I just didn't adjust my targets accordingly to the market action. I'm willing to take the easy stuff, what the market gives me. But my targets were set a little to long for the chop. Of course I screwed up and got in a little late on one and while the setup is normally good the follow through didn't happen. I think since the YM moved it has been less smooth to trade or maybe it's my imagination. I normally take 10-15 pts in YM but I should have shortened it up a bit for yesterdays chop. My Infinity auto braket did get me a one as I set the entry previous to the move
Is it greed, or is it failed setups? I must assume that you are only entering a position because your system sent you a signal. I asked earlier in this thread how you got away with 10 pt. stops and you said it was more of a problem managing your trailing stops. If I read correctly, you are scalping. I feel that trailing stops are not the tool for a scalper. Others may disagree, but this is my experience. Its great for riding a trend, but not for scalping. I set my target on a fixed move and take profit at stop, thus removing emotion if I am scalping. I also noticed that the only days I can fit a 10 pt. stop are those that offer lower avg. volume and accopmpanied volatility. Why not manually backtest your trades for about the last 30 days and eliminate the trailing stop and taking the target. Widen your stop and keep your profit target (appropriately on higher vol. days) and see if you can improve your system. At least statistically.
Traded for 1 hr only, did not take every trade only 4/RT total for net +15+comm = $5. Gee $5 but it was about getting mojo back and managing trades. From opening to about 1 hr YM was stuck in a trading range I had about 6-8 singnals come up but had to pass. One trade on single contact I scapled 21 points then gave some back. I will be trading only 2 contacts intead of 3 like I have started with. I will add +5 +breakeven profit targets and will try not to use trailing as itkeeps getting hit before my trend HA bars change color. More later. Account balance $3,445 (down from $5K last week). but I am on target and I am focused. I could trade more today but have meetings all day and it's better to skip today and prepair for tomorrow.
Yes, for good part of morning YM was chopping. I got stopped out a few times. My auto bracket doesn't seem to be working right and I've missed some moves due to other things.
are you moving up both your profit target and stops? I think in this chop I'm going to have to move up my profit to tick scalps. I also need to work on a good reversal/fade strategy.
my trailing moves by itself...which It hink I might cancel and use bracket orders instead of trailing...it's a feature in Infinity platform.
I'm currently using Infinity too. Haven't decided if I'll stay. I'm not sure I like their DOM that well. I don't use trailling.
Pleased with today's performance. Today's focus was not to make money...but focus on the setups, take the trades with highest probability. Could not trade all day...traded 6:30-8:30 AM PST and then again from 11:45-12:45 PM PST...reason for the break...somehow wife managed to get the garage door off-rail so had to call the garage door guy and help him to fix it...then back to trading. Today had 18 R/T or 9 trades. About 3 trades were NOT hightest probability trades as result were losing trades. Another one of my motto's is now <b>"Not necessarility bad trades loose you money...it's unnecessary trades that cost you money"</b> Remaining trades were high probability or so I thought. Biggest problem is becoming TradeStation hanging after about 30-45 minutes of running performance issues...it's due to the fact that I am running Infinity on the same machine but performance shold not so bad...afterall many others using set combo. I cut down my TS data querry and radar screen lines to a bare minimum...but still it's not good. Today +$340 (less $45 commision) = +$295 I guess new balance is $3745 YTD P/L ($1,255) Look forward to tomorrow morning, will be able to trade only for 1.5 hrs in the AM as have meetings all day.
Today did not trade 3 cars only 2 contacts with bracket orders but no trailing orders...they kept getting whipsawed lately...so far will remove trailing orders and setting braket order to break even after first target 6-points gets hit and let the remaining contact run. I had 2 great runners today, one 32-points and another 23...these could run more but got stopped out as I moving hte stop manually.
Nice work today. I noticed that from just before 10am until around 11:30 the markets went into chop mode. I think I will refrain from this time period for awhile.