Dear reader, A new year... new good intentions I decided to step out of the shadows of the lurking zone and start a journal myself. This year I want to reach a state of mind in trading that I see as the ultimate Holy Grail -> To trade my plan with discipline and trade it with consistency. So the first obvious question is: Is there a trading plan ? -> Yes, there is. Does it contain enough detail to minimize "grey decision taking areas" to an absolute minimum? I believe it does (but nothing is perfect of course.) I don't plan to go into detail though about the "mechanics" of my trading. I will only post the details of the plan as I see fit for this journal, so primarily expect some money management stuff. In addition to this I plan to post all my trades as well. I trade the NQ futures contract (E-mini Nasdaq100). In my plan consistency is described as: * reach a minimum target of +3 points each day (3 to 6 points will make me happy and above that even very happy and relieve me from my duties for the day) * weekly target of +15 points - commissions are to be counted on top of that. This will be the primary measurement of consistency (There will be slower or noisier days and I think it would be bad, foolish even to try and "force" it out of the market on those days. So hence I believe the weekly target is the best measurement) * Max stop loss for the day is -12 points (including commissions). Trading is over when that is reached. (It's supposed to be the emergency brake on a train that is going fast in the wrong way and that some reflection time is needed.) Some money management rules: * I will trade one NQ contract / $2.000. This will remain unchanged during the week, only to be adjusted at the start of a new week. I wish everyone an interesting, learningful and hopefully profitable 2014 Tobo
This will be the starting account balance: It's currently ~ $9.830 so I will trade 4 NQ contracts today. If I will be able to consistently take +15 NQ points every week, simulation shows I will hit the $1.000 / day mark in around 4 months. Although this still seems very far away at this moment in time, it feels like an interesting longer term goal.
The NQ opening today was rather messy imo. Might be a dull Friday afternoon. I can't spend much time trading today so I'll stop early. 3 trades today. To include the cost of commissions into the scoreboard, I substract -0.25 point from each trade. (in reality commissions are slightly less but it's close enough for the journal I think) in total that's +3,75 (-0,75 commission for 3 trades) = +3 points net. below the new account value Tobo
I did two more trades and since it seems I can't edit the previous post anymore I'll make an update. It didn't turn out to become such a dull Friday after all. Final total for today: +5 (-1,25 commission for 5 trades) = +3,75 points net. As a summary for today: Considering the rather big NQ range today, I didn't grab too much of that. But at least I got my target. Tobo
I changed my tradesize to 1 NQ contract / $2.400 (instead of $2.000). So trading size remained at 4 contracts. Just one trade for today. Daily target was easily reached so I will stop trading for today (and watch markets a bit). No need to push it or even worse, give it all back. Final total for today: +15,25 (-0,25 commission for 5 trades) = +15 points net. (+12% for today). I don't expect all days to be like this but when it happens I don't say no to them
Reason to exit the last trade was (amongst things) that we had reached a possible support zone ~3519 area and I expected some turbulence in that area. We'll see if it goes down further or not. Daily bar remains very bearish at this time. Tobo
(US open = 15:30) Started with a loss but the initial direction of the expected trend was ok. So I made up for it with a second entry and secured daily target. I think this might move up for quite a while but unfortunately I have to leave the arena early due to the fact that one of my children is ill. Target is reached anyway so I better attend to that instead of continue trading. Final total for today: +4,75 (-0,50 commission for 2 trades) = +4,25 points net. (+3% for today). (btw - I just noticed I made a copy/paste error on the 01/06. I did only one trade instead of five, but since I can't edit it anymore...) Tobo
(US open = 15:30) A bit of a weird NQ open of the US session for imo. (but that's very subjective of course) It's FOMC later on, or at least the release of the minutes. Could give an undecided market until then. So no more trading planned for today (And while I'm typing this, it just keeps on going up of course, lol) Final total for today: +6,25 (-0,50 commission for 2 trades) = +5,75 points net. (+4% for today). Tobo