if anyone reads this shit sorry i didnt post anything the last couple hours, i was too distracted between typing my thoughts and trying to execute trades, made some errors on the keypad while trying to go back and forth. which fucked me up. anyway, managed to make $95 on ES. $287 net, $192 commissh. i dont think long term i can type in the journal real time and execute trades properly, unless i figure out how to do button trading on TWS (planning on it). I want to try it though, it's funny to lookback at all the shit I'm thinking while watching the chart realtime. this volume method has some promise i think, problem is, in the grand scheme of things it's a 'picking tops and bottoms' method and i don't know if that can last long term, from what I've read on the net most people try to scare you from doing that shit. here's my screenshot, later.
$ 192 commish seems high, were you getting in and out a bunch of times before making a profit? How about doing something a little different. Instead of posting every trade, try posting one trade when the market is moving slowly including setup, and then end of day just do a summery of your trades, reasons, including profit and loss so for example no more than 2 - 3 posts per day. If you are able, include a graph of the trade, since a picture is worth a thousand words. I took a trade long on ES today at a profit. After trade was done, I updated my excel sheet on why I took the trade which direction, price I got in, profit, and then summery of what I thought afterwards. I did make profit on the trade long at 991.25, but wrote in my notes, that I should have held it a little bit longer for extra profit. I also saw I could have averaged in a little lower but I did not do that, but it would have worked out. I am not confident enough on an averaging strategy.
Hey oracle, Thanks for the tips. Yeah the commish was high because I was in and out of ES like a motherfucker. I'm used to trading SPY in the pennies, so these .25 cent moves in ES has me bobbing and weaving. I'll move back to SPY soon. I like posting my realtime thoughts while IN the trade, because I'm acting a fool in my head thinking about what's going to happen next. After the trade, everything is like, oh yeah, that makes sense in retrospect, but shit, unrealized Profit and more importantly LOSS staring at you on TWS 30 seconds into the trade is a bitch and a half. As I noted earlier, I don't have the balls of a real trader yet, able to take a loss and move on. Getting there. Initially, I wanted to trade options volatility, but quickly realized I didn't even have basic technical trading skills to start with. So here I am. I'll put up a graph.
Are you even planning on hitting the big swings or just trade in pennies and dimes? Why even bother trading manually? Why not automated your trades?