hit and then entered again and again, really losing my head this days, don't know what is happening to me, the last one went to +$130 and I closed it at BE, must go now, anyway: number of trades: 12 5 fESX = +$184 7 NQ = -$130 commissions: -$60 TOTAL: -$6 very very disappointed of the big short I missed because of the tight trailing stop, this affected the all day, then I didn't respect anything of my money management rules, once I was up $100 from $184 I should have switched off as of my money management rules... this days I'm very very stressed, happy I have resisted to try and try again now that I gived all back. see you tomorrow.
Remember on exits you will rarely, if ever, get the exact hi or low. You need to learn to accept that. Do not get frustrated with what could have happened. That will only lead to bad trading. I'm still working on exits also. What i'm trying to do now and what i hear top traders are doing is : use targets to choose your exit. Most use areas of S/R. Then when in the trade you can adjust if it looks like it's not going to make it to the target exit early or if market looks strong can adjust target higher. My plan is to eventually trade multiple contracts then exit 1 at my target then the next i'll let run for bigger profits. You also need to try to control your stress. Take a look at this http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219528 Take a look at my journal for today, May 17 and i'll post a chart of how i picked a target for my exit today.
I went short 1 NQ at 2341.75 I had 4 resistances ES-COMPX-NDX-INX and it went to $95 of gain, then I trailied to BE +1 and it took me...
the same mistakes today, I had lots of res on lots of symbols, the NQ was at 2349.50, which is the top for the moment (anyway it didn't give a clear short signal, and it is probably going to break up to find lots of stops) I wanted to anticipate and started to short at 44.54 so I made the same mistake, I'm repeting every single day now, lots of trades with small stops, so now I reached -$200. (max daily loss) so, starting from tomorrow, I will simulate so I can learn to trade my strategy and I can set up precise rules. this is not giving up, as simulating is a very hard decision to take, it took 4 years to remove the bad habit of removing stops, it took 4 years to remove the bad habit of taking profit very soon, it took for years to accept simulation. I started trading this kind of strategy in march, without having clear rules (this is why it is not clear), the account was at $2800, then it went to $5000 in 2 months, as I started to do stupid things it plunged to 3100. I think I have improved a lot anyway, two years ago I would have blown up the account in just a few days. bye for now
-$156,12 (tons of commissions already payed) started 4/27/2011 trading days should be 15 I know that this doesn't mean anything: if I always stopped at my daily loss or better if I would had stop trading each time I said this is my last trade it would be much better.