Daytrading can be hard, and has driven many people insane. Maybe you could become a fundamental investor or swing trader. How about creating an algo and let it do the dirty work?
2014 [P&L journal]
- Thread starter masterm1ne
- Start date
It is the day trader that makes day trading hard, and nothing else. And I would rather it drive me crazy than suffer a mundane every day life.
I've written about automated trading before. I don't think it's possible to program a computer to interpret the market as well as a human. If no moment in the market is ever the same, how can a computer program that will never be intelligent be able to read it correctly? It would have to be self evolving, which I know there are programs that can do this but I don't think they are that advanced.
I will probably come back and post weekly/monthly results, haven't decided yet.
+2700 mon, +300 tue, +900 wed, -900 tue, +2000 today
Attachments
End of week. Found out 6 yr old laptop died Tue AM, and even though I had a new one by Wed morning, I wasn't focused on the market like I should have been.
Traded Thur/Fri, made around 2.3k for the week.
Traded Thur/Fri, made around 2.3k for the week.
-900 m +700 tu -200 w +1300 th -200 fr
I think the total is about $700.
As always, very low compared to what is possible. Focusing on the $ is not the proper mindset.
I guess the number one thing to work on is reversing my position quickly once the market tells me I'm wrong. Several days, including yesterday, I ended up trading the 'wrong' way. There were planned trades long but I only found them in hindsight. A couple times I had shorts open, and if I had reversed after I got stopped out (or shortly after) I would have been on "the right side."
I think the total is about $700.
As always, very low compared to what is possible. Focusing on the $ is not the proper mindset.
I guess the number one thing to work on is reversing my position quickly once the market tells me I'm wrong. Several days, including yesterday, I ended up trading the 'wrong' way. There were planned trades long but I only found them in hindsight. A couple times I had shorts open, and if I had reversed after I got stopped out (or shortly after) I would have been on "the right side."
End of Feb
Hopefully by posting this publically it will somehow accelerate my trading success... (on top of my personal paper journal/picture trade log)
Yesterday (and many days before) I will have the best possible entry, and cut my profits short so painfully it feels like someone has kicked me in the nuts and punched me in the head (I get a headache), trading is the only thing that gives me headaches.
The problem myself and other traders make is making trading too complex. Anyone heard of that book "cybernetic analysis of stocks/futures?" Even using simple lines as a compass to judge S/D or S/R, you can over-complicate trading. I had a short trade on that eventually ran 10 RLM points, but I had completely scaled out of my 6 contracts at a max of 4 points. The main problem was I continued to analyze the market and the market kept breaking above R/S lines I was drawing and wasn't convincingly breaking lows. However, the market never got above the swing point where I entered my trade. Even though I made money, it was a pittance compared to what I could have.
Price tested the highs where I had my entry and did exactly what it is intended to do, scare shorts out of their positions. Some might look at this as giving shorts another opportunity to get on board, but I don't think the market wants that. Looking back, these tests never broke the most recent high, and the lows that were being created were near the same level (technically a descending triangle). I SHOULD HAVE SAT ON MY HANDS.
A lot of the money I lost last year was caused by being shook out or scratching trades on these tests.
Yesterday (and many days before) I will have the best possible entry, and cut my profits short so painfully it feels like someone has kicked me in the nuts and punched me in the head (I get a headache), trading is the only thing that gives me headaches.
The problem myself and other traders make is making trading too complex. Anyone heard of that book "cybernetic analysis of stocks/futures?" Even using simple lines as a compass to judge S/D or S/R, you can over-complicate trading. I had a short trade on that eventually ran 10 RLM points, but I had completely scaled out of my 6 contracts at a max of 4 points. The main problem was I continued to analyze the market and the market kept breaking above R/S lines I was drawing and wasn't convincingly breaking lows. However, the market never got above the swing point where I entered my trade. Even though I made money, it was a pittance compared to what I could have.
Price tested the highs where I had my entry and did exactly what it is intended to do, scare shorts out of their positions. Some might look at this as giving shorts another opportunity to get on board, but I don't think the market wants that. Looking back, these tests never broke the most recent high, and the lows that were being created were near the same level (technically a descending triangle). I SHOULD HAVE SAT ON MY HANDS.
A lot of the money I lost last year was caused by being shook out or scratching trades on these tests.
Thinking of completely forgoing trading tomorrow/Friday. Today and yesterday, I took unplanned trades that resulted in relatively large losses.
At 1 point yesterday I was down 1500, but managed to recover a little over half. Today I was down around 2500 and recovered all but 800.
Yesterday I traded 30 contracts, and today its 26. This is ridiculous, considering often my plan will get me positioned correctly early, I just need to sit on my hands.
Need to review this years documents and see if I'm right about my above statements, but I am pretty sure I am from screen time.
Seems like I have a cycle of doing well, and then losing control of myself. I know what works, I just need to do it.
At 1 point yesterday I was down 1500, but managed to recover a little over half. Today I was down around 2500 and recovered all but 800.
Yesterday I traded 30 contracts, and today its 26. This is ridiculous, considering often my plan will get me positioned correctly early, I just need to sit on my hands.
Need to review this years documents and see if I'm right about my above statements, but I am pretty sure I am from screen time.
Seems like I have a cycle of doing well, and then losing control of myself. I know what works, I just need to do it.
Guess I should be happy to have a positive week, for all the lack of self control and plan violations I committed this week. From my studies, the majority of the time there are 1-2 trades that most often capture the majority of the trend in a day.
M +900, T -800, W -800, Th +10, Fri +1400
This is pathetic for my method. Trade risk has been averaging around $1200 +/- and RLM makes 10 point runs often.
Part of the excuse for a shitty week is sometimes there are two possible trades back to back. When that happened this AM, I just waited, and the most recent planned trade would have worked out well, but I might not have caught it as I might have taken an earlier short. It seems right now it's best not to consider reversal until the peak before my trade entry is broken. I need to figure these stats so I can't make a good bet.
M +900, T -800, W -800, Th +10, Fri +1400
This is pathetic for my method. Trade risk has been averaging around $1200 +/- and RLM makes 10 point runs often.
Part of the excuse for a shitty week is sometimes there are two possible trades back to back. When that happened this AM, I just waited, and the most recent planned trade would have worked out well, but I might not have caught it as I might have taken an earlier short. It seems right now it's best not to consider reversal until the peak before my trade entry is broken. I need to figure these stats so I can't make a good bet.
I took 3 counter trend trades on the H RLM contract today, and was down about 5k at one point. I managed to regain over half. Price was sluggish and the bars were not forming quickly and longer than usual. Thankfully I was only trading 5 lots. Didn't realize till 10 am that the reason the market was so slow and hard to read was the volume changed to Jun today. ...
Can't remember exactly what the numbers were but:
2700 Mon, 900 Tu, -600 W, 300 Th, -2200 Fr
Trading counter trend and holding are my biggest issues I need to fix.
Can't remember exactly what the numbers were but:
2700 Mon, 900 Tu, -600 W, 300 Th, -2200 Fr
Trading counter trend and holding are my biggest issues I need to fix.
M +1,580 Tu +920 W +920 Th +1,650 Fri +690
(pre commission)
Still very low for trading 5/6 lots this week (down from 9). Last week I was over trading with 9 and getting too excited and not thinking clearly. This week I exited several of my winning positions with little good reason. The last trade I took today has run 7 points since my exit without a single sign of a reversal attempt. I exited the position on my phone without even looking at price while I was at lunch.....
I think I had losing trades every day that I had to recover from. Near the exact same thing happened on Mon and Tue, where I was short and noticed I became a trapped trader on a longer term timeframe (usually I look for traps on short term time frames), and a reverse position enabled me to recover the losses. This was a semi-big break-though for me as I understand exactly why I should exit where I have it in my plan.
Guess I should be grateful for a good week.
(pre commission)
Still very low for trading 5/6 lots this week (down from 9). Last week I was over trading with 9 and getting too excited and not thinking clearly. This week I exited several of my winning positions with little good reason. The last trade I took today has run 7 points since my exit without a single sign of a reversal attempt. I exited the position on my phone without even looking at price while I was at lunch.....
I think I had losing trades every day that I had to recover from. Near the exact same thing happened on Mon and Tue, where I was short and noticed I became a trapped trader on a longer term timeframe (usually I look for traps on short term time frames), and a reverse position enabled me to recover the losses. This was a semi-big break-though for me as I understand exactly why I should exit where I have it in my plan.
Guess I should be grateful for a good week.