Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

Discussion in 'Journals' started by Matcha, May 13, 2010.

  1. Thank you Matcha. I will try my best to stay disciplined. :p :p --po
     
    #1201     Dec 7, 2010
  2. Matcha

    Matcha

    Took 2 trades today. Easy and nice. Listened to WentFishing’s advice that to take the most “available profit”. Small trades but no stress and “no brainer”. I took immediately profit at the first target no more expectation. Done for the day and week.

    Wouldn’t be nice that I can repeat the process everyday and got all the work done by 9:19am and go have a nice breakfast looking at all sleepy heads commuting to work? I sure hope that! Just need to recognize when market behavior nicely and generously, so I can get “Stuffs” from her. There is still a lot of work to do ahead…

    Btw, I just accomplished 2000 hour studying trading as of today… 8000 hour more to go.

    1. Short. 7:19am, failed H2 at EMA, Breakout Pullback of the bull leg. +21Pts
    2. Long: 8:45am, H2 long at EMA. This is an interesting example that taking quick profit might work for me. I had my first target at the morning magnetic price area-11368( about 20pt profit). Then price didn’t reach that level after breaking out from EMA, instead it stalled at 11356 area, then formed a tight trading range. I exited here at only 15PTs, although at that point I think price might make another leg up. But the trading range behavior means sellers are not trapped. So there would be a deeper retrace possible. Before today, I would have held the trade and to prove my target was right, if the market retrace too deep, I then was shaken out of the trade…. So I think going forward it might be suitable for me to take some “available” profits and feel very good. But what is considered the “available profit”. It will be a case by case study that I will need to look into.

    Today’s PnL: $175, 2 trades
    Weekly.
    PnL:$170
    # of trades per day: 2
    Winrate: 83%

    I am leaving for my trip tomorrow morning. I won’t be back until early Jan. I will post trades if I made any in next 2 weeks while in HongKong. Mostly will be morning trades.

    Have a great holiday, everyone! I wish everyone all the best! Thank you all, my ET friends. It was a great pleasure taking to you all here in 2010. I learned a lot more from all the advice from this journal than any book I have read!

    Big and pink THANKUand XOXOXOXO! Don't miss me much, ok?:p

    [​IMG]
     
    #1202     Dec 8, 2010
  3. jokepie

    jokepie

    NJoy your trip and relax....!!
     
    #1203     Dec 8, 2010
  4. Hi Matcha,

    BON VOYAGE !!!!!

    Wishing you a wonderful trip! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !!!!!

    You did great today. More great trades to come your way. Congrats on reaching your 2000 hours of study.

    And thank you to you for your excellent trading journal.

    --po
     
    #1204     Dec 8, 2010
  5. ~~~

    ~~~

    Hi PO .. Happy New Year 2011 .. All the Best to You ! :D :D

    New Year .. New Hope and New Dreams ... the rabbit~year is going to be more gentle and soft :D :D hey brother .. i know you like disney cartoon ... here's a cute cartoon to you.:p can apply it on the trading skills too :D :D :D haha !!!


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMU8TLaX_jw
     
    #1205     Jan 10, 2011
  6. Hi Sis ~~~,

    Happy New Year to you too! May the Year of the Rabbit brings you joy and prosperity.

    Thank you very much for the very cute Disney cartoon. I loved it.

    :) You and Matcha are the Mulans of the Trading World! :)

    --po
     
    #1206     Jan 10, 2011
  7. Matcha

    Matcha

    Back to my journal today in the New Year~! Happy new year everyone!

    Its nice to take a month off from trading- a great time to review all the records in the past year and step back re-evaluate the strategies. There are a few changes in my trading plan in 2011 based on the performance in 2010.

    1. Narrowing down my set ups to only one that profitable and generating higher winrate. - I have been trying too many setups in the past. Trying to play all the setups I learned killed the overall PnL and winrate. I finally realized that I should focus only the one setup(not 2, not 3) to trade it well. Then slowly work on more or none. That means I am going to SOH most of the time….
    It took me almost one year and one vacation to realize that my goal here is really to master one setup at a time, trading it well to make profit rather than trading a lot of setups to prove that I learned so much and was capable of doing all!
    2. Always no hesitation to take profit at 15pts to 20pts profit or pivot high/low for a 10 pts scalp. Unless the trend is extremely strong. OK to hold longer.
    3. Only allowing one pullback to come back against the direction of the move when in the trade.
    4. Try to get a highwin rate at more than 65% to trade one contract
    5. Trying to get all the trades in morning trading sessions
    6. Daily target is still avg $100/20Pts, OK to take the day off after reaching daily goal
    7. Although I have the money goals, I will only take the trade when set up is valid.

    “THE” setup I am focusing on now.
    Pullback in a trend.-H1/L1, H2/L2
    Take all 2 leg PB @ EMA setups, be ready to reverse if pattern failed
    First PB in the trend, H/L, L/H after a Bottoming pattern or a sharp bull/bear run.
    All the trades signals will be analyzed in conjunction with market context.


    As far as my study process goes.
    1. Analyzing all the trades after market. Make all notations on 5 min charts everyday(Bar by Bar).
    2. Working on 500 Chart analysis projects.

    In general, I am going back to the very basic, trade small but painless. Study hard but trade smart. Let’s see how I do to achieve that!

    Today’s trades.

    Took 3 trades today.
    #1: Short, a little late to enter, but the momentum was strong. Took 20Points proft which is exactly at the 11520 major support level on 60 min chart
    #2: short 2 leg PB. A little late the get in again. Then 3 doji bars in a row shows no follow through. Tried to get out at -4pt then reassess.
    #3: Long. H2 long at EMA and failed Low2 short. This trade played out well. Exit a bit too soon. +17 Pts

    Today’s PnL:
    $157.80, 3 trades, 67%winrate
    [​IMG]
     
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    #1207     Jan 10, 2011
  8. Hi Matcha,

    WELCOME back! And you did great on your 1st trading journal for the new year.

    I really like your new 2011 trading plan, particularly:

    - "goal here is really to master one setup at a time, trading it well to make profit"
    - "focus only the one setup(not 2, not 3) to trade it well. .... That means I am going to SOH most of the time…. "
    - "Always no hesitation to take profit at 15pts to 20pts profit or pivot high/low for a 10 pts scalp."
    - "going back to the very basic, trade small but painless."

    Go for it, Matcha, 2011 is going to be your year!

    --po
     
    #1208     Jan 10, 2011
  9. Nice job! I also trade the Dow e-minis. Took a month off also. Will try to get back into the groove.

    I like your goals. I have a few setups and may also try to focus on just one. I didn't trade yty but saw the chart. I saw trade 2 and would have taken it also if was not busy. Nice call on trade 3, but not a fan of your first trade but heck it made money so who am I to judge :) There was a nice setup late in the day too off the spring.

    Best of luck in 2011 to all of us!!!
     
    #1209     Jan 11, 2011
  10. Matcha

    Matcha

    Today is a big challenging. All the trades are only worth scalping….

    #1: long, 2 leg pullback; BO PB from bear leg, The PA isn’t the cleanest, a lot of over lapping bars, but still worth the risk to play on the long side. Had a 20Pt stop in place, price broke out nicely but retraced after taking out the HOD. Stop Out at

    #2, H2 Long, stopped out -9Pt

    #3, H2 long reenter. Since the PA now is very much in a range, I would take a scalp profit then run, no to expect any break out to happen, But missed target by 2 tick then stopped out by the large sell off bar. However thanks to my tight stop. -1Pt

    10:40 market set up a Low2 short, since the signal bar isn’t very strong. I hesitated whether I should take the trade. But too late, market sold off… Then I went in for a break down short.

    #4. 1 min Micro trend pullback. Momentum play. I had the target at 10580, it missed the target by 2 tick again then came back hit the stop. -8pt

    Now I know I got stop trading for the day…

    PnL: -$85, 4 trades, 25%winrate[​IMG]
     
    #1210     Jan 11, 2011