I hope this journal will mark a new beginning in my trading. I have a full-time job, so I have been trading after work during the evenings. As I live in Europe I thought this would be convinient. It turns out that this has not been such an advantage as I thought. By nightfall I am too tired, have less patience, and have other obligations to fulfil. According to Tradestation Manager Analysis, since the Summer of 2006, I have put on almost 1900 trades (most are 1 contract) and have lost almost $1900. I have had 59% profitable trades. If we factor in commissions and some fees then my total loss is around $7700. I have $12300 left in my account to trade. Since business I have been working at not doing so well I have more flexibility and time. So I decided to switch from YM to the Eurostoxx 50 futures. As I work in an office, I won't have the pressure to get a trade done to go to bed, or to leave for dinner, etc. I will trade both sim and real. I truely welcome ALL comments on the trades and charts that I will post. I hope that through your comments and support I will complete the gaps in my trading. I plan on mainly focusing on price action and support/resistance levels. I hope that this journal will lead me to consistant and profitable trading. Thank you for your time. I wish us all the best of luck.
Thanks Jas. Just subscribed to the data and hopefully will start with a good trade tommorrow morning.
because you have it backward, find something that you can trade early before work. You should be fresh, alert and done for the day before your work starts. Tip: sleep early.
nkhoi, you are right, however I am at GMT+2 so the only thing available is FX which I am not a fan off and the Asia markets (afternoon sessions) which I also don't want to trade since I would like to see open, etc. and TS doesn't support and I don't want to get in the hassle of switching platforms to do Asia. I appreciate though the recommendation and will thing about it. The EUREX though looks good as it opens at 9am (GMT+2), however I noticed the first serious volume comes in at 10-11am. So basically initial balance (openning range) is 9-11am (2hrs) vs the 1 hr for US.
I did my first trade on the FESX March 11 contract. As this was my first FESX trade I really should have simmed it but I was excited and decided to put on a real trade. I initially wanted to get in long at 2916 but it got away from me I saw the DAX break to a new high while the FESX was stalling. I got in at 2922. My plan was to get out at 2920 ot 2919 at the worst. After 10 am, volume came in as usual with some volatility on the first bar. Made a print at 2919 but reversed to rally. I decided I would exit 2 points above yty's high. The DAX was still above yty's high so I figured my target was doable. In the next few minutes I was out at 2926 +4 points so far today. The marke continued to 2932. I'm glad I got a piece of the action. Long @ 2922 Exit @ 2926 +4 points
FESX continues to rise. It looked like it would stop. The candle shown by the yellow arrow looked like sellers were coming in. In addition this was around levels not seen since April last year. It looked like a decent shot. I shorted 2938 but got out at 2940. Perhaps I should have been more aggressive and took the short off the upthrust but I wanted a bit of a confirm. Perhaps I should have waited for a double top... Oh well... Short @ 2938 Exit @ 2940 - 2 points 1/18/2011 trades: +4, -2 = +2
Something really really weird just happened on my TS. There must be some bug in the new version (9.0) they released. Will explain in a bit. As you saw before my short didn't work. There was no way I was going long as an upthrust formed on the 30min chart at 12:30 and I wasn't going to fight it. In any case, the market did move higher, pulled back and made a 2nd run. On this 2nd ran after a one bar break of high of day and a close below the previous high, I realized this wasn't so strong and that we could have a push down. Take a look now at the yellow arrows. To me it looked like another attempt to push up was rejected as sellers came in and volume increased. I realized some minutes later that there was no way we would go back to 2947 without some movement down so I placed my stop there and went short at 2942 with a 5 pt profit target. Now for the weird part. When I went short, Tradestation drew a funky line across my screen as if I was closing a position!!! I started panicing and wondering. How could this have happened? Its been years since I've done such a screw up. No way!!! So I entered another short at 2942. But then the TS trademanager said I was 2 contracts short ?!? WTF ?!? To cut a long story short, I then closed the 1 position at 2941 and left the other to continue. Then as I was clicking on the settings, the stupid line that messed me up initially, disappeared !?!? I've been using TS for some years now and I've never seen something like that happen before. Anyway, back to the trade. It didn't take long and the market pushed down to hit my target. Short @ 2942 Exit @ 2937 +5 points 1/18/2011 trades: Wins: 2 Losses: 1 Winning Trades: +9 Losing Trades: -2 Profit for day (in pts): +7 Great day so far
I'm amazed at the difference in commissions & fees! When I traded the YM I paid total $4.72 round-trip. For FESX it's $2.4 !!! That is huge! Well today I looked to short 20 min into the open at 2955 but I got greedy with the price and missed an excellent entry by a point. I hope today will be as good as yty!
Had 2 trades so far today. In the first I looked for a bounce off of yty's activity (MP balance area). I went long at 2944 (1 pt above the low of day). I then got a little scared and thought the push down with the first high volume of the day was bearish (this bar is always above average anyway if you look at the contract historically). So I got out at 2945. Market then pushed to 2951... I thought this would be an oppty to short as it was around 50% retracement from beginning of day. So I shorted 2950. My tgt was 2947. It hit 2947 but there were orders ahead of me It then came back and I started having doubts again. I thought: What if the bounce off of yty's activity is larger? What if the retracement back up to the bar from the high volume push down was bullish? So I got out at 2949. The market then proceeded downwards. Arhhhh!!!! EU deficit came in worst then expect and the push has continued. Will probably look for a short on a pullback. Long @ 2944 Exit @ 2945 +1 points Short @ 2950 Exit @ 2949 +1 points