Trader from the Zone

Discussion in 'Journals' started by DoubleTop, Dec 6, 2010.

  1. After reading some articles from Micheal Douglas about his trading books like "trading in the zone", I have decided to post "my checklist" everyday as well.

    It's basically a plan that evaluates every trade on a 1-10 scale. The hope is to be a very disciple trader and only take the most success trades. None of this "does this look like a good trade 2 mins before trading" The idea is to have a trade 10-30 mins before a trade actually happens.

    It's really a great system I think. Here's what it looks like.
     
    #21     Dec 11, 2010
  2. Should 'da, Could 'da, Would'da (SCW) is what I'm calling it.
    Today, I had one SCW on the market.
    had 1 trade on ES that I was to busy looking at my other markets and talking on skype that I didn't see it! So I really need to cut down on the talking during the trading. The one trade that I did take was a scratch because price hovered between my opening price and my stop loss for 15mins. before moving in my direction. I couldn't take that much stress so I BE it after 10 mins.

    I also have been watching 3 markets today. ES, ZF, and CL.
    I ended up simming a lot of the trades on CL because a good friend of mine trades that one. I like the momentum on CL because it actually moving unlike ES.

    It actually treated me really nice. Got some good gains from it!

    On another note: because I'm watching 3 markets, and talking on skype. I didn't do one trade based on my checklist. So I really need to rethink all of this. 2 markets is forsure all I can watch! I

    I also tried trading a breakout (failed) but went in the direction that I saw. I also was trying to trade more in the style of NoDoji then just sticking with my normal zone trading and stop loss rules.
    [​IMG]
     
    #22     Dec 13, 2010
  3. ES chart
    [​IMG]
     
    #23     Dec 13, 2010
  4. Today I simmed the CL with some pretty good result.

    1. price touch my first lower zone. I bought it out for a nice little profit trailing my stop hard because I saw price had come down so hard on this zone.

    2.I missed a HUGE trade at 6:50am PST when price went down and touch my second demand zone. Sad part on this was once it did that I had to go back in the past and see where there might be a level. Sure enough just kissed that level. Then news was also happening at that time so I just stayed out. (SCW)

    3. Was a nice 2nd bounce off my supply zone good for 40+ ticks I only took 30.
    [​IMG]

    Heres a good video that i came across:

    http://www.fxstreet.com/webinars/sessions/session.aspx?id=82564935-63cf-47be-9683-e8f5ecee780e
     
    #24     Dec 14, 2010
  5. Onra

    Onra

    #25     Dec 15, 2010
  6. Onra

    Onra

    #26     Dec 15, 2010
  7. Cruddy day in crude oil.

    Well, I looked at ES and CL and a little at ZF. Simmed the day after seeing the small range and lack of momentum in the Globex hours.

    After watching this video from 50pip.com (forex swing traders)
    http://50pipsfx.com/ I agreed with them and thought that in general the markets are going to be moving up. And so it has been for my trading hours today.

    1. ES (emini S&P) violated my supply zone first thing! Only thing I can figure is that there was a lot of residual orders left there from the Globex hours. I still don't know for sure, do you?

    2. CL (crude oil) tore my supply zone a new one in the first 5 mins after opening with a huge $800 bull charge!!! Figured I would then try to grab some as crude oil would continue to go up but my entry was deep in my zone and price just kissed it.
    [​IMG]
    Another sim day!

    3. Then later on after price reformed my supply zone in crude and left my zone. I simmed a nice winner on the short side hoping that there would be a complete retracement to the 10:30 crude oil news.
     
    #27     Dec 15, 2010
  8. ES chart
    [​IMG]
     
    #28     Dec 15, 2010
  9. sosueme

    sosueme

    Great work DT that is a very pretty chart, perhaps a little more work required on the colors.
     
    #29     Dec 15, 2010
  10. Well, those the markets are definitely getting more rangy.

    I stayed out of ES all together today and just traded CL with a 2 trades on 6E for 12 ticks.

    December has cause price to do really strange things to my zones. I'm not waiting for a 2 bar zone touch before I take anything.

    I've also been working on programming Ninjatrader to draw my zones. I'm starting with code that I got from a swingpivot add-on that I found. Going to modify it and code out the rest of these zones based on it. I have my cousin helping on the C# programming. I'm just building the logic and back testing to make sure that it really is looking for the right kind of logic. It would be so nice not to have to wake up so early just to draw zones.

    Here's my CL trades.
    [​IMG]

    Trade #3: Didn't see it as a minor pull back could of had a few more ticks but I protect try to protect my capital and take the big wins.

    Trade #4: It was just bad logic right there! Totally forgot about my MA. I'm actually a little embarrassed by that trade. I had a chop zone drawn from 88.02 to 87.83 but deleted it. What was I thinking. Bad zone, bad trade, UGGG!
     
    #30     Dec 17, 2010