Vulture Thank you for your posts. Both were just what I needed to hear at this time. If you look at my charts (use a magnifing glass) you see what I try to do is get in on the bounce, and ride it lower/higher. What I realized this morning is that I try to get short when the numbers are green, to get the high tick, but also to "prove the trade correct " right from the get go, so I don't have to deal with being wrong. Picking tops/bottoms, arrrgh. "Panicked finger on the mouse" - you are reading my mail. Thank you for your contribution to this thread.
Todays Ranges Daily Range was 20 pts, but the intraday travel range was a whopping 80 pts. The graphs are brought to you today by MWSnap. MWSnap, for all your screen shots.
Felt good this morning. Got enough sleep, and had a good walk/run, set another personal best (42:39) Morning Trades Trade 1 -Double tap of the bottom of the morning range, went thru the top. HH and HL from there. Waited for the retrace (62%), but was a little slow getting in. Got out a little quick, should have rode out the "wiggle" and sold a little higher. Gain of 1.25. Trade 2 - Saw the double top, drop, and consolidation. When I was wondering which way it was gonna go, it dropped without me. Made a lower top, and shorted at the beginning of the second consolidation. Why did I get out early? PREM was staying positive. Looking back, if the PREM was +, and the market was dropping, what will happen when the PREM goes -. Found that one out right after I got out. Gain of 2.5 Trade 3 - Just a dumb trade. Chasing the market. Loss of -.5 Overall, had a good morning.
A solo trade today over four emini systems I watch (2 nq, 2 es). Went long at 1112.50, just to watch a a nasty 17 point drop over the next 1/2 hour. Fortunately, closed up ... made 9 points on the trade. No complaints here. Keep up the good work ... really enjoy reading your journal Ed. Rich
Afternoon Trades Watched during lunch the retracement. Market made a higher low. That is where I should have jumped on, but didn't. Making lunch for J and my baby coming home. Trade 4 - Wasn't gonna chase this thing. Waiting for some kind of consolidation, but none came. Things slowed around 13:10, and I jumped on board. Showing a good profit, but jumped out during the "wiggle". Left some on the table. Gain of 3 pts. Trade 5 - Bought at the retracement, but it was the retracement that wasn't. Loss of .5. But it was the setup I trade, so even though it was a loss, it was a good trade. Trade 6 - Chasing the market up because I missed my setup. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB. And, right after I got in, the market got real squirrelly. I put an indicator I seldom use up on the chart and it said we were gonna hit new highs. That is the reason I got in. Well, I held on cuz we were going to new highs!!!!! DUMB, DUMB, DUMB. This little lesson cost me 4.5 points. Trade 7 - Still numb from #6. Missed the little retrace and chased this thing again. This time I remembered to take the loss early. Minus .25 on the trade. Ended up with 7 trades, 3 winners, 4 losers. Net loss of $8.60 I had alot of interuptions over lunch, and never got back into my groove.
You can hold for a 17 point loss! You've got guts. I haven't traded emini's long, but my goal is to trade 10-20+ contracts consistently. I know I couldn't do large #'s if my methodology allowed for 17 point stop losses! Good end result, but is that a typical drawdown in your system? Could you improvise and bail at a few points and reenter later, knowing you have a buy signal? Seems like you could do some fine tuning.