I wouldn't call it an art. More a matter of practice. I do maintain a collection of charts from daily to 1m to give me some idea of where we are (in the NQ) so that I'm not thrown by the hesitation one usually finds at important S/R. And I don't enter before 1000 if there's a report coming out at that time. But, otherwise, I pay no attention at all to "events", don't watch Squawk Box, don't watch CNBC at all, don't have a news feed or consult any of the news sites. I just pay attention to price. Maintaining discipline is difficult enough without having to deal with the pummelling from this news or that rumor. If I accept the fact that price can go either way - or nowhere - on any given day, I can then deal with whatever price decides to do. Otherwise, I'd be fighting with the market all day. --Db
This time, but sometimes it's different. To make big money, you need to catch a major trend. They do not always start in the morning or in the afternoon, sometimes they start around 12:25 EST, during the lunch time. That was my point.
This time and most times. Trends can begin during midday, but they begin far more often outside the lunch hour. Unless one wants to sit in front of the computer all day, it pays to play those trends which begin in the morning. If there's a reversal later on, so much the better, but reversals haven't been terribly clean lately. --Db
Todayâs Trades (P/L expressed in terms of total contracts traded) ESZ2;BOT;2; 919.00; 08:54:02;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;SLD;1; 919.50; 08:56:15;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;SLD;1; 919.50; 08:56:15;20021121;GLOBEX +1.0 ESZ2;SLD;1; 926.50; 15:47:58;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;BOT;1; 928.25; 15:51:49;20021121;GLOBEX -1.75 ESZ2;SLD;1 931.25; 18:07:21;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;BOT;1; 934.00; 18:26:08;20021121;GLOBEX -2.75 ESZ2;SLD;1; 929.50; 19:20:04;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;SLD;1; 929.50; 19:20:04;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;BOT;2; 930.50; 19:26:56;20021121;GLOBEX -2.0 ESZ2;BOT;2; 931.50; 19:36:33;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;SLD;2; 933.50; 19:51:36;20021121;GLOBEX +4.0 ESZ2;BOT;1; 930.50; 20:36:36;20021121;GLOBEX ESZ2;SLD;1; 931.50; 20:38:52;20021121;GLOBEX +1.0 Note: Listed times are 5 hours ahead of EST. 6 RTs -0.50 pts My commissions were a bigger expense than my market losses today. I have to leave right now. Iâll come back later tonight to discuss todayâs trading. Cheers!!
Journal Entry - 1:20 AM EST Why did I trade so much today? Glad you asked. Although I characteristically only take 1 to 3 trades a day on average, today I was trying out a few things. More about that later. The first trade was a night scalp executed at 3:54 am EST. I had serious insomnia last night. I logged into my IB account to see where the futures were trading. Every so often I do a night scalp or two, taking advantage of the wide spreads in ES during the nighttime session. Yes, I know there is risk involved with doing this since there is very limited liquidity during these hours. However, if you observe a price range that ES keeps bouncing up and down between, such as 919, 919.5, 919, 919.5, etc. for hours on end, then it is not exceptionally hard to buy at the bid at 919 and immediately put your contracts for sale at the ask at 919.5. Thatâs what I did and I was only in for 2 minutes and 13 seconds. Iâve done this kind of trade maybe 10-12 times over the course of the last two months and Iâve only lost money on it once. Now, this is not something I do every night, just sort of something to do for entertainment purposes when I canât sleep. Please realize I that Iâm cognizant of the risk of this kind of trade. Believe me, Iâve seen the futures dip or rise 5 points in 10 seconds flat during the night session. The Nikkei crashes over in Japan, the S&P takes a nosedive, etc, etc. Of course, in my absolutely perfect 20/20 hindsight, it would have been dandy to have just held onto those 2 contracts all through the night and all through the regular trading session. Hell, I could have put in a simulated stop with my trading software before I went to bed, slept in till noon, and spent all day playing golf, exiting with a MOC order. That would have been a way to do it barring any IB disconnect or my computer crashing. Instead I opted to do things the hard way Sorry for all the rambling. As Iâm writing this message, Iâm on a prescription sleeping pill called Ambien and it makes me feel kind of goofy. It sort of has a bizzarro psychotropic effect. In addition, itâs late and Iâm really tired. Anyway, the second trade was an attempt to sell the primary resistance area. I was willing to take a chance on this counter-trend trade, but seeing the strength of the market, I was not willing to give it a long leash. I decided to grant it only a tight 2-point stop, with the additional qualification that I would stop and reverse if my stop was hit and the market broke through the R1 level. Well, my stop was indeed hit. However, right when I was going to establish a long position at 929, my IB market feed went dead. Man was I pissed!! Literally, at the moment I was going to press the buy button, my quotes stopped. At least I was flat when the outage occurred. It would have sucked to have been stuck short when the feed went out. Well, tell you what, Iâm going to have to continue this tirade tomorrow, as Iâm dog tired and I needs me sleep!!!!!!!!
Is trading keeping you awake at night, Corallus? Is there a way you can set it aside in the evening so you can relax?
Actually, I've always suffered from insomnia. Even before I was a trader. I appreciate your concern though, Aaron. Thanks.