Traded 1 for the first 4 days. Total trades RT, and Net P/L with commission 1, GC -225 6, W -708 94, YM +3 Account is down to 9073.86, from 10K. YM Strategy: Using very few indicators, a slow sto and two ema's (14,3) on a 1-min chart with volume shown. No stops, pain threshold around -200 before I close out. Trying all sorts of stuff, momentum trading, scalping, take the opposite of spikes, disobeying my indicators pretty good. (Note: Probably NOT going to trade markets I haven't been studying anymore, wheat was just so tempting to gamble with, but I'm here to make money, not gamble. ) I'm learning alot of stuff my first week. I'm not here to sit around and try to earn 1% a month. I want to either do this for a living now, or find another job. I used to play poker in college, and have taken bigger hits than this in a day, so i do not feel the losses at the end of the day. My biggest problem is just holding onto losing trades, I want to close out at around -100 from now on. I'd love to hear from other YM traders, of what works and what doesn't. I think what works best for me is, in a bear dow day, find up spikes and short them while they fall. Also the 3pm rally always seems to come in a bear day I noticed.
Sounds like you are chruning your account with 94 RT trades on YM. Try a 5 minute time frame to slow you down a bit instead of chasing every 1 min bar entry. MA crossovers and slow stochastics will eat you up on a 1 minute chart, even 5 or 15 for that matter lol due to lag. Try to focus on price action looking at the trends and support and resistance and when market rallies or drops and you are on the right side, look for reasonable exits or stops based on S/R.
thanks for the input guys. nkhoi: yeah, the late day rally doesn't always come, but it *usually* does for bear dow days, and your chart covers all the days, bull and bear. optoncoach: thx, im going to try the 1min, 5min, and 15min simutaneously and see if they do make a difference. im impulse trading like crazy, without indicators, and it's amazing im still even on the YM. mad badger: i love the gc models the most On monday, most futures are closed.. except for rbob and crude oil, i think. I may get my feet wet in that on monday...
Late sunday night. Tried my luck at the Nikkei 225, and the Hang Seng for the first time. NK225 Sell 13660, cover 13645. +$65 HSI Long 23963, cover 23995. +$205 I had no idea how crazy the asian markets moved. I prolly shoulda put Futures journal, instead of YM journal. But ill mostly be doing YMs.
3 YM trades today Short 12407, Closed 12441 Short 12462, Closed 12419 Long 12442, Closed 12472 +182.22 +186.78 Overall in the YM Opened with $10K, now it's at $9517. Coming back slowly, really trying not to churn the account and do fewer trades, and doing 1 contract at a time.
I'm not sure its possible to analyze 35 trades in a single day - unless you have some sort of automation. I am anylizing mine by hand --- and I find it impractical to anaylize more than 6 setups and 3 live trades in a trading day but I don't like to stay up late at night
"I made some really stupid mistakes, one, taking on an extra contract instead of closing it out. " I did this one day in Feb as well except I bought 4 YM contracts instead of buying 1 to cover a short trade cost me 390 bucks