Hey JT, Normally a good broker give you that information ( by E-mail) BEFORE that day is arrived ! Otherwise i think the service off that broker is not up to date. I am trading from Belgium and a good website for daytraders is located there especially for the Futures but it's only in Dutch. I am also in a chatroom where you also get that information or news,new tools and so on information to stay up to date. Remember to more you know the better it is. For interested people i give the sitelink here : http://www.daytraderplaza.com/index.php See You
Nice site @ daytraderplaza. I wish I could understand Dutch. "Donderdag 12 september is roll-over dag voor de futures. " that I understood. I use IB. I can't recall that they sent me any info. /JT
Scalper? I'm not sure yet, but I think that things are evolving in that direction for me. At the moment I'm not really thinking about how many trades I do, as long as I got a good "feeling", and are in sync with the market. /JT
Torn, Like someone said in another ground, if you are making a market with 5 contracts, you're probably trading the wrong month.
Code: Day Trade # Type B/S Time Price B/S Time Price Quant. Gross Net Time held 13-Sep SLD 12:38 924.50 BOT 12:39 924.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:14 SLD 13:35 926.50 BOT 13:36 926.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:35 BOT 13:38 926.00 SLD 13:40 927.00 1 20.00 15.20 0:01:30 SLD 13:44 927.50 BOT 13:45 927.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:57 SLD 13:47 925.50 BOT 13:52 924.00 1 30.00 25.20 0:04:55 SLD 13:53 924.00 BOT 13:53 923.50 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:14 SLD 13:54 924.50 BOT 13:54 923.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:00:26 SLD 13:56 923.50 BOT 14:01 923.50 1 0.00 -4.80 0:05:19 BOT 14:03 924.50 SLD 14:05 925.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:02:27 SLD 14:10 924.50 BOT 14:15 924.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:05:06 SLD 14:19 922.50 BOT 14:20 921.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:00:38 BOT 14:20 922.00 SLD 14:21 922.50 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:24 SLD 14:23 921.50 BOT 14:28 920.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:05:03 BOT 14:28 920.50 SLD 14:29 920.00 1 -10.00 -14.80 0:01:47 SLD 14:30 920.00 BOT 14:32 921.00 1 -20.00 -24.80 0:02:28 SLD 14:34 921.50 BOT 14:40 924.50 1 -60.00 -64.80 0:05:28 BOT 14:42 924.00 SLD 14:44 924.50 1 10.00 5.20 0:01:25 SLD 14:44 925.50 BOT 14:45 925.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:46 BOT 14:45 924.50 SLD 14:47 925.00 1 10.00 5.20 0:01:52 SLD 14:50 923.50 BOT 14:55 922.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:04:33 SLD 14:57 922.00 BOT 14:57 921.50 1 10.00 5.20 0:00:54 SLD 14:58 921.00 BOT 15:02 926.50 1 -110.00 -114.80 0:04:34 SLD 15:18 924.50 BOT 15:23 926.50 1 -40.00 -44.80 0:05:02 BOT 15:32 927.50 SLD 15:40 928.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:07:50 Total 24 20 -95.2 0:02:41 All losers came after 1/2 trading session. 13 straight winners from open. Didn't manage to cut my losses short today. /JT
I looked into your numbers. Your stats are : % = 74 Average Win = 0.87 Average Loss = -2.17 Average Hodling Time Win = 3:30 Average Hodling Time Loss = 6:17 Gross Profit = 75.0 Commision = 806.4 Net Profit = -731.4 Your % is very good but doesn't serve you much. You should focus on you P/L ratio instead. May be : - use hard stops (to limit your max loss & decrease your av. loss). Your % will decrease a bit but not too much if your stop value is well chosen (you should have a good idea). Don't worry, ave win will grow with time. - average points/holding time for losers are well above those for winners : let your winner run a little longer (about 1'00 or 2'00 more is enough to increase the ave. win by a few 0.1 pts). - decrease the number of your trades (quality over quantity). You'll pay less in commision. And it helps keeping your % high. Another thought : If you have made only 10 trades max daily (as you chose doing it at first), you were net positive (+233.5) and with 4 trades max you were (+169.6) Ok, that's only about 20 $ a day but... you have room for improvement. It reminds me something I read in an old post : "first of all, you have to prepare yourself emotionally for a small win.. " http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=36277 Hope it helps. Good luck.
Hi x-or, Thank you for the time to go thorough some (all) of my trades and your advice. This is by far the best reply to my journal to date. 1. Hard stops. I reviewed my trading from friday, and noticed that if I would have used a 1.0 or 1.5 pts stop loss, I would have been better off. Early during trading the 1.0 pt was fine, since trading was pretty smooth. Later on things were more "choppy" and the 1.5 pt stop was a better selection. 2. Target. During Thursday/Friday I settled for a 0.5 pt target. However again reviewing my trading, on almost every trade it would have been possible to make atleast another 0.5 pt. 3. Number of trades. You are absolutely right. I'm not sure why. Could it be because I'm getting tired or is it because trading is getting choppy late during the day? I'm not sure. Will try to limit number of trades, but right now this is not my top priority. I'm not concerned if I only do 20$ per day. Even with a 2000$ account that's actually 1%. If I could do that day in and day out I would be satisfied. However in order to deal with larger occasional drawdowns, I probably need to make a little bit more than that per day. Once again, x-or, thanks. It really helped/forced me to think things through. /JT Entry: Mostly intuitive. If the future drops/rises like 1 or 2 points in a short time (< 1 minute) I might get in on the opposite side. Price: Most times I place my buy long orders at bid, and wait to be filled (and the reversed). However if there is a large momentum I might like to get filled right away. Exit: Stop-loss 1.5 pts. Place order quickly, so I will be first in line (to be filled) as soon as possible. Profit target: 1 pts, unless there is a big momentum in my direction. Place order quickly, so I will be first in line (to be filled) as soon as possible.
I'm glad you appreciate my thoughts. I consider myself not more than just an ex-still-newbie that just got out of the learning curve. About hard stops : Personnaly I use them as an 'emergency exit'. In fact, I'm often out before they get hit. The point I want to make : if you have enough discipline you can use wider stop but not necessarly wait for them to be touched. I was absolutely sure about your second point : Even if 50% of those 0.5 pts trades could go further, that is where the money is made. And about your third point. I just wanted to point out that with a good daily management, we can turn from negative to positive. One example is on your last friday : at one point your were up 100$ and you ended up -100 $. I made this mistake a lot of times because : - When I was up 100 $, I thought that I could make more (greed + overconfidence) - I couldn't stop trading (ego satisfaction) On friday I ended net +6 â¬. Nothing to be proud of ! That 's what reminds me the Qwiktrade's quote. It was very hard to not put one more trade but I sticked to it and it was my 9th winning day in a row. I wish you the best.
This proves that the typical novice, Emini trader is ineffective. WHY? 1. No discipline. 2. No research into past trades. 3. No idea what actually consistently works. 4. Doesn't handle emotions properly. etc. READ some books first. LEARN what to do before you continue with your non-systematic trading.
Code: 1 NQZ2 SLD 12:37 911.50 BOT 12:44 910.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:06:18 2 NQZ2 SLD 13:52 918.50 BOT 13:53 917.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:01:40 3 NQZ2 BOT 13:55 917.50 SLD 14:01 916.00 1 -30.00 -34.80 0:06:19 4 NQZ2 SLD 14:04 915.00 BOT 14:06 914.00 1 20.00 15.20 0:02:33 5 NQZ2 SLD 14:12 914.00 BOT 14:13 912.50 1 30.00 25.20 0:01:00 6 NQZ2 SLD 14:20 913.50 BOT 14:25 912.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:04:56 7 NQZ2 SLD 14:34 910.50 BOT 14:36 909.50 1 20.00 15.20 0:02:07 8 NQZ2 SLD 14:42 908.00 BOT 14:52 910.00 1 -40.00 -44.80 0:10:34 9 NQZ2 BOT 14:53 910.00 SLD 14:59 911.00 1 20.00 15.20 0:06:35 10 NQZ2 SLD 15:02 908.50 BOT 15:09 911.00 1 -50.00 -54.80 0:07:24 11 NQZ2 SLD 15:13 911.50 BOT 15:14 914.50 1 -60.00 -64.80 0:00:56 12 NQZ2 SLD 15:18 913.00 BOT 15:21 914.50 1 -30.00 -34.80 0:03:07 Total 12 -60 -117.6 0:04:27 Targets OK: 7 wins 1.0 pt or more stop loss NOT OK: 3 losses more than 1.5 pt Number of trades NOT OK: 12 of them. Should probably have stopped after T7. /JT