Beating the Odds - Kylash's Trade Journal

K

Kylash

Well here it is, my first trade journal!

A Quick Introduction:
The realm of finance and trading has been of interest to me for almost two years now. It was just last fall as the markets began to collapse that I really got interested in actually trying out trading. Now being only 15 years old (yes, that's right I'm 15), my only real chance to trade is when I have an abundance of free time on my hands, which is of course, in the summer. It took a bit of effort, but I finally convinced my parents to help me open up a brokerage account in their name, depositing $2,000 of my own money.

I'm going to be mainly trading the ES and Euro futures, along with any other future that I see an opportunity to profit from. I'll be trading no more then 2 contracts at one time and will be using a maximum daily stop loss of $250 with a daily profit target of $200.

I sim traded for about a month and now I'm going to spend the next month trading live. If nothing else, I hope to learn as much as I can from this month of trading (and hopefully not lose everything...). But either way I hope to record all my experiences and trades as a record/journal that I can look back on in the future.

Note: I won't be trading everyday but when I do trade I'll try to remember to record it here.
 
Today

Short 2 6E - 1.4238
Covered 1 6E - Target One (1.4233)
Covered 1 6E - Break Even (1.4238)

Short 1 YM - 8862
Cover 1 YM - Manual Close (8863)

Short 1 ES - 953.75
Cover 1 ES - Target (952.75)

Bought 1 ES - 948.5
Sold 1 ES - Target (949.5)

Short 2 ES - 948.5
Cover 2 ES - Stop Out 950.5

Short 1 YM - 8829
Cover 1 YM - Stop Out 8849

Bought 1 6E - 1.4221
Sold 1 62 - Target 1.4226

Short 2 ES - 949.75
Cover 2 ES - Target (948.75)

Short 1 TF - 519.0
Cover 1 TF - Manual Target (518.6)
^^ (Bad trade, never traded TF before and had no plan)

Bought 2 ES - 943.00
Sold 1 ES - Got scared and took one position out (943.25)
Sold 1 ES - Traded at target but didn't get filled, so moved stop to break even (943)

Short 2 ES - 942.00
Cover 2 ES - Took out because of bullish indicator (942.75)
^^ Very very low volume shouldn't have taken the trade...


I took way to many trades today and ended up in the red about $75 dollars.

Total Account since start - $1871.20 = Down $129.80
 
Repeating myself but I defiantly took way too many trades today....
I'm getting an urge though to take a mini Nasdaq trade following Apple's earnings...
 
Well that was defiantly not one of my smartest trades...

Apple Earnings Trade

Bought NQ - 1562
Full Stop Out - 1546
^^Didn't wait long enough for pop back up^^

I guess I probably shouldn't be trying to trade AAPL earnings with a 8 point stop....

Although my CAT earnings SIM Trade this morning worked out fine...

Ending Account Balance for today = $1816.40 = total loss of $182.60 since starting.
 
A few tips that some will disagree with but will post for you anyway.

Stay away from low vol. summer days like Monday and Friday

It would be better if you could trade after labor day but since you are in school probable not possible

By all means stay away from TF, you could find yourself down a 100 bucks in seconds

You had a excellent ES trade for 2 pts, study what you did right on that trade and try and learn from it
 
2 PTS in the ES is not an EXCELLENT trade! thats telling your kid who got an f on a test.. oh man godo job boy you did great taking that test.

Kid,

You need to understand there is no reward without risk..

this means= you must be willing to let the market go against your positions whether long or short until your ideas is proven true. I am profitable on 90 % of my CLOSED OUT TRADES!! I am also at some point or another at a loss on 99 % of my trades at some point or another. Get it the risk is letting the market go agaisnt you for a little while. If you continue to trade liek youare doing now then you will ahve roughly 9 more trading days before you are belly up..

Trade only the mini NQ. You don' thave enough for the es and you need to be able to hold overnight. I rarely use stops... why because I believe in my levels and my trades.. when they go against me i typically buy more.. yes adding to a loser is what makes you a winner, but only on swing trades 2-3 days. Intraday scalping is hwat you are doing and it does not work. If you want an education in the markets then give the money back to your parents and tell them to hold onto it. Let them know tht any money you make paper tradign they owe you up to 2000 dollars. and once you lose 2000 dolalrs then the game is over. this way you can make money and your parents will not lose.

DO NOT SCALP!!!!!!!!!!! you are on the wrong path actually on the wrong planet with scalping.
 
Not a great way to start the day off.... but that's trading I guess.

9:30:39
Bought 2 6E - 1.4163
Sold 1 6E - Target One (1.4138)
Sold 1 6E - Break Even (1.4163)
P/L: $62.50

9:45:12
Accidentally bought 2 6E contracts when I meant to buy ES. Was looking at charts while I had my mouse of market order...
Lost 1 tick each on both contracts
P/L: -$25.00

9:45:43
Short 2 ES - 948.25
Cover 2 ES - Stopped Out (950.25)
Note to self: Only trade one contract on bean method if it's not at the very top of the MACD hill.
P/L: -$200

Because I was nearly at -$200 for the day I decided to go ahead into my Negative capital preservation mode where I only trade one contract instead of one.
Not sure if I should have waited until I officially was -$200 for the day but I don't think I would be comfortable losing another $200 on a full stop out.

9:53.22
Bought 1 YM - 8880
Sold 1 YM - Break Even (8880)
This is another "not so good" trade I took today. I had a plan set out for a 10 tick target but I got scared when it started to retrace and made the decision to take it out at break even..... it proceeded to bounce back up to 8890...
Note to self: STICK TO PLAN!!
P/L: $0.00

10:03:07 (SIM TRADE)
Short 1 ES - 953.50
Cover 1 ES - Target (952.50)

10:12:50
Short 1 ES - 953.00
Cover 1 ES - Target (952.00)
P/L: $50.00

10:30:14 (SIM TRADE)
Short 1 TF - 523.9
Bought 1 TF - Stop Out (524.7)
^^Trade would have worked if I had used a larger stop. I need to create a solid TF plan before I begin trading it live.

Total P/L so far: -$112.50 not including commissions.
 
If you are new to trading futures the tendency is to scalp. But if you scalp you will oftentimes find yourself taking bad/low probability trades. Scalping is great until a scalp with a couple tick profit target goes bad and you are forced to book a huge loss.
 
scalping is never great kid.. teh indians used to scalp and look what happened unfortunately to their race.. do nto scalp no matter what. you are better off shorting here in teh nq and risking all 2000 against you instead of this bullshit scalping. i giv eyou at the most 12 trading days from today until all your money is gone unless you start lying about your results.. keep up the good work though.. the more you lose the more you are greasing the wheels for the rest of us money makers.\

YOU MUST INCLUIDE COMMISSIONS.. IT IS AS EASY AS LOOKING AT YOUR END OF DAY NET GAIN OR LOSS.. UNLESS YOU AREN'T REALLY TRADIGN AND IT SI TO OHARD FOR YOU TO KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHNG YOU ARE DOING..
 
Really not happy with my trading today.

Took two more trades this afternoon, looked like a great setup but just totally ignored the whole low volume aspect which seemed to have killed me.

1:49:15 to 1:54:36
Bought 1 ES - 953.00
Sold 1 ES - Break Even
Really just wasn't moving anywhere... I don't regret taking it off.

2:10:03 to 2:40:55
Short 1 ES - 951.50
Cover 1 ES - Stopped Out (953.50)
P/L: - $100

Well this trade had really nothing pretty to it. Both my 1000 and 3000 tick charts showed major trend line break as well as bearish MACD setup.
Volume was a total killer! As the time in the trade shows (30 MINUTES) I really don't know what I was thinking.
I guess there is a point when "sticking to your plan" really should just be thrown out the window. I mean for gods sake a 30 minute trade can't be a scalp.
Following getting stopped out, ES went up to about 954.25 and is still trending lower now.....
NOTE TO SELF: If a trade is more then 6 minutes it's not a scalp! It's a swing trade and swing trades defiantly need more room to breath (stop looser).

Well it's not pretty but I promised to be totally honest with this journal for my own good.

Yesterday ending account balance: $1816.40
Today's ending account balance.
$1553.14
Today total P/L: 263.26

Going from here...
Will only trade 1 Contract tomorrow.
Profit target $100-$150
Stop loss $200
Unless their is substantial volume (which I highly doubt) I will not trade in the afternoon tomorrow.
 
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