Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

Matcha, start thinking in terms of profit targets. Protective stops are easy: You put on the trade and place a stop where price would invalidate the setup.

You're positioned and your stop is in.

NOW...no more thinking about anything except where you will initially expect to take a minimum profit. The setup and your entry on this trade were fantastic. Your initial target zone should be a test of that previous resistance level. The ONLY reason to exit sooner is if a valid reversal setup appears AND is confirmed.

Remember, the appearance of a potential reversal setup that doesn't actually trigger a confirmed reversal is likely to become a trap. The place where you exited is where nervous scalpers exit, and early, cheating shorts (who don't wait for confirmation) are trapped. When price resumes its run, they're the ones asking themselves, "WTF is it doing THAT for?" then posting on ET how the market is out to get you and day trading is a losing proposition

Trust your targets

 

lol. Thank you, Nodoji.

Will learn to trust the set up from entry to exit.

I acutally thought of you today at 10:35. I thought "this would be nodoji's setup for short below the 10:35 bear bar, Fade the range play. failed break out."

Then 11:00, I thought this would be Nodoji's fade breakdown play too. buy lower channel.

 

Just in case you think NoDoji is the perfect trader, taking every setup when triggered, then managing each trade with precision, I offer you some comic relief from the other day:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3114760

 

Hi Matcha,

Same here. I need more practice to help me with the staying power of a winning trade. Today, I was in a long trade and got out way too early missing a big part of the run.

Took only 1 Long trade, net 2.25 ES pts.

Good trading to you!

--po

 

I begin to appreciate days like today. Great opportunity to learn from all the losing trades.

Took the first trade on Jun contract, then switched back to March since the volume on Jun contract is less than March.

Trade 1: short, 7:04, L1 short. Large gap down and strong bear leg. Short below the bull reversal bar. A bit late in the trade. Didn’t take the initial profit at 28Pts since the momentum is strong. I want to hold for one retrace. The trailing stop is bad. I trailed bar by bar instead of trailing at swing low/high. Stopped out for a loss. -7pt

Trade 2: 8:30. 2 leg pullback short+ a Failed BO. I still didn’t read the signal bar right. Shorted below Doji that turned to be a break out pullback long. -15Pt

Trade 3: 9:20. short Wedge pullback short. Took the scalper’s profit since I realized the trade was a bad one. I shorted again below the tight trading range. So I hit and run. Not a good setup. +10Pts

Trade 4&5: 11:22. Failed channel breakout long. H2 long. The follow through bars are bear reversal bars. So I took the trade the out and reversed to short. Stopped out on both trades. In hindsight, I was trapped again by the tight trading range. To reverse short is a bit too soon here since the entire bear signal bars are inside of the 11:20 bull bars. total loss -20tk

Max out the daily loss limit. I SOH.

Overall, I think today is not easy for me to trade. Even in hindsight. The easiest trade will only be a L1 short at the open. L2 short @11:45. And the marginable 2 leg pullback buy setup at 9:30 with the signal bar being an inside bar though.

PnL:-32Pts, 5 trades.

 

Hi Matcha,

Today's chart has a bit of everything. You are right that it gave great opportunities to learn.

I have a bit of a struggle today for most of my exits allowing profits to slip by me trying to "let profits run". I still have a lot to practice on using trailing stops. I heard trailing bar by bar isn't a bad thing if the trend is strong on a run away market.

Today, I overtraded - a couple of trades more than you did. Mostly during the upward channel between 7:30 to 9 am p.t. Net +2.25 ES pts. I was tempted to go short at around 10:30am at the break down of the previous low that formed at around 9:30. It was a good run with a quick trip and a great measured move from top to bottom right in the middle. But, I stayed with my plan to try catching with-trend trades after a "pullback". I don't usually do good in B. O. trades.

Wow! I just saw the market dropped 10 ES points in the after hour trading while typing this post. And it bounced back 5 pts within the next couple of minutes. Friday will be an interesting day.

All the best to you!

--po

 

Have been dealing with the platform problem most of the day. Will reload TS and updates later today.

Trade 1: 6:46. First trade is a pure bad chase trade. An impulsive one. Buy at the top of the bear channel. Wrong market context to take the setup. Got out of it when I realize it’s a bad mistake. -8tck

Trade 2: 7:28. Short L/H. Triangle top, Low 2 short. 2nd attempt failed to break out. Set target at the other end of the triangle. Price bounced back. Took the trade out when see a big bull reversal bar.

Trade 3: 10:27. Classic H2 long. The trailing stop is too tight. After being stopped out, I couldn’t find an entry to “just get in with the trend”. Needs more work on “holding”.

PnL: -14pts. 3 trades

Weekly: +24Pts, $79
Winrate: 50%
# of trades per day: 3
Largest winning position: 24pts
Largest losing position: -15pts

Have a great weekend!

 

I feel like shorts are more difficult to hold than longs unless you were in a breaking down hard run early with no retrace. I tend to "shake out" more often by the large up/downs moves as bars forming. More and more experience will help us stay with the trade.

I also find that it will be better for me now to catch 20Pts in the AM then call it a day. In the past 4 weeks, most of the good trades were made in the AM, especially at the open. Since now I am still in sim, I tried to trade full session as practice. but in live, this will be what I am planing to do.

 

Matcha,

Look at your chart again, I feel we new traders just like to trade in the trading range, and I did a lot of this kind of trades before, but in the past week, I gradually learned to trade trend and hold trading range, all this learned from NoDoji - 1. Stop order is fixed, do not move to break even unless has reasonable profit; 2. Firmly believe your target. Today, I bought at 8:34 once broke the morning triangle, and my target is 12000, because this is a big support/resistance level, second, yesterday's lower high is around this number. Around 9:30, market began to pull back, and my profit start to evaporate, and I thought of NoDoji, and I move my stop to b/e, and hold the entire order to 12000.

 

Very cool! keep it up!