I don't understand what you are saying here ? Did you read my post I just talked about how bad it was for me to not take solid setups due to my bias, in fact I added a new rule to my trading plan because of this. However you are saying that I should ignore price action totally and have no idea what is going on ? I am going exploit the odds when they appear to be in my favor, and today the odds pointed to a correction, it didn't happen and therefore I was able to realize this and did not hold my shorts until the ES went to zero, I took my profits when I could. Near the end of the day it became apparent that price was not going to listen to my bias so I played the long side and took a nice profit, sure I did not buy the exact bottom and sell the exact top, but that's not what Im trying to achieve here. Bailing out after a point ? I bail when I reach my profit target or when it looks like support/resistance is going to prevent me from taking my profit target. Certainly I am working on my exits, but guess what ? Exits are the most difficult part of trading ask any trader, this is definetly a common theme I picked up in all of the Market Wizards books. I don't know if you noticed this but today's price action in the ES was pretty choppy, today there was only a 6.5 point range. If you look at the trades where I followed my plan I was able to pull 1.75 points out of the market today. Certainly I would like to get more but I personally think that is pretty reasonable for such a small range day and it only being my second day of live trading. Who said I was looking at a daily chart to determine what the market is doing ? Care to elaborate on the good and bad and principles, insulting me is not constructive criticism. I am not sure if you had a bad day or something and are trying to take it out on me. Congratulations that you always execute your trades properly, it's something I am working on personally. If you question my edge, why don't you backtest it yourself, I know I certainly have and I know when and where I have an edge. You must not have looked at the chart, every trade I took was a valid signal using the system I have defined in my plan (except trade 1 where I have admitted to violating my plan), however do you expect me to hold until I hit my stop if price is not doing what I expected it to AND I am getting signals in the opposite direction at the same time, if this is what you call following a plan then I think you are mixed up.
kserra, why so angry? I'm one of the guys that have supported you on this thread, I don't get a kick out of putting people down. I told you you could either take it as constructive or bashing, but I hoped you would have taken it as the former. OK, let me explain. The Bearish Bias question came about by looking at your charts. Both are UP days and you shorted almost all of the time. So I simply asked why you had a bias. I assumed you thought things were overbought or something silly like that. The part about only taking a small win even if the market tanks is because you are a scalper. You might think you're playing for a bigger move, but any small wiggle in the chart will make you grab at your gain and miss the "meat". I didn't say anything about not reading price action. I didn't have a bad day. I was telling it like it is and you are taking it harshly. You can't tell what my tone is in these posts, but I wasn't insulting you. You ARE a newbie. You will make mistakes. That is how trading is. Whatever edge you think you're exploiting is ruined when you make your errors (and those will happen frequently). Back testing won't help you in real-time so forget about it. I know because in testing you only see how bars closed, but you made decisions based on how bars were moving so you won't have the same results. Sorry to say it. Closest you can come to real trading is to trade on the SIM. At least you won't be losing money while you learn. You may not know this, but you don't have to pay costly "education" losses in order to learn. You can stay on SIM until you are consistent, but since you are still modifying your system you have obviously started trading real money too soon. Making ammendments to your method is good, but why not get additional tips from others? Otherwise why'd you do this journal in the first place? It'll only help you fix problems sooner. But if you're gonna jump on us for "helping" why should we bother to read about your daily struggles? Make sense? "Care to elaborate on the good and bad and principles" Good principles are how you stick to your rules (should be all of the time though). You also cut your losses and admit your weak areas that need work. The bad are things like taking a loss prematurely because you "think" your stop will be hit. Or when you make a decision based on fear - arbitrarily taking gains because it looks like it'll turn. Also having a Bearish bias is nonsensical because you are a scalper (can you please answer that one?)
k, since you are tweaking your system this week with real $$ you may want to pre-plan to sim next week, or even longer, to test the longer term effects of the new rules. I am in the same phase as you and i've found it helpful to switch back and forth at pre-planned times.
Was not able to trade today due to prior commitments as well as a few other things that came up. Plan on trading tomorrow.
Trades for 1-8-04 Today I traded much better than the past few days however there was still a few mistakes that I need to work on before I can trade to my potential. While this was my first profitable I am still looking to trade better overall. I woke up late today so staying out of the first 45 minutes of trading was quite easy. Trade #1: long @ 1125.25, stop @ 1124.5, sell @ 1126.50 + 1.25 pts 7:30 I watched this trade setup for a quite a while using price action from yesterday I anticipated a turning point here, I originally took entry off of the three minute chart and then used the 5 minute for confirmation (thus at the beginning of the trade my stops were fairly narrow) The trade played out nicely in my favor and was able to start the day with a profit. I feel I played this trade well (although early entry is sort of bad) Trade #2: long @ 1126, stop @ 1124.5, cover @ 1126.00 scratch 8:30: Absolutely terrible exit. My entry on this trade was good and price became quite narrow around this area, although it was making higher lows, there were no higher highs, thus I felt my position was not validated. The worst part of all this was that I had no reason to get out of this trade ( I only have two reasons to get out of a trade, stop is hit/profit target is hit or a signal is being generated in the other direction). So I got out of this trade, just to watch price reverse off my stop point and go right to my profit target and more. I have done this twice now at the same time of day and both have been profitable trades I should have stayed in, I need to work on this and did throughout the day. Trade #3: short @ 1128.00, cover @ 1127.00, +1 pt 11:00 I came back from lunch kind of early and was tempted to play some choppy trades, however I kept my self out of these trades. I saw the signal setup and took it perfectly, the exit could have been better (I was aiming for .25 pt more), but I was reasonably satisfied with this trade. A lot of people may point to this trade and say that I should have stayed in for the whole ride, however I got out when my profit target said to get out instead of getting greedy, certainly the market went on without me, but I was not distressed because I had followed my plan and my plan had resulted in a profitable trade. On top of all of this I felt 1127 was reasonable because of the price action that had been occuring around this area all day. Trade #4: long @ 1126.75, stop @ 1125.50, sell @ 1128.25 +1.5 pts 11:45: This one of my best trades I made today. I took my signal and right as I did so a friend of mine came into my room to visit, he asked me what I was doing so I explained to him exactly what I was looking for in this trade. Repeating to myself and to my friend what I was doing used positive reinforcement to tell myself how to play this trade. My stop was never in jeopardy and price quickly ran up to my profit target. The only problem with this trade was the slippage I experienced when getting out of the trade. I was looking for exactly 1128.75 when this was hit I got out on the bid which ended up being 1128.25, quite a bit of slippage. This leads me into something which I am currently working on in my trading. At first when I began trading I was not confident in my profit targets, therefore I would wait to get out of a trade by selling at the bid when my target was hit, this results in quite a bit of slippage as my profit target is usually hit and then backed off of a lot of the time. To fix this problem (and in the process further put me in touch with my profit targets) I need to place a limit order at my profit target as soon as I enter the trade. This is what I am trying to work on at this point and will try to do this tomorrow. All in all I am satisfied with how I traded today ( with the exception of trade #2, which is a problem that I am still working on). I just need to work on not getting shaked out of moves that are likely to go in my favor. +3.75 pts on the day
Here is a chart of today's trades on the second trade, one of the things I find helpful to do when I experience these bad trades is to slowly move my stop up after this leaves me more likely to stay in the trade instead of jumping out for absolutely no reason like I did today. Does anyone know of any NLP type techniques that may help me rid myself of jumping out of a trade too early ?
kserra, I had an identical entry as your trade #2 (off a different signal of course) and I too exited prematurely. I don't generally offer advice because I feel I'm still a relatively new trader trying to find my way in the business of trading but I did want to comment......... If you recognize that exiting prematurely and/or not following your exit rules is a problem and it's impeding your chances of generating profits, do whatever it takes immediately to eliminate the problem before it becomes a habit! From my own personal experience, I've repeated the same mistakes over and over for months now without trying to rigorously correct them or develop my discipline. Whatever it takes can consist of discipline exercises, punishment by taking time off, et cetera. Just don't let issues of this sort become habitual. Good luck in your trading and I wish you the best. I'm enjoying your journal. Each day make an effort to practice strict discipline!
check scientist in scalping dax thread, the technique is replaying the same scenario but with correct outcome. by looking at DOM you should be able to figure out how long each order line up and at what price should you be able to get, no guarantee but no surprise either.
Trades for today While I did not have any of my discipline issues that have been coming up I experienced an execution error that kept me from being profitable. Missed the morning session, but was able to trade starting around 10. Trade #1: Short @ 1128.75, stop @ 1130.00, cover @ 1127.25 +1.5 pts 10:30 This trade was well executed I waited for my profit target and got it, that's about all there was to this trade. I am very happy with this trade. During the time between this trade my esignal (along with everyone elses) experienced some really bad ticks on several different bars. I wasn't too sure what to do about this but I believe that the reason I was not able to enter and exit the next trade properly was because my indicators were out of whack. I believe that had these bad ticks not occured my buy signal would have come earlier and I would have been able to see the trade was not worth taking because of how little would have been up for reward vs risk. Trade #2: Long @ 1128.25, stop @ 1126.5, stopped out -1.75 pts 11:20: Despite the fact that this trade was a loser I am still proud of it because I did not sway from my game plan until my stop was hit then I stopped and reversed this trade. Trade #3: Short @ 1126.5, stop @ 1128.00, cover @ 1125.5 +1 pt 11:30 STop and reverse from previous trade, but this where problems came into play. I was looking for 1125.00 (took a lot of confidence to wait for this, and I didn't bail) on this trade and I got it but I am still experiencing slippage problems because I am not doing a good job placing my trades before my target is hit. Something to work on. Because I had stopped and reversed I left my contract quantity set at 2 and forgot to change this before I covered on my trade #3. Therefore I ended up going net long after covering, I caught this quick, but price had already dropped quite a bit. I did not hesitate for one second to get out of the position. It resulted in a loss of 1.25 points for the accidental trade. Whether this trade was accidental or if there are other reasons for it I am happy I was able to get out so quick without hoping for it to go back up. Hopefully I can learn from this mistake and not let it happen again. -.5 pts on the Day Well today sums up the first week of live trading for me. I am gross positive (+.5 pts) however after commisions I am slightly below breakeven. I feel thursday was a turning point for my trading. As long as I continue to trade well and follow my plan I know that I can become a net positive trader. Plan for next week: - Continue to avoid the first 45 minutes of trading like the plague. - Follow my plan, do not get out of a trade unless profit target/stop is reached or a reverse signal is generated, I am seeing improvements here already - Place profit target limit trade as soon as trade is entered If I can follow this I will trade well next week.