Well, I decided to start another journal, b/c I will be trading the YM exclusively right now, as I was trading w/ JC Trading, and we're affected by the Tuco situation right now. The other journal was titled "My journal to profitability" if you want to look it up. But it was exclusively equities. Now I want to change up the way I do things. 1) I'll post daily PnL. Its not going to be huge, as I'm starting off w/ one contract and plan to play conservatively for now. 2) I'll post my entries. You guys can either a) learn from it, or b) since I'm a newbie, criticize me of it. I welcome feedback regarding entries. To start off: PnL from Wednesday: $55.75 PnL from Thursday: $18.04 Those were from my other thread.
Take a look at my chart. This was also from my other thread, but i want to start over. Note: I'm using the 3 min as my main chart, but use the 233 tick and 1 min charts to precisely gain entry. 1) Took a short there. Normally, one of my rules is to never go against the trend. Only time I will do it is when 1) we reach a pivot (in this case PP) and we see resistance at the PP, and 2) Stoch is over 80, RSI over 80. This is a high probability set-up for me when we see considerable resistance at the PP in a strong uptrend. Had to exit out of my position early due to platform problems. Would have rode it down another 10-15 pnts. Only took a 9 point gain on it. SShort at 12207 and covered 12198. 2 and 3) Judgement error. Must have looked at the chart wrong. My bad. Lost 14 points here. 4) This is what i was trying to do in 2 and 3. We saw a powerful uptrend followed by some selling off. Expecting no more than 50% retracement. I dont consider this a downtrend, as we're just retracing so I'm looking to scalp out the bottom. Normally, i do not go against the trend. Okay, back to #4. If you looked at the 233 tick, you'd see about 4 mins worth of 'indecision'. Looked as though some were trying to get a good long entry in. About 6 mins later, you see the 3 min go into the oversold area, and the 233 tick shows some buying. There's my long entry. bought 12192 and sold 12204. Sold after 4 mins b/c I saw some weakness in the 233 tick. Soon as I'm trading more than 1 contract, I'll be able to scale out a bit easier. 5) My yellow line indicates a trend line for the uptrend. You see the 3 min candle strongly break the trend line. I like to look for a short signal here. If you have any brains, your not gonna short right at the break, b/c 1) oscillators were oversold, and 2) you can get whipped around really bad doing that. I like to wait for a dud rally w/ confirmation on the 1 min, and go short. Soon as the 11:21 3 min candle strong moves to the upside, I went to take a shower, figuring more upside was to come. That was dumb of me to assume that, b/c 6 mins later, we see resistance, and a 30 min overbought chart. Short enry would have been right up there. In shower though Missed it. 6) Demo traded after 12:00. The why's are in my other thread. Demo traded this, but woulda traded it live. EASY pullback entry. RSI and stoch are overbought, you see a pullback where the 1 min and 233 tick are oversold, and gradually see momentum building back up. A buy entry here would have made a nice buck. 7) Almost identical play as #1, except this time we're not dealing with the PP, but R1. I had R1 at 12357. You do see the 3 min break 12357, but its important to note that the rally fails heavily. If you look at volume, it was trailing off as well from the last 15-20 mins. UNFORTUNATELY, i demo traded this. High probability set-up. Doesn't come around too often, and we had 2 in one day. Oh well.
PnL : $47.28 Only placed 3 trades today. Missed one trade in the afternoon though. System didn't really produce that many trades. Could have pushed it. Could have randomly bought early in that uptrend today, but I decided to demo trade those, and only trade my high probability trades. Basically only scalped today. Trade # 1) Almost gave up on this one. i had r1 at 12458. Price went past R1, but I saw some decent resistance at this level. Oscillators were overbought, i shorted at 12452, and immediately placed a limit at 12441 thinking this was only a minor correction. Perfect trade. 2) Almost same trade as yesterday when we broke trendline. Only difference is I didnt wait for a dud rally. Saw the one min break to the downside, took my short at 12560. Placed a stop at 12571. Literally 2 mins later, the 1 min rockets up, takes out my stop. It was a smart stop, b/c price ended up going higher. My mistake on this trade was not waiting for the dud rally. 3) Went short at 12573 on this trade right after the 1 min showed some heavy resistance from the last 4 mins. Pretty high probability trade there with heavy selling pressure earlier. Price feel quicker than anticipated and covered at 12561. Called it quits around 3:30est today. Todays action was brutal. So much chop, so little entries. Looking back at the 3 min (its right now 3:45), the market was making lower highs and lower lows and i should have gone short at around 3:20, but i wasn't paying that much attention. My bad
QUESTIONS: 1-for your live/real trading (non-demo)...how many YM contracts are you trading?...all in/all out? 2-do you trade full time?
1) Trading 1 contract right now and only trading live high probability trades. Will start to add as I get more comfortable. Still demoing some positions I'm not comfortable to go live on yet. 2) Trading fulltime. Been so for almost 2 months now. Although this is my 3rd full day in the YM.
thanks...what contracts were you trading and why now solely YM?...I backed away from the YM for volume reasons...but I have traded it and do like it...will you trade any other contracts?OIl, Gold, eminiSP etc.?
was trading equities through sub-llc prop. Now they've suspended trading for now, so I'm going the futures route. Frankly, the benefits to trading futures outweigh stocks IMO. YM soley for now. Will switch to the ES, but I'e done my research, and found out its best for newbies to trade the YM, and move to the ES.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=113456 Weisman, check out the above link, if it does not work do a search " Daytrading 2.0 for the small trader" here on ET. Its easy to read and only about 40 ;pages long and a lot of good info about ma's and trendlines and its helped me mucho. Let us know what you think!
great...agreed...never look at anything else once found futures!...I am trading, ES, CL crude oil and Swiss Franc futures...best to you