Hello Everyone: I will be starting a journal. Here's some background information. I have been trading futures for six months unsuccessfully. I have decided to take some time off from live trading and begin a six month diet of "Simulation Trading". Here is the plan: 1) I will start with an account of 10,000. 2) I will trade 4 contracts most of the time. The reason I chose 4 is to practice scaling in and scaling out if desired. 3) I will not trade live before 6 months. 4) I will concentrate on ER2. As time goes on I may incorporate other products as well such as QM, QG, ZN, EUR, JPY, etc. 5) I will display daily/weekly/month results and also post charts with comments. I will be using the following software/hardware: 1) Ensign - Charting software 2) Ninja Trader - Order entry and Simulator (great simulator IMO) 3) IB - Data Feed 4) Snag It 4) 3 x 21" Samsung 213T displays Let the journey begin. ozzy P.S if you have any ideas suggestion let me know.
I'm sure we'll all be watching closely. Hope you have other streams of income during this six months - wouldn't want to see you in the welfare line -K
I have attached the setup I'm currently using. I trade off of the 1MIN, 5MIN. Throughout the day I will glance at the 3,10,15,30,60, but I place more emphasis on the 1,5. I use moving averages, stochastic, TICK, pivots, macd (3,10) and price action to make decisions. ozzy P.S for some reasons the pics don't come out properly to view them properly its best to save the pic to the desktop and open it from there.
Ozzy, good luck to you. I am not much of a believer in paper trading, due to the absence of emotional and psychological element involved in trading real money. But, that said; I think you can actually gain quite a lot from a journal. As you can see, most journals bite the dust 2 or 3 weeks into it. I think you can gain from a journal if you update it each and every day, and be adamant about it regardless of how much you made and how you feel about updating it. Make it a routine. One thing that I also heard from somewhere is, I forgot the source, pick a market and stick with it. And trade only that market each and every day, and learn each and every little ebb and flow of that market. Be an expert at it, and as you build up your account, start doing size. It is my belief that if you concentrate on one market and trade it day in and day out, you would do better financially in the long term. Short term, the market may not be moving much or whatnot, but you have to be able to fight that urge to switch into a different market. Develop your method, perfect it in the ER2, and only then if you feel necessary should you move on to a different market, and that is just my opinion. Also, I think you should be a bit more specific about what kind of trading you are going to be doing, how many trades will you make each day...etc.. Also, what you are trying to do? such as your daily goal for the day, your shut off point etc.
Hi Everyone: Ripley thanks for the advice and Swingout thanks for your concern. I agree that paper trading is not the same as the real thing. But I see many benefits in it for me at this point in time. I will try my best to be diligent with this journal and get back as much as I can from it. All trades will be intraday. The style/method will depend on the type of day. I'm still in the process forming a concrete trading plan, therefore I can see results being somewhat inconsistent in the beggining. # of trades /day => 3-25 depending on the type of day Daily Goal => $2000 Shut Off Point => $1200 I've attached today's results. ozzy
Ozzy: A couple of pieces of advice: Change the chart background color to a dark color like black for the sake of your eyes. Use the simulation to hone in on your desired method of trading. That is the strength of simulation. Pay particular attention to your most profitable trades. What do they have in common? You should turn those trades into your method. The two key aspects of trading are having a profitable method, and following it. The second part will require real money to learn but there is no reason to put real money on the line until the first part is solidly in place. Even a breakeven system can be profitable for a discretionary trader if you 1) take profits before they turn into losses, and 2) keep losses small, and 3) allow your best winning trades to extend, and 4) cut out times when the system doesn't perform well (too little or too much volatility). Drop the daily goal - focus on weekly results as your minimum timeframe and monthly results. An additional shut off point is if you are feeling anxious or are in a state of mind that is not conducive to good trading. You will have to watch yourself to recognize when you are "pressing" or your ego is driving your actions. The presence of either of these should cause you to shut off your trading for the day or until your mindset returns to where you can make profits. I don't use a fixed $$ shutoff. If I am out of it (the symptom is losses in my account) I shut it off. Sometimes after taking a break and taking stock of the situation I am able to get myself into a profitable mindset, and am able to resume trading again. Getting out too soon, being jittery, overly anxious, gun shy, freezing up, etc., are SYMPTOMS of a suboptimal mindset. When you start seeing these or other similar symptoms you should reevaluate your mindset to see if you should be trading at all. Learning when I should not be trading (when my head is not right) has helped my results to be more smooth. Good luck and I wish you the best.
What are you doing or will try to do in simulation trading that's different from your prior real money trading ??? I'm just curious what changes you've made in comparing your past real money trading plan in comparison to the current simulation trading plan... Or does your quote above suggest you didn't have a trading plan when you were real money trading and have decided to develop a trading plan and test it prior to returning to real money trading. NihabaAshi
A lot has changed since I have started trading. I started trading futures 6 months ago. I never spent any time on the simulator. I started trading 10-15 contracts right from the start. Over the last 6 months I have learned a great deal. I actually feel that I am on the verge of becoming consistently profitable (3-6 more months). My problem right now is mental lapses. For example a few weeks ago I had 5-6 winning days in a row (real money). The results were very consistent and then 1 day I got blown out of the water losing all the previous days gain and then some. I had problems recovering from this last loss since the same thing has happened numerous times over the last 6 months. I am hoping to build the proper habits over the next few months to prevent simalar mistakes from occuring again in the future. I appreciate everyone's comments and advice. Here's today's progress so far. I'm gonna go for a swim/excercise now. Peace ozzy P.S I couldn't sleep last night so one FDAX trade is included in the report.
Hi All: After a very good beggining followed a terrible afternoon. After making a major mistake I get stunned and all objectivity got thrown out the window. Critical Error occured @ 13:45 I was long ER2 thinking it would break through 671.4. It did not. At the moment of rejection I should have closed the position (and even possibly reversed) instead I moved my stop much lower. I got slapped as it spiked down shortly there after. Afterwards everything went down hill. Very dissapointed with today's results. Whenever I seem to think I have a handle on things I get smacked. Homework for tonight. Go over results and charts. Identify mistakes. Net Profit (ER2 only) - $1,232.20 Account Balance $8767.8 (starting today not including yesterday's results) Plan for tomorrow. Reduce size to 2 contracts. Reduce number of scalps (this got me into big trouble today). Results attached. ozzy