Hey everyone I have decided to start a journal in order to track my progress and hopefully help me get better faster. I have been trading about a year now and have only lost a little bit of money, mostly from commissions. I just switched to a new broker (IB) and my account will be ready in August. I will begin posting my reads and results. I want to be as transparent as possible so I can get better help from others. I am still trading small until I get consistent. Like 100-300 shares. I am going to be trading Spy and Iwm but mainly the SPY. I like to take about 2-4 trades a day and want to increase my size when I prove consistent. I am hoping that posting my results will help me with my psychology as I get out breakeven or with very small gains way too often on trades that go on for nice runs. I'm hoping to see obvious mistakes like this and get some constructive feedback. Will be starting the posting on August 8.
http://screencast.com/t/fggL7x0gxY Not a good start. I've been so successful in sim lately that I underestimated real money trading in the market. After the 10:35 spike I had a good long entry which ran like 80 cents in my direction. It was 100 shares. So instead of protecting my profit I got greedy and held it as it went against me and then bought more before getting stopped out breaking my rules. The highlighted blue bar is a futures trade I took. I bought above it (2legged pullback from the spike) and planned to get out at ema which I did. Problem was that after the trade I realized I was in sim so I did not get those 14 ticks. I bought the moving average at 12:30 then looking at the russell I saw it was a sell setup below 12:15 bar so I just got out. Should have taken that 12:45 reversal bar. It was a 2 legged breakout test of 11:10 blue bar I thought I bought earlier and a good trade which I thought at the time but just let it go. Left after that.
Traded small size today. 4 trades - all winners. Missed the trend though. Kept thinking the long signals were not good enough but on a trend day the long signals usually don't look that good. My trades were mostly countertrend. Here's my 3 QQQ trades. http://screencast.com/t/S5QUUcWoK Missed move up. 10:55 sell climax, 3 pushes up. Bulls should exit. Also shorted 2nd signal at 11:10 which was even better. Exited for scalp at ema. Later in day at 13:25 took 2nd entry long for a scalp (10 cents) but I realized it was gonna final flag so got out with a few cents profit to see if short would set up. Took the short in the Spyder. Tried to drag my profit target down another 10 cent when I saw how fast it was going but it asked me to confirm and so I got like 25 cents. Here it is: http://screencast.com/t/rrtf81HWL Looked for a long after that spike down but I missed the bull bar at moving average thinking I'd get another entry because of strength down. I need to look to swing more in trend direction, I know.
Breakeven day - here's the trades. Spy - 2 trades http://screencast.com/t/MmUheBbq 1st Russell - 2 trades http://screencast.com/t/29wkWfoc9c Should not have let first trade go against me since down was possibility. 2nd trade I realized I bought the top of a channel so got out with small loss. The 3rd light blue bar I bought larger position in Spy (300shares) and QQQ. Nasdaq - 3 trades http://screencast.com/t/ynjQ2Ux3 Was trying to swing all these trades. decent trades just didn't hold long enough, except the limit one. Missed 1:30 setup, was away. May go back to no limit orders on entry since they dont seem to help me.
http://screencast.com/t/TLItpigM I don't know what was wrong with me today. I wanted to trade nice volume and just did not execute. 1st light blue bar was really anticipating but tail on top of bar so I passed. 11:40 light blue bar I was distracted or something but knew it was going at least to ema. As soon as it triggered I placed a limit order realizing it was a good trade but it ran off without me. Kept looking for a short setup the rest of the day but nothing really materialized. Which tells me I am reading well because the market went up the rest of the day. The only short I was gonna take was at 14:35 above the previous bar on a limit order because it was a microwedge. I pulled my order though because I want to focus on stop entries. I know I need to be taking trades to get better. In the future I will at least put on 100 shares or something if I feel it is a trade I have been waiting for so I can have more of my performance to look at.