NoDoji's Day Trading Log

Had a Dr's appt this morning at 0945 est so i missed a good one-way trend day. Yes it was a trend day. I got back after lunch because since i missed the early part of the day i did not try to hurry back. Just decided to wait for afternoon and see what i could salvage.

The daily KEY reversal last week was still valid and considering the mornings action to the down side combined with no clues of a reversal to long i was looking to short. Why not? I did see claims were up before i left and said to myself if the ISM comes in bad, "KATY BAR THE DOOR" Well when i came back i saw the 7 3/4 handle drop bar down and assumed it was a bad ISM, later it looked more like a bad pending home sales # that did the deed. REGARDLESS, they were selling the snot out of the mkt.

From the then low of 1028.25 at 1330 bar up to 1034.75 at 1425 est bar it was only a 6 handle ugly retrace and failed to take out the previous high of 1035.75 at the 1230 bar..........Hoggy was looking to get short OINK!!!!, OINK!!!!

Price at that 1034.75 @1025 est closed and the next bar dropped to 1032x, the next bar only made it up to 1034 and closed a tick off its low. That was my clue to get short at the previous bars low of 1032.x. I went short there and took 6 ticks of heat on the next 2 bars before price dropped to 1029.75 and danced around for a long while even to a 3 tick taking heat again........but i hung in there for what looked like my only trade of the day. Bingo, dropped down to 1027x and i yanked it while price continued to go to the days low 3 more handles. trading is funny because i knew it was still weak but was satisfied after fighting it for so long. Sure enough after the low we bounced back up to 1027, so i felt just fine.

There is no perfection in trading. Just being pretty good is all we need. Newer traders try to anticipate trend changes more often then is called for when they should be looking for the trend to continue. I assure you, it is easier and more rewarding.

Here is a goal for any newer trader after watching ES for a year or more combined with previous trading experience. (I might be a little optimistic here but this exercise in live trtading is a doable worthwhile goal.) Ask yourself if you are capable of doing this in sim and if the answer is yes, go and do it and when you can average the goal per day...............move to live bullets flying trading. This is rather easy to accomplish .

Here is the goal. Narrow your signals down to a couple, not 6 or 7, but maybe 1 to 3, MAX. I realize "it is hard to learn, but it is even harder to unlearn"

Trading 4 handles a day for a goal of JUST 2 handles a day (8 ticks) ( plus a tick to pay for commissions) will net a trader $400 a day, 2 grand a week, 8 grand a month (i assume 20 trading days a month average), Ok, for 12 months thats 96K a year before taxes. 2 handles a day, let me repeat that .... 2 handles a day. Then after that you do the math if you double the cars traded day in day out. (not compounding, ha, just the same each day until you move up more)

Here is the beauty of the exercise..........when you can do that you will be able to average 5 handles + a day. You will laugh at yourself when you consider you once just went for 2 a day. BUT, you need to do that FIRST.

Unlearn what you know and learn LESS for MORE. Just a signal or two.

Have a good weekend. Today was the 1st of Oct and the first frost of the year. ha. I love fall, leaves get beautiful, holidays come in fall and winter. Winter clothes are more fashionable than summer. Nothing like snuggling up in the warm clothes by the fireplace and a good movie and a HOT choclolate.

 

Early on when the market started selling off I looked at the longer term chart and saw that 1027 support zone. Technically, I suspected it would test that level, yet I could not bring myself to trust my knowledge of price action and short for that nice ride down. I contemplated placing a buy order just above that zone, yet was unable to shift gears and realize that if I expected it to test that level, why not short now for the move?

I continue to get stuck in the bias of the previous day's action, such as yesterday's "buy the dip, the PPT said it's all gonna be OK!"

My husband said to me the other day, "You're a perfectionist. You've always been a perfectionist. This is what's holding you back. You're gonna have losing days, but the overall odds are in your favor."

I've been struggling with this for some time now and these are my "make or break" hurdles to leap over: Being able to start each day with a clean slate, and realizing that even if I take only the best setups, some will fail, but the overall result will be positive.

 

Patience, balls, and trade management are developed slowly over time through failures (and successes) in *live* trading.

You have all the tools and at least twice as much knowledge about setups than me or anyone else reading this journal. Knowing another chart pattern will not help you.

Close the simulator. Close the distractions. Trade less and use small size. Stick to stocks that are in play that day.

Regards,
_mad

 

some remedies:

trade a new symbol every day, do not look at daily chart/weekly chart if you are just day trading, just the new symbol. in that way, you know you are dealing with different things. trading the same symbol will easily make you ignore the fact: every day is unique, while trade in past impression or history chart or in stereo-type view.

most time, when we face different things ,our attention will be more focused and we will be more open-minded, we are in the mode of trying hard to know the new things. while face the similar things, we always take it granted, we are in the mode of "I know" status, our mind is lazy...

that is why when people face things the first time people always get the most serious, get the best prepared. the first dating, the first job interview...

 

Well if it makes you feel any better let me say i also have been called a perfectionist. I never paid much attention about others saying that (ex wife) because i considered it just someone barking at me because i was not completly following the path i was supposed to follow in their eays. Then when learning to trade in the beginning i often thought that i was taking to long and putting fourth to much effort and still not making money, something was wrong because i never considered trading rocket science.

Then i was putting together a model airplane that i paid $125 for and i was doing a great job but it was taking me more than 2 to 3 months to paint this part, repaint it, made sure the fits were perfect etc, etc. Yep!!! I sure was a perfectionist. That was my last model plane, ha. It still hangs from the ceiling of this room. I realized it was silly to be so perfect on such a item because once done and more than a few inches away ..............the imperfections i was so fussy about could not be seen anyway. That 2 to 3 months was not 3 months of constant work, just a part here and a part there.

Trading was taking all my time back then and i thought i was trying to hard in that also. I told myself i was not capable to catch every tick and every swing. I was not capable of catching every opportunity in a couple dozen commodities in every time frame. I realized why pit traders stayed in their own pit all day, day in and day out. It was an awakening................i thought about going to sock hops as a teen, i could not win all the chicks, but one of the TOP 5 would be a great night.

The world of trading is overflowing with what looks like easy money, dare i say "like a kid in a candy store" To much candy gives a stomach ache. To many opportunities hinder you in finding our niche. As individual traders we must give up the notion of being a "jack of all trades and master of none"

Go for less but do it as a master of what you do. I fully agree new traders have a hard time to narrow the field down..............but it must be done.

I trade ES, i never do options, i never do stocks anymore, no need to.

New traders might think doing less is retreating. So what. The object is to make money and not to be a perfectionist in an imperfect game of playing the odds. There is no perfection in a game of chance so why not increase your odds by playing what you know even better and stay away from the other tables.
LESS IS MORE!!! Work on that.

Tell your husband you are a one man women and will trade like that also.

 

http://blogs.sdf.unige.it/wordpressMU121/s2904850/files/2008/01/hogzilla.jpg

Boiled White Rice >> Hogzilla

 

good point. less is better.

I would suggest just focus on one strategy, not one symbol.

if you deal with the same symbol day in and day out, you need very good skills in different strategies, that will be hard for a trader to switch around his/her strategies.

particularly a new beginner, better learn to be good at one market (panic market? hype market? range-bound market?...).

I did not trade the general market since I know today it will be a good range-bound day, while I just like to play breakout or morning high buy or morning low short, that will be a disater to me.

I bought AONE at 25 (the morning high), it breakout well, did not close it yet, trailed my stop loss at 26 now. also bought MGM at 11, alreday closed it at 11.44.

ask yourself, what kind of a trader I am first?, a scalper, a fader, a swing trader, a momentum player, a news trader, then answer it, do not try to be all types of trader, that is impossible, just selcet one, and focus on it, you will be the expert at that type

 

+$55 Day

+$120 Week

(Mainly sim all week, only a couple live trade days)

I did not even open the demo account today. I learned as much as I can digest for now with sim and needed to trust myself and trade what I know.

Short ES @ 1019.00 after it crept up from the open and first sold off 1021, then retested and sold off 1022.00 pretty hard. Trailed a tight stop because I got in way too late, too close to the 20 EMA, stopped out for $20.20 when it bounced there. I didn’t reverse to a long because it was barb wire and though technically in an uptrend with the 20 EMA holding I didn’t see it as a high probability trade. It did end up having a small breakout.

I then did the same thing again, instead of anticipating and shorting the channel line overshoot, I waited for a selloff and then shorted @ 1022.25 already close to the 20 EMA again and of course got stopped out on the bounce from just below it (where’s the breakdown!) +$45.20

Shorted CL at breakdown of the LOD and scratched at exactly b/e when it bounced from just below. (That’s a double bottom, NoD, it means “go looong”… what a fantastic long, too).

I imagine since I was shorting a gradual uptrend I should’ve simply taken the larger profits at the EMA, but kept expecting a reversal breakdown. If I'd traded 2 cars I would've taken profits at the EMA on at least one, and my day would've been significantly more profitable.

Offered 1022.75 when price pulled back from a lower high, but it was not lifted and I didn’t want to chase it at the 20 EMA. That 20 EMA was holding up like a brick floor. I tried chasing an entry on a pullback from another channel line overshoot and ended up scratching yet again at the 20 EMA +$7.70. Then it commenced to move in my favor. I guess third time’s the charm and I shouldn’t have been so hasty to move my stop on this one, since I had better confirmation of the short trade.

Narrow range went on for a while and I decided to be proactive and offered 1023.25, looking for a slight channel line overshoot to scalp a couple points off of, and it missed my offer by 1 tick! And was indeed good for a 3 pt move to take something out of had it filled.

Had a couple more 1 tick scratch trades by chasing entries instead of anticipating and also because it was a crappy time to trade, basically covered commissions: +$15.40

I decided to wait patiently for a more confirmed trade instead of playing Roulette. It was tough to sit on my hands because I kept wanted to scalp some moves, but I kept thinking of the good advice from Hog, David, Bob, etc. Wait patiently for the best setups. One range scalp that breaks out can wipe out the profits pretty quick.

OK, so ES moves to test that 1024.50 zone for a third time and I know that often signals a breakout so I offer 1025.00 and plan a 3 pt stop above the HOD and it misses me by a couple ticks. I'm dying here between chasing and anticipating! I AM gonna get the hang of this eventually.

Short CL @ 76.37 off a lower high, stop above the HOD, hit for -$34. This trade violated a few rules and I paid the price: In the doldrums always wait for a test of the LOD or HOD before buying or shorting. Place the stop above previous resistance in case the lower high is violated and price tests the high (that would've limited me to a $9 loss on this trade). And in this case don’t short a strong stock in a weak market.

Was out for a while (missed a nice little ES move), then returned and shorted CL and IB went down for quite a while. I was unable to manage the trade, IB phones busy so I was dealing with it in IB chat when the connection finally came back. Decided to swing CL over the weekend because it was basically close to b/e end of day. If this thing gaps against me Monday I will have to procure a priest for an exorcism. :eek:

Have a great weekend all!

 

Its true that the simulator cannot be relied heavily on as a training tool...if you are just starting out and have never executed a trade, then it has it's place. But they have never helped me any more than simply watching the trade setups. Live trading is very different and has to be experienced to over and over again for trading skills to develop. Just trade with as small a size as possible then scale up after a couple months of consistent success.

 

Sim helped me test out a lot strategies for trade management mainly. It helped me confirm that if I trade confidently I should come out net positive.

Today's trading was tricky for me because once the market opened there was not a lot of movement overall; the big move came in pre-market and as tempting as it was to play some of that, I wanted to wait for the open to get a handle on the reaction to the "dip".

I'm pretty good at scalping in a range, but I kept expecting a larger move to the downside and as a result I waited for confirmation instead of anticipating the moves from the outer channel lines, so I was getting in late for the range and ended up with a lot of tiny scalps on the day.

The few I tried anticipating with limit orders in advance missed by a tick or two, which although very frustrating confirmed my ability to read the price action well in these annoying ranges.

I only traded 1 car at a time today because of the chop and overall uncertainty in the action. I think that was the right thing to do.