NoDoji's Day Trading Log

A couple other great quotes from sports superstars and others.

Football: "When it's game time, it's pain time baby"

Systems: Do not capture psychology

Allow yourself to be around people that are "ALIVE".

Value of money: The amount is not the value of money, the value is in how you acquired the money.

Be a master of simplicity.

Football: Offense, don't put pressure on yourself. You have to throw passes under pressure. Do not keep the ball longer than needed to get hit.
Defense: The defense puts pressure on the QB to force him to make mistakes. Putting pressure on the qb is better than a sack.

Bill Simon talking to his traders on the bond floor at big bond trader. "Don't try to get intellectual in the mkts" Just trade!!! or else you guys will be truck drivers.

Serana Williams: yelling at a line judge that called a foot fault on her. "if you call another fucking foot fault, i will take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat"

Eddie Rickenbacker ace fighter pilot: There is no courage until you do it. Courage is doing what you are afraid to do.

Screen trading: "Thou shall not bear "false witness"

To be in the now you need to clean out the "attic" within your head.

one more ha

Tennis: John McEnroe: it doesn't matter if you win or lose, until you lose.

I like tidbits

 

my confession is: forget about holy grail search, stick with what I know. wall street has no secret. when I lost a trade on a breakout of morning high, my wife will suggest to me: I should buy in the dip, or at least buy when it starts to turn. I said to her, trading is an odd's game, I do not need modify or optimize it. the next day, I play it again the same strategy, it works perfectly, if I modified it for optimization results, it backfireed either miss the trade or get a loser. of course, I know what my odd is, just like a casicio owner, he knows his casino odd, he does not care someone takes out some small winners, or in order to avoid someon's small winnings to modify his system.

my suggestion, know only one which fits you. that is enough. since no matter whatever methods you use, the truth is odd's game. that means you can not reach 100%accuracy. the things you need mind is the advantages and the disadvantages of the method, is it statistically sound or profitable, and the most important is "does it fit you?"

when I join this trading society, I was a software engineer. before I first land a job, I saw some companies need C++ or my my classmate landed C++ job, then I spent lots of time to study C++, ....I switched back and forth from C++, to Java, to .net, to .asp, to oracle... I keep updating my resume to reflect my strentgh.. the results is I got nothing! then I said myself, I just focus on C++, I will pay no attention to others, after several trials, I landed my first job in c++, late I most work on that, I found what the heck with Java, C++ can sold the same problem as Java, why I need pay too much things ...

trading is same ....

 

+ $160

Although it was nice to see ANF cut to sell this morning (yeah, that 70 P/E seemed bit excessive to me, too), I figured that was just secret Wall Street code for “Blue Horseshoe LOVES Abercrombie & Fitch”, so I trailed a fairly close stop on the open, hit on a quick pivot off oversold for +$136.

Thought about shorting it again @ 37.28 after it pulled back from 37.45 HOD, but it had not yet met my criteria for a short and was quite strong considering a “sell” downgrade, so I waited. It made new highs and I was so proud of my patience in waiting for a setup that fully met my criteria. Big step for me today!

ES was a mess near the open so I waited patiently there too.

Interestingly at the very moment I had that thought ("ES is a mess here"), it left a spinning top doji below the lower channel line, which turned out in retrospect to be THE long entry point of the day. The bar preceding it was so bearish though I chose not to take a position. I guess this adds credence to the saying, “Buy when everyone’s selling.” I missed the confirmed long entry a little while later as well because I still don’t have it clear in my mind how the setups look when they’re in progress. It’s so easy to see after the fact.

Scalped $14 off ANF on a breakdown from the HOD through previous support. This would’ve been a much more profitable trade had I simply shorted the f/u candle off the HOD, but I was distracted watching ES and CSIQ as well and missed the optimal entry point.

CSIQ really had me in a quandry as to whether to go long or short, which told me “move on for now”.

Later, I shorted CSIQ @ 16.59 break through 10-period EMA off overbought lower high, and stalled against a rising market; tight stop because the setup missed one of my criteria, and the daily chart left room to move. I figured I had a good chance of a scalp to the 20-period EMA and possibly catch a reversal back to test lows. It did pull back a bit near the 20, then the quickly found support, stop hit for -$16. It was choppy in a range after that and I avoided it. (Take only the BEST setups.)

Short ANF @ 37.43, lower highs beneath the now-falling EMA’s. Normally I would not enter here, because it was “oversold”, but other factors conspired to entice me and I trailed a tight stop, hit for +$6.

Short ANF @ 37.57, pullback from overbought, still a lower high on the day, covered @ 37.40 oversold for +$30.

Short ANF @ 37.39, overbought lower high, covered @ 37.43 for -$10 when it remained in strong narrow range consolidation while the overall market pulled back. Solid decision.

I was patient today, maybe a little too patient because I missed a couple nice trades expecting stronger setups on X and FMCN. I also regret not catching the confirmed long entry on ES early in the day. Experience should help me see these more clearly at the hard right edge.

 

Nod

Do you do printouts of ES after the close? If not you should. I just read your last post and was a little confused what a "double, topped,spinning tripled finger fateful bar was. Just kidding!!!

I went back to the pc and changed the chart type to candlestick and did a look at what you were looking at. In reality, a bar chart and a cdl chart are really the same. Here is what i saw...... not saying i traded just like i am reviewing. ( i missed the breakout myself because was busy and on onother computer with insurance company)


Let me look at that chart with colors now.

The mkt started out whippy, 0930 est , i start my day. Took ORB Long and scratched it for a tick profit. Went short at 1085.00 looking for a lower price below the 0930 bar low of 1084.75, took a single handle at 1084.00 (I call whole numbers handles and i think you call them points, should be handles) after price came back above the -6 line at 1083.50. Then that low bar in candleland speak looked like a doji that closed in the middle. The next bar was GREEN and closed near the top. That in my world is a 2 BAR REVERSAL bar = it was NOT lower then the LOW bar and closed near its top. That was the mkt telling us the low was in for now and any LONG taken would need to have a lunch point a tick at or below the so called noji bar at 0955, Follow?

I have a filter for 2 bar reversal signals because they USUALLY play grab ass with price for a couple, few bars before taking off, if at all...............keep in mind you are thinking LONG now because you have a low doji followed by a green bar warning you the industry is thinking LONG.

Ok, after the green bar at 1000 est price indeed danced around for 3 bars but did not threaten the green bar. A 1015est, you saw a red bar that proved a headfake to sucker in some SHORTS after the 2 previous almost doji bars showed a double top. The following GREEN bar was all she wrote for the shorts. ( I missed it ) But that is how you watch for early reversals. INDIVIDUAL bars are talking to you.........listen to them and you will be rewarded. New traders focus to much on the immediate price and fail to read what is setting up. In reality, unless news driven like reports or DaRock Obama punching out some republican mkts do not make a big move from individual bars.............it takes a few bars to setup a good move. Follow?

I can read the intentions of the ES pretty darn good early in the day............afternoons are different, more convoluted and messy. Look what happened after todays initial "RUN. Trading looked like a childrens playground at recess in pre-school.

Hope this helps. Pay attention to individual bars and listen to their music.

I will be more focused myself tomorrow. I hate missing initial runs of the day, bitched to insurance company for over charging me.

PS: A lesson learned from my first commodity trade over the phone in about 1974 or 1975. I was still working then delivering Jays Potato chips downtown Chicago BLdgs and grocery stores. I went short on 5 cars of Wheat because W was in the dumps for a long time. Now i know price was basing, I had a 5 cent STOP in. I checked price and wheat was up about 7 cents. broker said: You were STOPPED out on the low. Well that was debatable but i just said ok.

The lesson learned was price has a way of snapping in the opposit way before it makes a good move..........they shake out the weak hands and then do the deed. I firmly still believe that. Look at the previous
RED bar today at 1015 just before the BIG green bar. You be the judge.

 

I attached a piece of the ES 5 min chart showing what I saw early on and describing how I missed confirmation of the possible long signal (doji well below the lower Keltner).

IB's charting doesn't allow me to display a 1 day chart after the market closes so I had to extract a piece of a 2-day chart. So I apologize for it being ugly and hard to read. (I have QuoteTracker but it's on another PC and I'm too lazy to mess with it from there.)

 

IB slider bars now work pretty well for adjusting/viewing chart time frames. Did this one starting with the two day time frame then sliding a bit. I use Ninja but for laptop trading days I found the sliders in TWS actually handy. I never thought I'd say anything positive about IB's charts. Sorry if this is already well known, it wasn't to me.

 

if I were you, I would put a stop buy around 1087.5 or a stop sell at 1082.5, then left the market a while to see how it does.

 

Nod, that is something you can work on. Never think of the mkt as "messy". What you observe might not be tradable at the moment but it is still giving you clues for your mission. Your mission is to anticipate. When you flipped to stocks you lost focus and missed the final confirmation bar because you did not see it coming.

View that as a mistake, you were not distracted, you simply took your eye off the ball.

Try to look back a couple bars next time and put yourself in a really big dogs shoes and look ahead at the same time to visualize what he/she will want to happen. You will amaze yourself after doing this process over and over, day in day out as it will demystify the technicals of the mkt.

Read bars in combinations, individual women have minds of their own but big traders act as a group.

The ARMY had ads on TV about "an Army of One" that was total BS, in the military it is about discipline, you are a part of a unit or you get shot. Trading requires more discipline than any soldier.

Read the mkt as a destination roadmap, know your destination. No one drives to Toledo, Ohio unless they are lost and were not focused on the map.

 

100% focus is easier said than done Hog. Agree?.

 

I am so ADD. I keep thinking sleepy markets will last longer than they do and then I miss my entries and setups a lot.

Anyhow, +$79 today on very limited trading, pretty much only the early morning.

GAP was top of my short list for the open. I was actually tempted to short in pre-market above 10.00, but the irrationality of the market combined with high short interest convinced me to wait for the players to react to the gap down. There was a minor bounce on the open and I offered 9.97, which was missed by not a whole lot, and I didn’t chase entry, thereby missing a very nice move.

Short ANF @ 37.23 breakdown of the LOD, covered @ 36.90 oversold, a penny from the bottom of the move +$64.

Short ES @ 1088.50 on breakdown through the LOD, trailed a 1 pt stop because of how far below the lower channel line it was, hit for +$7.70. ES choppy and indecisive at that point and I was away from my desk for quite a while, and as a result was not there for the confirmed short entry @ 1090.50 when price pushed again below the now falling EMA, leaving a second shooting star behind right around 11:30 a.m.

Short ANF @ 36.97 after a failed rally off lows left behind a lower high; stopped out +$4 when the break down through the 20-period EMA failed to carry through with momentum and price reversed instead.

Although there was a decent 2-3 pt range in the ES throughout the afternoon, I chose not to trade it either direction because I’ve found that when I trade after the first 2 hours of the day, it’s usually chop, churn and scratch.

And to prove that point, I shorted GAP @ 9.67 as it was falling nicely after a small end of day bounce, but only 100 shares lifted out of 500 offered, and then when I put in a stop near b/e it suddenly spiked and took me out for +$3.