I'm making an exception to tomorrow's trading that I can take unlimited trades, although I'm still going to try to keep to 1 per 5 min candle and 2 tries per beginning of a trend. The reason is that there is too much to keep track of with using 5 min and 1 min candles to enter and I need a day to just take the entries I think I see and place stops where I think they should go. Then after tomorrow I can see how it went and go back to following my plan. After looking over today's trades I thought I saw something I hadn't noticed before about the way the 5 minute candles move. I don't want my experimenting with trying a new entry system to be ruined by the fear of getting stopped out.
Demo only. I spent today working on my entry techniques and trying to add a new one. Today had mixed results. What I thought I could use as a new entry technique didn't work as well as I thought it would, but by paying attention to trying to look for it, I did finally get some success using a combination of that and what I usually do. ------------------------------- I would have been down by 36 ticks if I had stopped trading at my usual time of 11:00 CT. From 11:00 CT to 12:28:50 CT I continued to trade and racked up a lot of losses. (Not going to say how large the losses came to.) I didn't read the chart very well then. Expected trending when it ranged, etc. It helped to trade through that time because towards the end of this time period I became aware of how ridiculous it was to take full stop outs on every trade because my targets were too far away for non-trending conditions. At 12:28:52 CT I began to be profitable. The statistics and trade list from that time on never went into losses. For the next 2 hours I made 591 ticks including fees and commissions. Had a 53% win rate and largest winning trade was 92 ticks and largest losing trade was 32 ticks. During this time the first contract was traded aggressively and I often let the 2nd close at BE. There were several trades closed at BE that could have made a lot of profit if I hadn't moved to BE right when taking the first profit. Those were usually taken out by quick retracements to the trend and it seems like they would also make ideal entries if I could learn to recognize the ones that don't keep on retracing but turn around real quick after taking out my BE trade. I have a feeling the success for the last 2 hours was partly due to price action that trended. I would have done better if I had just held onto the trades at the beginning of those trends until the trend signals changed. What seems to be an issue here is that at the beginning of a trend there is more choppiness and it makes it hard to know when a trade should be closed and when it should be held onto through a small drawdown. Overall, I'm happy with today and will go back to trading my plan tomorrow.
I'm stopping early for the day. Made 105 demo ticks with one 2 contract trade. (Drawdown was 1 tick!! I love trades that don't go against me!!!) I guess I'm afraid of losing the pretend $ if I trade more. There's FOMC speakers soon and it looks like a down day to me...and I don't like down days. My statistics say I do just as well with shorting as I do going long, but the moves happen so fast that I feel like I can only get in by jumping into the drop, not stalking the trade and that doesn't feel like trading to me. It feels like gambling. So I will stay out. I'm going to work on analyzing 1 hr charts.
Closed with 6 ticks profit, using 2 contracts. I will be spending time in the next few days going over all the things I could have done better, and there are a lot of them. It's one of those "I don't want to talk about it" days.
As painful as it is to continually make the same mistakes over and over again, to overtrade and to be up a lot, then down a lot, then up a lot, then down a lot more, then decide to stop around BE..... I do think I am improving.....very slowly. I think I do recognize (after the fact) what price has done and I think eventually, maybe 20 years from now, I will only take 3 trades in a day and they will all catch a trend that lasts at least 20 minutes.
Remember, it helps you make progress (and have the proper mindset for trading) if you don't beat yourself up mentally. Note what you did well and identify the areas for improvement without being overly critical. Trading requires self-compassion.
That's a good mindset to focus on. I should really add to my trading plan a plan for how to study areas to improve. It would probably help if I also add to my trading plan how to handle the emotional aspect of trading, especially how I'm feeling after losses. Thanks.
Yes, Yes, Yes! The ability to be resilient and cope with the ups and downs of trading is key to long-term success. Learn to manage your own mental state.
Thought I'd post page 3 of some additions I've made to my trading plan focusing on exactly how I plan to deal with losses and my mental approach when losses happen. If I post it here, does that mean I will be more likely to follow it? I hope so, because if I can follow these rules, the bad habit of revenge trading, which is my biggest issue to overcome, will never again be a problem. Probably much easier to write it out, post it and think about it, than to follow it.
Made 86 demo ticks. Quitting an hour early today because I'm ahead and I don't like trading days that drop as much as today has. Even if it begins to trend up, I'm still feeling too cautious about it and I really don't want to risk the 86 ticks. One thing my trades need work on is the risk and money management. Each contract began with 40 ticks as a stop loss, yet the highest profit I took was only 35 ticks, and the rest of the contracts were closed with under 20 ticks. By moving the 2nd target to BE when the 1st contract was closed, I missed out on larger profits. 2nd contracts after 1st contracts taken needed: #1 10 ticks stop loss to stay in for up to 171 ticks potential #2 2 ticks stop loss to stay in for 99 ticks potential #3 8 ticks stop loss to stay in for 64 ticks potential If I continue to trade as I did today, 2 trades with 2 contracts at a full stop out would be a loss of 80 ticks, which would be bringing me back to Break Even after the 3 trades I took to day. The best option here would be to leave the 2nd trade on with about 20 ticks of a stop loss for at least the next 1 minute candle. Each of the 2nd contracts were closed in the next 1 minute candle. However, this option leaves me with the chance of having a net negative trade after getting the first contract, because the 1st contract doesn't always reach 20 ticks. So, I could weight the contracts differently. By changing to 3 contracts and closing the first 2 contract after the initial push up, I could keep 1 stop loss as around -20 ticks and still end net positive if that trade is taken. The downside to this is that say the first 2 trades close at 20 ticks each, that's 40 ticks made, with 120 ticks risked. Now I'm back to the original problem, of not having a good risk to reward, only the losses are amplified. I guess I'm still stuck on this, but I think if I do make the change to go to 3 contracts, it's a step in the right direction and I'll just have to see how it actually plays out.