2013 [P&L journal]

Well, of the 3 trades I saw and wanted to take, I took one, and exited a few ticks away from the top. There was a fourth one occured around noon that would have hit it's full target and more. The first 2 would have scratched for small losses.

My execution is nearly perfect now. I've been using limit orders for entry. 3 clear repeating patterns occur and reoccur. The only puzzle is in what order, magnitude and duration they will last.

I'm mentioned moving away from using MAs as much as possible. I think traders have to have something that helps objectify the patterns. Doesn't matter if it's just price action or an oscillator.

The one kink I still have to work on for a couple more weeks is holding onto winners. It seems at the moment something works particularly well, and that is just observing vertical price movement after entry, and watching for reversal signals and where they occur.

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Several trades I closed out early this year would have been large winners. Without those I'll be a break even/small loser trader. Since I started trading with my methods defined 100% this year my account has hung around $8,000.

I'm considering switching back to the Russell 2000 as well... it gave off much clearer signals today.
 

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The past 2 days have reminded me of market wisdom I've read over the past 4 years.

-More trades are not necessarily better.
-The more obvious the trend is, the less likely it is to last.
-All great traders have one thing in common; low risk ideas.
-Most movement in the market is the result of losing trade liquidation; picturing where the losers are in the most pain and will be forced to liquidate their position is where the best trade entries are.

Unlike yesterday, the signals were better in ES today. This reminds me there is no such thing as perfection in this business or any other for that matter. A robust system, which I believe this one is because of it's simplicity (I'm using just one oscillator at the moment), will work most of the time on any market, but will not be perfect on any of them.

Had I been watching ES, I would have 3 full 4 point gains. The RLM gave solid signals too, but I was a little unprepared for it's swiftness/volatility, being used to the ES slow and grinding.

I was long early, but the couple of shake outs (that didn't appear in the ES) that caused me to bail early and it was something that I decided yesterday should warrant an exit.

My first RLM trade I could have made upwards of $400. I'm reminded how often the market tries to shake out the weak hands. I hung on through both draw-downs in the position that occurred on my time frame, to watch price come right back to my entry. Now that I'm thinking about it the pattern that occurred is actually extremely strong in the bullish moment it can produce. When the market posted a doji bar at the previous double top, I exited.

Right after I exited, the stop run began and I just sat and watched as I don't have a planned re-entry. So far my entry is perfect, it's just the exit that needs work. I did some extra trades today to help banish my fear of trading my edge and to practice holding on to winners.

Like I've stated before, had I been able to hang onto some of my winners this year, I would be rolling in dough. The good thing is seeing that the tested edge I am using is existent in real time. The hard part is modifying my behavior.

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I have a line in my plan that says no trades after 1400.

Of course the trade that appears at 1415 would have made me a winner today.

Woke up closer to 0900 due to the military overworking (worked 3 in a row 12-12-8 hours) now since the government is in so much debt and June is the peak season for people going to the hospital. Figures I'd miss the best trade.

My execution was perfect on the two trades I took, as the market told me I was wrong. Out quickly.

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Had to do this critical thinking class for work this AM from 0700-1100, so I got back around 1200.

Took the one planned trade I saw. Probably exited a little prematurely, but around the time my plan says to stop trading (1400). I don't want to push it seeing as I missed most of the trading day.

Trading fearlessly is mostly the consequence of prior preparation. Yesterday I went over previous trades to tell me when to hang on and when not to. The trade I took today said hang on, so I did. When going back through the trades yesterday, I tried to factor in errors on trades. This gave me a winning percentage over the past few weeks of around 55%. The outcome is still relatively the same. I've shifted my focus more to performance and edge repetition than money.

Again, I missed a full winner this AM....

At the moment I'm reading 'Phantom of the Pits.' It's pretty good and his rules are congruent with the winners and my own experience.

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My first trade was in violation of my plan today although it was the right direction. I scratched it accordingly. I then took 3 short trades (2 at the same entry point - because I didn't hold on long enough the first time) that I scratched appropriately. One of them I didn't wait till the close of the bar... so another plan violation.

The one trade that would have made me a winner today I didn't take because I recently added a rule that prevented me from taking it... literally one tick prevented me from being a possible winner.

I'm knocking myself back to 2 trades a day, and probably going to take away that additional rule that says no taking trades after the market has gone X points vertically (or at least give myself more leeway).

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I might come back here once I'm consistently making money.

For now I'm going 'under-ground.'

I lost several posts on this apparently so forget trying to keep records on here for my personal use, I'll just keep them on my computer.
 
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