Are the numbers the account balances? Am I right to think that your account balance was 50k in June 2007, dropped to 10k in Dec. 2007, rose to 60k in June 2008, rose to 320k in Sep. 2011, and then dropped to 130k in Nov. 2011?
that's right. not very well managed i have to say. the reason the account has so much volatility is because i trade assuming my portfolio is a bigger size which remains in cash but my futures account is where i will be generating the extra alpha, so it includes the risk trades and looks more volatile compared to account size. even with that all said the volatility there is quite appalling too and the reason i've set up this journal is because i want to figure that out via writing my thinking as well as getting good insight from experienced traders out there. cheers
Position update (-3/+3 is max) S&P futs: 0 => +0.5 (entry 1255) I'm reinitiating longs again and will buy dips towards 1240. I hope we see some decent retracement but past experience tells me we might not go so far. Target to the upside will be 1285-90. My stop will be around 1235.
Position update (-3/+3 is max) S&P futs: +0.5 => +1 (entry 1256) Added another 0.5 clip at 1257 putting my avg at 1256. Planning to add +0.5 clips each at 1245-50 levels.
What strategy do you trade? Why do you go long here at a Top(looking at the 5min chart)? Can you describe more you stance when you open a position? for example why you got in, where is you goal and what timeframe you look at. Thanks
Reflection, It is admirable that you are trying to acquire the discipline of keeping a trade journal. This in and of itself is beneficial regardless of the content of the journal. 2 comments 1. I just skimmed your entries. I pick up entry and exit points but there doesnât seem to be any well articulated reasons for why you are picking these points. It doesnât have to be heavy math or anything but there should be some method to your madness. 2. I saw 2 comments that allude to â have you looked at the chart for 50 years or 100 years. Personally I find dated information that goes back this far of very little value. Unless you want to make the assumption that the set of traders generating the market data is the same, the underlying distribution will be different for different time periods. Q
I traded s&p futs in this case - i have a set of determined scenarios which i think could happen and my technical system gave me a signal to add longs back again. It's really a mix of technical and macro related decisions which are discretinary. -3/+3 is not the exact number of contracts i trade but the position i have on compared to what i think my max position is. Max is +3 or -3
Its technical and macro related decisions but most of my daily trading comes from trading breakouts as well as figuring out what technical patterns are likely to happen again in a specific scenario. I believe markets move in cycles and my job is trying to figure out in what kind of cycle we are in and where we are in and have a strategy that is able to take advantage. I only look at 50y 100y graphs for the really big big picture. Not really to pinpoint daily spots but these help me decide what the big picture we are in. In this case i believe we are in a bear market although closer to the end than the beginning.
Position update (-3/+3 is max) S&P futs: +1 (entry 1256) => +2 (entry 1247) S&P futs: +2 (entry 1249) => 0 (exit 1237) Added 1 clip at 1242 but stopped out at 1237 which i thought was important resistance. The mistake here was that i should have had a wider stop? Market low at this point was 1234 and moved back to 1250 so i have the rest of my weekend to figure out what went wrong. Haven't been feeling too good this week with all those big mistakes and bad luck setting my account quite lower.