Yet another Journal. I'm pretty new to trading and I'll be using this thread to get my strategy and thoughts out there in the open. This will allow me to analyse my actions with complete honesty, and maybe others will post thoughts or advice. For now I'm keeping my trading strategy simple and just look to trade with the trend. It's influenced by my sportsbetting experience, early thoughts on trading as well as anek's and jjrvat's threads (as those strategies seemed similar to my own thoughts, and "clicked" with me). I've been a little frustrated over the last few days as I've lost quite a bit, and completely due to errors. One was as simple accidently selling instead of buying, while others were from not analysing properly or deviating from the strategy. Errors are a part of trading, but I've been making far too many. The first change I made today was to increase the timeframe (from 30 ticks for the ES to 100 ticks). I felt I got faked out a little easily so I'm slowing things down. I'll be posting a daily summary & chart, and hope fully get some feedback on where I can improve, whether I'm on the right track and if I just don't get it.
Nothing much today. Below is a 3000 volume bars for the ES, and looking back it doesn't seem to have been a day that would suit my trading style, and I didn't really try to trade it. I took a short at the red vertical line at 778.25 and was stopped out 779.5 (swing high wicked to 779.25). Looking back it seems okay, I was using a tick chart at that time (to smoothen out my data early on). The short would have been based off the trend from pre-market. I took a long at the green vertical line at 780 and was stopped out at 779.25 (stop was moved up slightly). Too early, no trend yet and I don't think I should have taken it. I would probably would have taken a short at the orange vertical line and stopped out at B/E. I thought taking a short at the second orange vertical line might be decent, as it seemed more likely to drop to/near the pivot for a point or so profit. I didn't make the trade though, I'd prefer more experience before messing with PPs. Loss of 2 points on the day.
A bunch of early trades - I think this morning highlights to me that some days will be far more productive than others. First trade I got in at 784.25, which I feel was a couple of ticks too late. Usually I like to move my stop to B/E reasonably quickly, but here I decided to give it full room to move. Unfortunately stopped out at 781.75. Second trade, in at 786.5 and out at 788. Third trade, in at 787.75 and out at 788.5. Fourth, in at 787.75 and out at 789.25. Fifth, in at 788.75 and stopped out at 787.25. Doesn't seem a coincidence that I was stopped out just 1 tick below the low, only to see the market bounce back up to a new high. Half a point down. I'll take that last loss, but the earlier one shouldn't have been that large, but other than that I feel okay about the trades. We're playing around R2 now, so I'll leave it.
Good luck to you in this journal. One note: I have traded similar to this way (trend retracement trading), and found that in order to be profitable in the long run you have to sit on those trades. Move the stops up to under the swing lows, and you would still be in 3 of those trades at the high on your chart there.
Thanks. If I understand you correctly, you're basically saying I should have ridden the second trade maybe as high as S2? That makes perfect sense looking back at it (the trend is still there), as the trend hadn't finished, and if it was to continue I'd only be getting back in anyway. I'm just worried about how inconsistent that would be compared to just trying to capture smaller profits. I'll give it a go, or at least keep track of it.
Yes, the second and possibly 3rd trade would still be in at 793. It's not the easiest way to trade, and you do have an argument for smaller more consistent profits. I traded this way on the ER2 a few years ago, which would have monster moves now and then. I also held overnight, where it would sometimes continue further into the next day. So I got many small losers, but some gigantic winners, your typical trend trading approach. It may be more difficult trading that way on the ES though, which has more backfilling...can't say for sure, since I don't follow the ES. It will be interesting to see your hit rate, hopefully you can make a good case for smaller more consistent winners.
It's definitely worth considering. The problem with requiring consistency is that I'm trying to make a living trading, and I need to be profitable quickly. It's an unreasonable situation I'm putting myself in, forcing myself to not only become a profitable trader within a month or two, but also requiring me to not run poorly. But, this is the only chance I'll have for quite a long time, so I'm taking it.
A couple of shorts (white arrows). Stop moved up more aggressively on the first since the overall move is slight. Second is given room since it "breaks". Think this also solves whether I let trades run. The more they move or the stronger the trend, the more room I'll give.
Four shorts and a long (top left of box is the opening for shorts, top right opening for long, the opposite corner for each is the close). All profitable. No riding the position until the break of trend as the retracements are large, and I'd prefer to get out and jump back in.
Agh. Two trades stop me out only to reverse exactly at my stop. Green verticals were longs, purple lines were the stops. First one I leave one tick below the low, get stopped out. Maybe 1 tick wasn't enough, so in the second trade I leave it two ticks below the low, but again it reverses exactly at my stop. Kind of amusing, but a little frustrating. It's even worse when I'd usually quickly move it to breakeven if it goes more than a point above my entry, but in the second case I didn't do that (and it didn't move far enough in the first).