NoDoji's Day Trading Log

Yes, I will getting a demo futures trading account set up soon, with its own computer and two monitors! If I'm wildly profitable with the demo account for a reasonable period of time, say, a month, I will be sure to smash the computer and monitors to bits at that time to avoid any actual risk

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me a rock solid way to avoid risk when trading the index futures would be to trade only twice a year: one short trade at the top and one long trade at the bottom

 

Hi, ND,

I have been really enjoying your journey here. Thanks a lot. One question for today's action, the market looked weak early, why it reversed? Any comments from you or anyone?

 

Palpably false.

 

Frank, thank you!

Once people realized financial companies weren't going under immediately, a major reason for the selloff into March was removed. Now the talking heads are urging everyone to buy dips because a bottom has formed. So once a "dip" is perceived that allows the crowd to believe they will get a price that's not as high as the last high, they will buy in. Once the previous high is approached we consolidate a bit. Any news that's not as bad as expected provides support for March lows being a true bottom. A lot of fear is removed once people believe that their investment won't go any lower than $X before bouncing up again, so they want in before the big bull run begins. If there suddenly is no significant dip but there is still demand, then previous resistance will be broken and people will buy in until the next resistance level is reached.

So bits of news may come out that incite some selling, or price gains may stall and spur some profit taking, forming a "dip", which entices people to buy on those dips so they get a good price because that bull run could be starting any time and you don't want your favorite stocks to "get away" without you.

Stocks have fallen a long, long way, so these mini-surges off dips will continue until demand at certain resistance levels dries up. At that point we find out how much of the rally was short covering and short term trading vs. real buying for the long term.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!

 

Hello NoDoji

first of all congratulations to you for such a nice journal. i have been following this since a long though registered only today.

i am preparing a system to daytrade stocks and doing it with a very small amount instead of paper trading. i want to keep it as simple and mechanical as possible and as a result of that i am only using 20 SMA and MACD for trend confirmation and high/low for entry/exit.

need your guidance to complete this task.
can you tell me what other things i should keep in mind while doing this? i have been trading for long and lost a lot but that was all my fault as there was no systematic trading and i had not set any perticular rules. but it was too late when i realized that and i had lost big amount.




thanks,,,

 

Thanks Mephistophilis! I agree that keeping it simple is the way to go, and I also believe you can successfully day trade using the 20-period moving average alone, although stochatsics help you confirm overbought/oversold conditions. When a stock price has pulled far from its 20-period MA, it generally indicates a strong pivot point at an overbought or oversold condition and most of the time will move back to meet the moving average where it will either bounce (continuing the existing trend) or break through (indicating a possible reversal).

 

Thanks for your reply m'am
you are absolutely correct. i am using 20 ma for the same purpose. for trend continuation, trend break, pull backs it can be useful.

many times i have seen you carry positions overnight. so whats your experience are they more profitable then daytrades is it safe to carry position overnight on the basis signals that you get on intraday chart?

Hope i am not disturbing flow of your journal......

 

(ET site seemed to be down for a while.)

-$145 (This does not include the $1560 AIPC profit described below)

This was a very bad day, placing me in a very bad space. It was in fact my second worst day ever as a trader, psychologically. Nothing I did was right. The most frustrating thing is to have a day like today despite having very solid skills and instincts, because I seem to be unable to find steady discipline and patience, and the aggressiveness to take ALL my setups.

Although MYGN was at the top of my short list (and did nothing but drop all day from the open with hardly any retracement), I instead offered 36.70 HANS on open, filled. It moved up all day and I held the position, expecting eventual retracement off overbought. This time (unlike the last HOTT and ORLY trades), it’s extremely overbought on the 30-day and I’ve done this very often with HANS very profitably, but after today I have to wonder if this will be “Oops, I did it again.”

My husband and I had a large AIPC position averaged in over the past week. We thought about taking profits a couple times, but I had previously given him a target of 32.00, figuring it would drop through that target likely finding support at 31.00-31.50 range, and we were planning to stick with it. However, this morning we both thought it wise to take profits around the 33.40 area when it was oversold and bounced a bit after a large drop. We netted $1560 in profits with the intention of shorting more on the bounce.

Very sad cautionary tale here about why you patiently watch the price action, or at least take only half your profits at first: There was no bounce. It stalled for a bit, then simply fell off a cliff before finally finding support at 30.30. Left about $12,000 on the table had we simply watched the action when it approached the target, because it crashed right through without hesitation and we would’ve covered on the real bounce off 30.30, likely around 30.70.

Watching FAZ, as it was very solid trading last time I gave it a go. Long FAZ @ 16.74 oversold, SPY/GS overbought, took .20 cent move in about a minute for a $100 gain.

Short ORLY @ 36.11 pull back overbought HOD, stop @ 36.31, hit for an $89 loss. After putting on the trade I saw that SPY was oversold. This was very poor trade confirmation on my part, and I was very angry with myself for letting that slip by me after being so careful lately.

Same setup long FAZ @ 17.10, stop @ 16.80. Moved stop just above b/e, hit for a $20 gain. Trailed way too close for this mover. By leaving my original stop in place and being patient, I would’ve enjoyed a move to well above 18.00.

MFE dropping off hard and becomes highly oversold not too far from the LOD. I am just about to put on the long position @ 34.07 with a stop at 33.87, below the LOD, but I change my mind. It rises to 35.00 without me, never even glancing below my planned entry price.

Short MFE @ 34.93 overbought, SPY overbought, stop @ 35.16, covered @ 34.90, when it did not provide the move I was looking for. Of course my original stop was never hit and it dropped beautifully later in the day.

Long FAZ @ 17.54, same setup as before, stop @ 17.24. It moves up a bit then pulls back to my entry price and I have an overwhelming urge to exit and re-evaluate because I suddenly don’t like the action on GS and SPY, but I remember how exiting early last time cost me $350 in profits, so I leave my stop which is hit for a $150 loss (.04 cents from the bottom no less), proving yet again that past performance is not an indicator of future results, and every trade is a brand new animal.

SBAC short called in chat and when I first watched it I thought the L2 action indicated more buying. But then it pulled back a bit and I figured I’d short it with a tight stop, but no shares available. Since I can read L2 quite well I asked myself, "Why not go long with a tight stop?" It just seemed that a stock so high and overbought on the 30-day and the intraday was a short setup, not a not long, yet the L2 spoke to me, and I didn’t listen. Sure enough it quickly moved up .30 cents from where I had this thought.

About to buy FAZ @ 17.27, same setup as before, only better, but I did not put on the trade because of something a knowledgeable FAZ trader said as I was about to buy, thereby missing a $250 scalp. Big lesson here: Focus, focus, focus.

At this point, it was very late in the day and although FAZ provided another great setup, I was done trading for the day.

I will be looking to exit my old HOTT swing trade that I mismanaged by expectation when it touches the 20-day MA on the daily chart. It left a shooting star, extremely overbought, and a stochastic cross down on the daily. This should signal a move to the 20-day MA. I had hoped this was the last time I terribly mismanaged a trade, but with my HANS expectation trade still on, and my inability to leave my stops in place so my good setups can play out, I have to wonder if I’m capable of being a consistent trader.

 

Not disturbing the flow at all! I consider this journal a teaching tool for myself and anyone else interested in the gritty details of an often difficult job. :eek:

If I see stocks trading hugely overbought near major resistance, I sometimes swing trade to the short side, either via options (such as my current NFLX & SNDA positions), or by building into a position and waiting for partial or full retracement to oversold (as my husband and I did with AIPC over the past week it spent near 52-week highs).

When I trade like this when the stock is truly overextended on the 30-day, the result has been 100% success (so far).

When I trade like this when the stock is in the middle of the stochastic trajectory (CECO, IDCC, my recent ORLY and current HOTT trades come to mind), the result is break even at best or, more often, a significant loss.

 

congrats on the great quarter!!

may i ask why would you want to try trading futures while you've been doing fine with stocks?

i'm asking this because i'm trading futures and trying to look at stocks