This is much better trading. You hit your entry points and had good results. About trade 2. You thought the market was going to break down which it later did. that part's OK. But when the market started to turn up, you need to get out pre-emptively without be driven out by a two point loss. No need to take that loss at all. Often a pattern which is violated predicts a strong move in the other direction. When the market failed to break down, you need to get out right away. That's a danger point.
Puffy, That's easy to say after the fact regarding Trade #2, but if you look at Trade #3 suppose H had let the stop run to the full amt of -2.0 pts (like he did in #2) instead of getting out at -1.75. Then he would have not been stopped out, been in for the entire run without having to re-enter. I suspect that in realtime it wasn't so obvious that the market was "reversing" on trade #2.
Thats actually something thats burned me so I now use to concept of cycles in my short term trading. The idea is that if its not going down, then its going up. When your profits are .50 and .75 you dont want to have a position go against you that much. Get out with a wash trade and re-enter.
If you're playing for .25-.75 then "cycles" makes sense, since the noise will getcha. I don't think H is generally playing for .50-.75, my understanding is that he shoots for at least 1.50+, and with trailing stops hopefully more. If that's the case then the position was moving within his stop parameters. And like I said, if he had allowed Trade#3 to go the distance of -2.0 pts like Trade#2 (instead of cutting it short by .25), he wouldn't have been stopped out, had only 1 loser on the day, no need for Trade#4, and would have probably made a fair chunk of change of the winning Trade#3.
First day trading the 5. 7 trades, 2 winners, 4 losers, 1 b/e for -1.50 pts. 5 missed entries. Net for the Day: -108.60 Net for the Week: -91.20 Net for the Month: -850.60
what did you think about trading off the 5 min ..? I'm not trading yet, just watching and papertrading....today, the 29 th was a tough day to make a profit with my setup. one trade was too close to call so I didn't take it and it would have been a nice 4-5 point trade. ended slightly down on paper. Ive been watching the es for a while and like the 5 min... Also use the 1 min for a close up view. 30 and 60 for support and resistance... I talk to you after I go live in a couple of weeks , exchange ideas ect... until then NKNY
5 trades, 1 winner, 2 losers, 2 b/e for -1.00 pt. Net for the day: -74.00 Net for the week: -165.20 Net for the month: -924.60 I was watching something new today, concerning my re-entries back into the trend. Toward the end of the day, I saw the double top at 929. Had a major s/r line, and still didn't take the short. I am so ticked and sick to my stomach for not taking it. I learned a lesson today the hard way. Always take the trade, because you never know which one will make your day, week, and month. This one would have been close. Tues starts a new month. Most of my loses this month were in the first two weeks of trading real $$$. This week only a little over 3 pts, including commissions. Last week was over 9 pts, and the week before was almost 8 pts. Have a great Labor Day Weekend. H
Chin up Huios, It is doggedly hard to jump into a trade just after you have been forced out of one. If I had all the money I lost by watching instead of acting, man I would have a pile. Tuesday is a new week, month, and by some accounts, a new trading season. Have you read Van Tharps book? Gotta be in there to get those big white snowballs.
Huios, I really respect you for laying your trades out in the open for people to see. I myself will be starting a journal shortly and venturing into ES day-trading on a part-time basic (a few days a week). I will be starting with $5,000 real money and trading one contract. I have noticed that daytrading is a much different beast than my normal method of swing-trading or the investing I did in the past. Currently, I am using a simulated account with a broker and making paper-trades off real-time market data. I have noticed that sometimes I have the tendency to stray from my system, which will definately be my undoing in the long-run. Honestly, when I look at the charts (and I mean a lot of them), it is very easy to come up with a simple system that generally provides consistent profits. However, my problem is that, during the course of a normal trading day, the movement of the ticks will really play mind-games with me. I thought I had total control over my emotions but I really do not. This is something I will need to work on -- because this is the only thing that will prevent me from being a stellar trader. The only advice I can offer you is that I will be doing what you are doing shortly, and placing my trades up for everyone to see. I will only trade my signals, but I am going to begin my trading with a very strict discipline. At my desk, I will have 5 trading coupons. In order to prevent me from over-trading, I will redeem a coupon for each trade I make. Since I only have 5 coupons at the start of the day, I will force myself to make that trade count -- using the rules of my system. On the back of each coupon, after I make the trade, I will record the price, short/long and my emotional state of mind at the time I made the trade. When I cover the trade, I will write down my profit or loss for that particular trade on the coupon. At the end of the trading day, I will review each coupon, the notes I made on them and compare them with the chart. If the system I have backtested is consistently profitable, then there should be no problem. However, if I find that I am actually losing from real trading, then I will review each trade in a lot of detail. There will be three causes for a bad trade: 1) I made the trade against my rules and system and therefore the trade can be considered random by my methods. 2) I made the trade using my rules and system but it was just one of the occasional trades that didn't work out. 3) I made a trade using my rules and system, but it could have been profitable had a small parameter been changed. My objective is to elimate 1 completely. I will collect all "3's" and, over time, ask myself if a permanent change to my system is in order. As the market progresses and sentiments change, any successful trading system will need to adapt. Some will need very little work to adapt and others will require a complete overhaul. In the beginning, I expect to lose money in the futures market. I will consider each losing trade a "purchased lesson." If I am paying the market to learn, I am definately going to take the time to review that trade and ask myself what the reason was for it becoming a losing trade. **** If you are trading real money and you are losing money, you are not really losing money -- because if you believe you will eventually become an "elite trader," then you will realize that those losing trades were just money spent on valuable lessons -- so make sure you review each day in full. ***** I would expect to spend 1-2 hours setting up for the day and reviewing long term trends and narrowing down to shorter term trends, and then another 1-2 hours after trading to analyze my mistakes and errors. All in all, I'll be spending 12 hours a day trying to learn how to break-even consistently -- but I'm doing this because I believe that I will be rewarded at some point with a good standard of living. aphie
aphie, Your previous note to H sounds like a very solid approach. To get you in the right mindset, tho, I would change the wording of one part of it, #2 above to read, "it was just one of the many trades that didn't work out." In other words, if you go into real-dollar ES trading thinking that you will only have an occasional loss then you will be sorely disappointed.