Made 125 ticks today. Made 372 ticks for the week... The profits this week came from 2 days where I broke my rule to take more trades than allowed. I'm still trying to find what I'm comfortable with as a trader. I don't want to overtrade, yet what I really like is to get in and out quickly around price movement, and hopefully find where it moves in my favor without retracing. And Trading the Open is very different from how I trade other times. When looking for the start of a trend I trade differently than when it's already trending. I do think it's important to have rules and a plan, or else I notice I trade by feelings, and that, for sure, never goes well. So, I think I'll change my plan again. Some of it is because of the frustration I faced this week that often times there are really only 1 or 2 good places price starts trending each day, and sometimes those are still difficult to read. The textbook perfect trade entries don't happen often every day on the NQ....at least not the way I've been looking for them. So, I'm thinking of making some guidelines based on the 3 types of trades I want to take: trading the Open, finding the possible beginning of a trend, and scalping. And to be able to trade each of those, I need more than 3 trades a day. The 3 trades a day was to limit overtrading and to work on finding trends....but I've given up on strictly trend trading. I will try to be consistently profitable using trend trading AND scalping AND trading the open. I partly finished my personal journal. I took 7 trades today and It's hard to write up so much on all 7. I do like the idea of keeping track of each trade, but it's designed for just a few trend trades and I'll need to add scalping and the Open to it. Also, I might try going to 2 contracts again. This week's trade list:
Today is my 4th profitable day in a row, so as soon as I finish the trading psychology assignments I gave myself, after losing self-control in my live account, I can trade live again. It took from December 16 to Friday January 8, to finally get 3 profitable days in a row...not really very promising statistics for live trading. I didn't add scalping trades or trading the open to the spreadsheet yet because I had a busy weekend. So, I'm just posting a chart and trade list like I used to do. Took only one trade on the NQ today and it was a scalp. I really like this trade. Aside from the fact that I really wish I was better at trend trading, scalping seems easier and it's a little more relaxing...well, it is when price goes in the right direction right away.
This turned out to be just a practice day. I still didn't work on having guidelines written out for scalping trades and trading the open and so without having strict rules in place, I just worked on trying to refine getting accurate entries, which meant a lot of trades taken. The reason behind it is that I often will get a trade that goes really far with just a very small drawdown (maximum open loss)...for example, yesterday's trade barely retraced before moving into profits. So, my thinking was that rather than have a stop loss of between 50 and 100 ticks, maybe I should have lots of chances (trades) with very tight stop losses... I tried to base the stop losses on structure, not a set amount. The largest stop out of the entire day was 27 ticks, and most were far less. This isn't a new way to think about it, it's just that every time I try tiny stop losses and multiple trades, I generally lose overall and overtrade (meaning taking too many entries that aren't carefully thought through.) Towards the end of the trading day I had racked up a lot of losses because I hadn't taken any profits, I'd only moved to BE + (the largest BE+ was 9 ticks) and the times I'd had losses overwhelmed the small amount of ticks I made through BE trades. I didn't take profits because I kept expecting it to drop a lot, and it wouldn't...and when it did, I'd given up on getting it to drop. Anyhow, I eventually went to practicing with 2 contracts, which I've done before, but it's been a while. That made a big difference because the first contract usually made something. Only, I was generally keeping the 2nd stop loss at it's original placement, not moving to BE right away, so that only slowly helped recover some of the losses. Finally I tried moving to BE on the 2nd contract a little sooner, or sometimes right away and with the last 3 trades moved quickly into profits for the day....although not much, only 59 ticks. So, this was just a practice day...I don't plan on working on the technique of entering and capturing profits by taking a lot of trades very often, but I think it was worth it to be sure that going back to using 2 contracts is definitely what I want to use from now on. Here is a list of the last 3 trades from today showing how using 2 contracts helped capture profits:
Got the idea of tracking and rewarding good behavior from the psychology stuff I'm going through before I can trade live again. I suddenly realized one goal that would be great to work at. I've occasionally thought about doing it but haven't yet, and it's a great goal to help with trading my plan. I won't share the goal or tracking it, because it's too involved in how I trade. Just wanted to share that the psychology stuff is helping to shape the steps I'm taking to become a more consistently profitable trader.
Used 2 contracts and worked on managing them...which meant I took too many trades. I should have done it in a practice account...but I did it in my main demo account and ended up with a lot of losses....and possibly, for the first time ever, a desire to go back to only taking a few trades each day and being very selective with my entries. Nothing like a losing streak to remind me that when I don't follow entry rules and trading signals, my intuition is going to get me into trouble. Oh, and I traded the premarket today...it's been a while since I've traded it. I used 2 contracts and lost there too...for the same reason...was working on how best to manage 2 contracts and wasn't focusing on taking trades accurately. In fact, I think it led to less accuracy because I thought having a target close by would make it more likely to get hit, which would mean I could trade almost anywhere and come out ahead...that definitely did not work. Really wish I could erase today from the trading log...but what would be the point of showing profits in the demo account if I delete the losses? I'll basically be starting over with cumulative profits after today. Well, maybe I can report the profits from before today and after today and make a note next to them that one day is missing due to large losses. Thankfully I haven't been trading live....and thankfully, this was a painful trading day....or else I might think I can enter wherever and whenever I want and do OK when I really can't. I won't be trading with 2 contracts for a while. I need as few things as possible to have to consider when making a trade...simple is better at this point. The goal I mentioned yesterday I didn't work on today. Pretty sure that will be super helpful once I start using it. I plan to keep my spreadsheet as it is without adding different guidelines for trading the open and scalping. This way the focus is on trading in the right direction, not trading anywhere I think I can grab some ticks. Also, part of the reason I was going to add trading the open and scalping was so that I could take more trades in a day. But I don't want to take a lot of trades anymore. I do plan to change the number of trades allowed per day back to what I used a while ago: 3 losses per day. I can take unlimited profitable trades and breakevens, but I have to stop after 3 losses...which means I need to trade like I only have 3 trades....because if I don't trade each one carefully, it will likely become a losing trade and then I will have only 3 trades for that day.
Note to self: Taking a lot of trades does not lead to consistent profitability. Taking trades that conform to rules that have been proven to work with a high rate of probability does lead to consistent profitability. Think I'll put this on my spreadsheet and a few other places as a reminder to focus on taking the best trades, not a lot of trades.
The premarket was fine. Made 13 ticks, no losses and no large drawdowns while in the trade. Only I didn't hold onto the trades but closed early. The first trade would have ended in a small loss the next 2 trades were right and could have done well if I had just held onto them. The RTH didn't go so well. I'm using 2 contracts again. Took 3 trades and all had full stop outs. First trade got the direction wrong. Next 2 trades were the right direction but the entries were wrong. I spent some time this afternoon working on the appearance of my charts to make them easier to read. Even a small difference in emphasis might make a big difference if it helps to get the direction and timing of the entry right.
I've decided to step away from trading for a short break. At least one week. I have some other things I need to focus on. The premarket didn't go so well. I still think I could get the hang of it with a lot of practice. But all three trades lost. They each had a reasonable stoploss. Actually, it was likely because I didn't wait to be sure before placing each trade. The RTH was better. I happened to get one good trade in. That made all the difference. I started a new rule last night that I have to trade until I have 3 losing trades in a day. That is because I will stop trading when I'm ahead after 1 trade, but keep trading if I keep losing. That favors having losing days. So, after getting the good trade, I did a 30 sl and 30 tp trade. Then I didn't really want to lose, but I needed to be done, so I took a 10 sl and 30 tp trade. That lost. Next time maybe I'll try a 2 tick stop loss size....or just decide not to have that rule. The point was to take more trades in the day. Maybe it should be that I have to keep trading until I've taken 3 trades in a day or 3 losing trades. That's more reasonable.