Shorted at 1271.75 (it should have been at 272.25) target 1268.25 stop ate 1274.75. CCI divergence, overbought, keltner channels as resistance (almost a la NPP no_pm_please). Closed it at 1271. I needed that and all the resistance of this morning is becoming support right now. It is not an ideal trade. That's it for the day, I still have my head spining from last night JW black label. It is not a good idea to trade in this state. I'll be back for the final hour probably. Nice week-end everyone who is reading this. Total: 5.25 pts loss Number trades: 12 Largest Win: 2 pts Largest Loss: 3 pts
The only things I am proud of so far are: taking my losses, and not having a bias on the market, I respect it. I switch from short to long very easily. My nightmare is still poor execution, and patience. Today trades:
Hi momoNY, You've used several words in your journal that's a red light to me that there are other things going on outside your trading that's causing you problems in your trading. Maybe the info (tips) at the below link can help. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63530&perpage=1&pagenumber=9 Mark (a.k.a. NihabaAshi) Japanese Candlestick term
Mark, Friday was an exception for me. Usually I don't drink at all during week days. I shouldn't have traded at all in an impaired state. As you pointed out in your post, the more serious reasons are probably the lack of * Proper Sleep * Plenty of Exercise (real exercise) I don't sleep a lot and worse I sleep during the "bad hours". It seems that the best hours of sleep are the hours before midnight. I go to bed at 1 or 2 am. The last time I did some exercise was last July. The words "taking breath" come pretty often in my posts, I can see that. I really feel the need of taking my breath, that means that I'm exhausted. This is going to be my focus this week. Thanks for your helpful remarks, Mark.
mo, is there any way you could start position trading on daily charts? I am not certain what your equity size ie you would put more at risk on each trade, but pull in potentially more profits. It's less labor intensive and more boring, but I think more advantageous for most traders.
Buy1Sell2, I don't have the patience for longer time frames. As most traders, I started with buy and hold strategy. My first trade was in march 2000 After losing a ton of money, I switched to intermediate then to swing trading stocks long side only; I run most of the bear market down that way. I still have a shill when I speak about it. Then I switched to day trading, scalping stocks and finally to scalping futures and more recently to day trading futures on the 5 minutes charts. I think I can go back to swing trade stocks and I'll be successful, now I know you can't swing without looking at what the market is doing as a whole. But, I don't have the time to scan the market and go over that many charts, and I hate the word overnight. That's why I prefer futures. Obviously, I can trade the futures on a bigger time frame, however it involves more risk than I can take and requires more solid nerves that I can afford at this time. It is beyond my comfort and sleep levels; you can't imagine how much sleep deficit I have piled up. Over the years I found that my comfort timeframe is between 2mins and 15 minutes. Anything larger or smaller causes me lose focus because either I'm impatient or slow to react.
I don't feel I should trade today. I'll just relax this morning, I got the book Mind over the Markets on Market Profile (there is a good thread http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?thread=63202] here about that) , I'll take a look at it in a starbucks shop and go to work in the afternoon. Good trading to all.
Intersting perspective there. In my case, I found much less stress, anxiety and a lot less market analysis when I went back to position trading. Some of that has to do with the fact that I can place a stop overnight. It's interesting how our perspectives of the time frames are so different.
Some traders sleep well and have less stress knowing they don't have any overnight positions to worry about so their choice of trading styles usually involves day trading or position trading. Other traders sleep well and have less stress knowing they don't have to trade among the increased noise level of intraday price swings so their choice of trading styles usually involves swing trading or position trading. Simply, I think our choice (difference) of trading styles or methods is dependent upon things going on in our personal lives. As an example...I swing trade a lot less now that I'm a family man with a young toddler that requires a lot of attention in comparison to my single life. Thus, I now need plenty of rest (more than before) at night and can't get such with swing trades open because when I swing trade... Sometimes I get trade signals in the middle of the night between midnight - 0830am est. Other times I'm managing the position late at night (soon after midnight) because profit targets are reached and I need to determine if I'm going to scale out or dump it all via analyzing the price action. When the toddler gets older...I'll swing trade more often. Once again...choice of trading styles and/or strategies are often dependent upon things occurring in our personal lives. Mark (a.k.a. NihabaAshi) Japanese Candlestick term