I'm creating this journal in the spirit of traders helping other traders. I think this is the reason why the E.T. website was created. However, in my opinion E.T. or any other trading forum misses this objective. Firstly, there is just to much worthless things to read that it becomes for me any how a very boring venture to keep up to date. Secondly, as all traders know the true facts about this business at least 80%. I think more like 90% of traders are losing at what really counts their end of month brokers statements. Which means most likely the person who is posting is losing at trading. This number may even be higher than 90% on this website. The fact of the matter most really successful traders don't even bother with internet forums. I said most not all so there are definitely exceptions. Now to my intentions of this journal. I have been in this business year in and year out and make money every single year. For you reading my post here I would like you distrust that last statement and think I'm a loser at trading. That is my intention I want to turn your distrust into trust. I will do this by posting my trades almost live (1-2M) delay due to record keeping after I put the trade on. The reason I'm doing all this I would like to come in contact with people who have a genuine desire to learn how to trade. The kind of person who is looking for the path to success. He or she knows there are no shortcuts and its going to be a long journey but they are willing to try their hardest to stay on that path. I belive by helping people who fit that description the act of teaching them will help me grow as a trader as well. And be absolutely sure I'm in the business of trading not the business of coaching, or newsletters, or some kind of useless service. I hold a very low opinion of so called "mentors or coaches" If they were genuine they should offer their services for free because they should already be making a nice living out of the markets. If I do ever gain your trust all information will be free be sure of that. My working philosophy on the markets are as follows. Trade one market and trade it well. I only trade the YM contract. Don't high frequency day trade if you can't constantly buy on the bid and sell on the ask. If you are not on the floor it very difficult to do this. With that being said it doesn't mean that I don't enter and exit in the same day. On most of my positions I do enter and exit in the same day but many times I hold that position up to three days to meet my objective. I guess the best way to describe my method is a hybrid of daytrading and swingtrading. I base my trades from intra-day charts and volume with an aim to extract 80 dow points in the direction of the daily trend. 30 points if the trade is against the dalily trend. In the event my trade is against the daily trend I will never hold over night. I use a 40 point safety stop and have a chart stop that is usually smaller than that. To make that more clear I will put it in table form Contract: YM Trend Target: 80pts Counter Trend Target: 30 pts Safety Stop: 40 pts Well let the journey begin and I'm really looking forward to coming in contact with some genuine students of the markets. Please note that I focus on quality trades so there are many days when I receive no signals. On average I recevive 2-5 trades per week.
Looking forward to read your journal. Any insights into what type of setups, chart settings, and maybe some reasoning? Good luck, Schaefer
I'm glad that someone has found some interest in this journal. I guess its only fair to give a more thorough explanation of my approach to the markets. I will try to keep things that don't actually improve your trading to a bare minimum. I don't care for useless information. It can either help me or not there is no other way. With that being said here is a little useless information about myself. I lived and worked in Chicago most of my life. I now live in Europe. My approach to the markets is one of patience and discipline with an obsession for quality. I have no problem to do nothing at all even when the dow is moving all over the place which means I could of entered there and exited here for great profits. I follow one market, one pattern, and one stop loss and target system. If my entry isn't signaled it isn't signaled its that simple. I have been trading long enough that a day has almost no meaning at all. All that matters is the end of the month. I belive the most important part of trading is a good entry signaled from a quality signal, a decent wager on the outcome of that entry, and a good exit derived from a sound target and stop loss plan. This is what really makes you money not money management. I do not dispute that money management is what makes the difference between losing traders, ordinary traders, and great traders. This is most definitely true but money management is not the most important thing. Money management is simply the varying of the size of each wager with some sort of technique. The most important thing in successful trading is to have small losses and big gains which is not money management.The way to achieve that is a good entry that gives way to a good exit(targeted objective or small stop loss). The area where most people have trouble is what I said good exit. Targeted objective is just as good an exit as small stop loss for me. I'm disciplined this way because I don't focus on the day but on the month. At the end of the month if I just execute on all my entry signals I get paid. The asset side (targeted objectives) are larger than the liability side (small stop losses). No one has a chance to succeed at trading for an extended period of time with out discipline to act in your best interest. It is that simple. The same way an infantry soldier in the Army can't fight an old fashioned battle without discipline and expect to win. Here is the best analogy that works for me. I picture to opposing armies. One is led by the famous George Patton. He required upon his men some of the most rigorous standards of discipline even under the worst of conditions. Then picture another Army a group of high school bust outs. You know the type they were into heavy metal and smoking pot all the time. Didn't have any discipline at all. You put these two armies up against each other which side do you want to be on. I sure as hell want to be on Patton's side. Its not even a battle it would be a total slaughter exactly how trading is. Patton's side (professionals) vs bust outs (most retail clients). Its your choice which side you want be on in the trading battle. You can be on the disciplined side and win or you can be on the undisciplined side and lose. Its really that simple. The other side of the coin discipline is simple to attain but is most definitely not easy to attain. It takes hard work and you must be disciplined in all aspects of your life not just some of them. To the meat how do I put on an entry. This will best be shown in the future with live charts. I will post these in three phases signal of entry, fill of entry, and exit. I use charts and volume. As I stated before I use only one well known pattern. Decisive break of a key swing point with heavy volume(signal), retest to swing point on light volume(fill of entry), and a clear exit plan. That simple and it works. I look at the Dow cash which I like more for charting but I must make my entries on the futures contract so I'm looking on both of them. This pattern presents some of the best fills with a very tight stop loss usually much smaller than my 40 pt safety stop. These break of key swings happen usually more than once a day two to three times on average. Now the negative side more than half of the break of key swings fail. The real skill and hardwork becomes one of building filters to know which are genuine and which a fake. I use volume as a filter but this is not enough. One must use their imagination and think of viable strategic filters thats the hard work and where experience comes into play.
I don't trade YM but am certainly interested in your journal. Thus, can you advise on what is the usual daily range for YM? Thanks.
I'm glad that people have some interest in my journal . I'm here to help beginners who are disciplined over come some common hurdles. I will be frank my earnings are only mediocre but consistent. I aim to take 750 euros out of the market for every 30 pts entry I'm in. That equates to about 6 mini contracts per entry. Nothing special but it pays the bills. At the end of the year I will try to improve my earnings 5% per month and trade accordingly. My max drawdown is about 8000 euros actually less but I like to be conservative. Ever since I have traded my system I have never lost more than four times in a row never and I religiously follow my stops. For my purposes the actual ATR has little meaning for me since my target is either 30 pts or 80 pts max those targets clearly fit in the current ATR of the ym. Also as I have stated, if I have an 80 pt target I'm willing to wait three days to fulfill it. Any how, the ATR is definitely larger than 80 pts. I would give as a ball park figure as 100-110. Rarely will you see it larger than 200pts. I thank all who have had any inquiries to my operations and I'm looking forward to posting my charts when I have an entry then you can pass judgement if I know what I'm doing.
For those who are anxious to see a chart set up of mine I have attached a chart. however, this is just a chart set up it has not passed my filters so I have not taken this trade. But had it passed my filters this is the setup