Little Lex's YM Daytrading Journal

Discussion in 'Journals' started by Little Lex, Mar 31, 2008.

  1. you should look into using a tighter stop once you are in profit. For example if your 20 points in the green then move your stop to 10. if it reverses then you bank 10 points.

    It seem like your trying to capture the most amount of points but the market does oscillate and you will find your self with more losers than winners.

    Focus on banking points. I see it as nibbling at the market, little by little. eventually you will become a big fish and can use a wider stop and go for more profits, or increase your contract size and move over to an other contract like the ES or DJ Eurostoxx 50, which are very thick and liquid.
     
    #21     Apr 10, 2008
  2. Hi TokyoGhetto,

    I wanted my winners to be at least as large as my losers. Therefore I was trying to give them some room to develop.

    But I suppose you are right. I should probably try using some kind of trailing stops to prevent the winning trades to turn into losers.

    Thanks for your help,

    LL
     
    #22     Apr 10, 2008
  3. After 2 losing days I am happy to report that I managed to finish (slightly) in the green today.

    Trade 1: +16
    Trade 2: - 8
    Trade 3: - 4
    Trade 4: +12
    Trade 5: - 4
    Trade 6: + 6
    Trade 7: -10
    Trade 8: +4


    Today: + 12
    Week: -44
    Month: -44

    However, I am not at all satisfied with my trading. On a normal day I expect to take between 2 and 5 trades. Today I took 8 because I did not have the patience to stay in a trade. For example the last 4 trades were all shorts during the downtrend at the end of the day. And I still did not manage to profit from it.

    I think today was an easy day to trade (when compared to tuesday for example). There were several nice 50+ point trends. I really should have done better.

    But it will certainly help my confidence to have finished a day in the green again.

    Little Lex
     
    #23     Apr 10, 2008
  4. dubs07

    dubs07

    lil lex...if I may make a suggestion... it seems like all your winners aren't exceeding the 16 point mark. Either you're set ups don't produce a favorable Risk to Reward ratio, (meaning you're risking 15 pts to get 16 pts) or you need to find another set up that tends to produce more explosive moves....

    if you're comfortable with it, I'd like to look at a chart with an example of a trade you took, the entry stop initial target, where you got out and why you enterred & exited the position. If you don't mind sending me some of your trades that is.

    feel free to PM me or email me.


    -dubs
     
    #24     Apr 10, 2008
  5. Sounds good dubs07, I will do that. I might even post some trades on this board.

    It is true that today I did not stay in any profitable trade long enough to let it develop into a 20+ points winner. I suppose the reason is that I simply wanted to close some profitable trades after the last 2 losing days.

    Also as you may have read I had some large profitable trades reversing on monday and wednesday. I just wanted to lock in some profis today.

    But you are right. It is difficult to become a profitable trades if your losers are larger than your winners.

    Little Lex
     
    #25     Apr 10, 2008
  6. bvam1

    bvam1

    #26     Apr 10, 2008
  7. Thanks bvam1, the thread you recommended is really interesting and covers some of the points I am currently struggling with.

    I will take the decision whether or not to continue trading at the end of the month. After this week's poor resuts it may seem that I still have a long way to go before breaking even. However the 2 weeks preceding this one were both profitable. Therefore I am optimistic I can turn things back around.
     
    #27     Apr 11, 2008
  8. Please let me know if anyone is finding the TICK & TRIN indicators helpful. I have been reading about them but unfortunately my platform does not provide the data.

    Maybe somebody can tell me where to find them?
     
    #28     Apr 11, 2008
  9. Trade 1: +4
    Trade 2: +6
    Trade 3: +8
    Trade 4: -9
    Trade 5: +7
    Trade 6: +6
    Trade 7: +6
    Trade 8: -14
    Trade 9: -15

    Day: -1
    Week: -45
    Month: -45

    Again a large number of trades today. I am very disappointed as again I did not manage to stick to my plan. I did not manage to be patient with my winners and lost all of my gains with my last 2 trades.
     
    #29     Apr 11, 2008
  10. dubs07

    dubs07

    The tick and trin can be very powerful market internals, but you have to break down the trin to the updown volume and the advancedecline line to get a good understanding of it....and using them for divergences and confirmation of moves. here is an example of a counter trend trade I took for about 35 pts thursday. (its attached). The blue lines represent the divergences in the the tick...see how YM was movin up and made a new high while the tick was moving down making lower highs...that's a divergence..so I went short on that breakout failure
     
    #30     Apr 11, 2008