...And They Have a Plan. (Live.)

Well, today was a fine how-do-you-do. Booted up the trading machine this morning and found a lovely little issue. I didn't have the presence of mind to screen cap what the charts looked like, but use your imagination from the NT log...

nqspreadbuggered.JPG


When I logged in this morning, the actual NQ prices were at almost exactly the same entry points.

The problem is December. Reference the charts above to compare the spread. See a problem with Dec NQ? My average price was 5875.00, NOT 5836.75. lol! So Ninja was telling me I was in a near 40-point profit on the long. I closed both positions right away to get out of the mess. Wound up with a net loss of $40 on the deal. Totally screwed up my day.

Edit: I found the issue I believe. It has to do with how the CME calculates "averages", and how those numbers are sent to the broker. Talk about a convolution of confusion when doing overnight holds...

nqspreadbuggeredstatement.JPG


The average long is there at the bottom., and that must be where NT picked it up. The $1415 debit trade isn't actually a daytrade, just a way they calculate a position from one trading session to the next. I simply do not like how Ninja's charts show your open positions based on these "averages", because they do not represent the true unrealized value of the positions.

Have a headache now. Ug.
 
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Weekly update...

Slow week, not many trades. I haven't been able to be in front of trading computer much, because I currently am not in the mind to make money trading. So I stayed out most of the week. Especially after the Wednesday debacle with the front-end and CME reporting. Blah.

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Trade journal from last week...

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Another slow week. After today's performance, which will be updated next week, I am batting zero for this week as compared to last. Today was a peach due to a sloppy error on my part. Ahh, trading is joyous.
 
algofy said:
And when you say joyous you mean stab your eyes out miserable right?
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More like a thousand paper cuts sprinkled with lye while getting toenails slowly chewed off by a rabid marmot that's on fire.
 
Well, last week was just total crap. Went in on Tuesday to do an overnight hold long. The opportunity seemed ripe. Yet I wanted to do it with just 1 contract. I mistakenly went in with 4cts. So I sat for a bit, then closed it out at a loss. I just didn't want in with 4. My plan was for 1. So after closing it I went back in with 1. That started failing so I tried to spread to mitigate the damage, but then my mind fell apart because I was so damned mad at myself for making that mistake. At that point I closed the losses, tried two more longs and then said screw it, my mind is not working correctly. Don't trade when mind is not working correctly.

So I decided to not trade for rest of week as I stewed over my mistake. I tend to treat myself very harshly when I mess up, and could not bear having to mentally self-flagellate again if I made another mistake.

The only solace I can take away from this is it was the right thing to do, because if the market HAD gone down after that, I would have been pleased. (But it didn't. *le sigh*.)

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Overnight said:
Well, last week was just total crap. Went in on Tuesday to do an overnight hold long. The opportunity seemed ripe. Yet I wanted to do it with just 1 contract. I mistakenly went in with 4cts. So I sat for a bit, then closed it out at a loss. I just didn't want in with 4. My plan was for 1. So after closing it I went back in with 1. That started failing so I tried to spread to mitigate the damage, but then my mind fell apart because I was so damned mad at myself for making that mistake. At that point I closed the losses, tried two more longs and then said screw it, my mind is not working correctly. Don't trade when mind is not working correctly.

So I decided to not trade for rest of week as I stewed over my mistake. I tend to treat myself very harshly when I mess up, and could not bear having to mentally self-flagellate again if I made another mistake.

The only solace I can take away from this is it was the right thing to do, because if the market HAD gone down after that, I would have been pleased. (But it didn't. *le sigh*.)

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This right here is why I always do much better in my automation periods. Sometimes when my automation sucks, I go back to manual and then I suck at managing my emotions under quick thinking situations like you did in this most recent post.
 
Just one trade last week, won't bother to post another synopsis until I have more trades going on. And one this week, to get in on the Fed thing with a spread. Here is current position on it. So when you don't know how the market will react? Just spread it, and wait for dust to settle, then stop on the losing leg and look for continuation on the profit leg...Or vice-versa.

whattodoMAnalyzerJPG.JPG


I decided to do this mostly because I need to test something with my broker regarding holding through overnight, and figured today would have been as good time as any.
 
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