Ok so my first day watching the ES live has not went well for me at all. A lot of the ideas I had were instantly shut down in a matter of minutes this morning. I guess my number one goal for this week is gain relativity for the ES. What i mean by relativity is to get a general market feel hour by hour. A feel for relative volatility and liquidity for this period those type things.
Brent's Journey to success Journal
- Thread starter bigbrent701
- Start date
Good luck Brent. Today's ES has been dull and boring - for me at least.
NO LIQUIDITY today, i picked a hell of a day to start, i was actually warned today by a fellow trader she reminded me that the big slick traders are all on vaction this week so anything that happens will be exadgerrated. She was right so far. Exadgerated choppiness.
Well today was another loser but I felt much more comfortable trading than i did yesterday. Starting to get a better feel for the market action, how to get great fills, when not to trade. I took 9 trades today
4 Winners
5 Losers
Net -1.50 pts.
The best lesson i got from today was about where to place your stop. Ive generally always believed to place it where your idea is clearly proven wrong, sometimes this will be far away from yoru entry price giving you a bad risk/reward trade thats why it is so important to try in get in at the best price.
There were 2 trades today that stand out, at 1:00 i had been working a long order @ 1303.25 to try and get out at 1305 area, well I noticed a lot orders were coming in slapping the bid and i went to cancel the trade but i still got my fill, nor originally i had a tight stop on this but after listening to my mentor and how he was treating the same position I decided to let it ride, I ended up covering at 1302.75 for a full point loss, I would have liked to have only taken a half point loss on this or even better had the order cancelled in time! Had i went with my original feel about a tight stop i would have saved half a point.
The second trade was at around 2:20 when I decided to short the lower high, @ 1299, I probably should have tryed to get a fill at 1299.25, and i know thats only a quater tick but as a scalper it can make a big difference if you do that over several trades a day. My target was 1297.50 near the lows, my stop however was a bit wider @ 1300.75, since i was treating this as a relatively longer term trade looking back 1300 looks like a better area for a stop.
Even though i still lost money today i feel like i learned a couple more lessons about how this contract works, look to again improve tomorrow and learn as much as i can.
4 Winners
5 Losers
Net -1.50 pts.
The best lesson i got from today was about where to place your stop. Ive generally always believed to place it where your idea is clearly proven wrong, sometimes this will be far away from yoru entry price giving you a bad risk/reward trade thats why it is so important to try in get in at the best price.
There were 2 trades today that stand out, at 1:00 i had been working a long order @ 1303.25 to try and get out at 1305 area, well I noticed a lot orders were coming in slapping the bid and i went to cancel the trade but i still got my fill, nor originally i had a tight stop on this but after listening to my mentor and how he was treating the same position I decided to let it ride, I ended up covering at 1302.75 for a full point loss, I would have liked to have only taken a half point loss on this or even better had the order cancelled in time! Had i went with my original feel about a tight stop i would have saved half a point.
The second trade was at around 2:20 when I decided to short the lower high, @ 1299, I probably should have tryed to get a fill at 1299.25, and i know thats only a quater tick but as a scalper it can make a big difference if you do that over several trades a day. My target was 1297.50 near the lows, my stop however was a bit wider @ 1300.75, since i was treating this as a relatively longer term trade looking back 1300 looks like a better area for a stop.
Even though i still lost money today i feel like i learned a couple more lessons about how this contract works, look to again improve tomorrow and learn as much as i can.
good job on second trade, but on 1pm it is lunch time = consolidation, then it could break out or break down, you don't know, in this case it b/d and vol look like a blow out vol so it could be reverse soon but you don't know, the best action is wait to see if this is really blow out vol, if it is then the support level will hold
What program should i use to create .gif image files?
Ide like to show you what i was working with.
Ide like to show you what i was working with.
So some slight setbacks today, again watched the market and used the simulator today. Got a better feel for the market action and a little bit of knowledge as to how the ES trades when its truly in a trend. At the end of the day it wasnt a real pretty result as i again lost money on paper but thats alright.
As for the real setback it looks like i am going to have to push my trading back a couple months. My mentor feels that he needs to be trading with me at this point as I probably have some market misconceptions that need deprogramming. Im perfectly alright with this. So i am going to cancel my trial to DTN and Market delta and resume my journey when he gets his prop platform up and running. This will save me money in the long run as my education costs will be drastically reduced. Also its important that I have my mentor around to help me trade while im learning and since he cant commit the time to devoloping his prop platform and training he suggested that I wait.
So in a nutshell this puts a temporary halt to my trading journal for the most part. I will finish what i can of my business plan then its just a matter of waiting for his platform to come out.
So for now my journey has came to a standstill but i WILL continue this soon. Look for me again come the end of the year hopefully. As for now I guess im just going to focus on school as best I can although my real mind is set on trading, this is something I have learned to deal with over the years.
As for the real setback it looks like i am going to have to push my trading back a couple months. My mentor feels that he needs to be trading with me at this point as I probably have some market misconceptions that need deprogramming. Im perfectly alright with this. So i am going to cancel my trial to DTN and Market delta and resume my journey when he gets his prop platform up and running. This will save me money in the long run as my education costs will be drastically reduced. Also its important that I have my mentor around to help me trade while im learning and since he cant commit the time to devoloping his prop platform and training he suggested that I wait.
So in a nutshell this puts a temporary halt to my trading journal for the most part. I will finish what i can of my business plan then its just a matter of waiting for his platform to come out.
So for now my journey has came to a standstill but i WILL continue this soon. Look for me again come the end of the year hopefully. As for now I guess im just going to focus on school as best I can although my real mind is set on trading, this is something I have learned to deal with over the years.
So those of you that were reading my journal back when i started it probably may be wondering where the hell I have been. The answer is quite simple, SCHOOL! With the fall semester coming to a close i find it absolutely astounding now looking back that i ever thought that i would have time to trade the afternoon session. This would have been an extremely troublesome time for me to trade and probably would have affected my results from different internal and external factors.
So those of you that had kept up with my journal are probably wondering what im doing back. Over the past few weeks i have been looking for an internship for summer 2007. My list currently is around 10 firms. I updated my resume but it is still a very rough copy and to me an embarassment to post on a public forum at this point because its format is so terrible, im going to get it looked at by a resume professional at the career center at my university.
I know that internships are not quite as competitive to get as regular jobs but they come with their own flavor of difficulties, they arent as easy to find! Couple this with many firms not wanting to reveal their proprietary strategies to interns and your list of trading internships is about as long as "republican supporters of ted kennedy" to use jack Schwagers words.
I have a couple contacts that i am going to work and I am starting this now because i live in maryland and I most likely am going to have to relocate, which is not an issue to me, absolutely whatever it takes.
So a little on the ideal internship. The ideal internship allows me to work on the trading desk of a medium to large institutional prop trading firm. Im not talking GS large though by any means. During my iternship i would be exposed to the daily life as a trader. Ideally i would serve as an assistant to a experienced trader and through them i could learn classic pitfalls to avoid. Now i know what everyone is going to say you should learn on your own but some things are just VERY difficult to do by yourself and if someone could help assist you then why not. Learning how to trade without a mentor is like teaching yourself calculus. It can be done but your going to spend a lot of time fixing silly errors that could be avoided. Ideally at the end of the internship period I would feel comfortable with the daily routine of being a trader and ultimately be offered a job when i graduate.
If anyone has any firms that they think would be a good candidate for me to send my resume and cover letter to please let me know!
Well its getting late, im going to bed. Look forward to any replies. Happy trading.
So those of you that had kept up with my journal are probably wondering what im doing back. Over the past few weeks i have been looking for an internship for summer 2007. My list currently is around 10 firms. I updated my resume but it is still a very rough copy and to me an embarassment to post on a public forum at this point because its format is so terrible, im going to get it looked at by a resume professional at the career center at my university.
I know that internships are not quite as competitive to get as regular jobs but they come with their own flavor of difficulties, they arent as easy to find! Couple this with many firms not wanting to reveal their proprietary strategies to interns and your list of trading internships is about as long as "republican supporters of ted kennedy" to use jack Schwagers words.
I have a couple contacts that i am going to work and I am starting this now because i live in maryland and I most likely am going to have to relocate, which is not an issue to me, absolutely whatever it takes.
So a little on the ideal internship. The ideal internship allows me to work on the trading desk of a medium to large institutional prop trading firm. Im not talking GS large though by any means. During my iternship i would be exposed to the daily life as a trader. Ideally i would serve as an assistant to a experienced trader and through them i could learn classic pitfalls to avoid. Now i know what everyone is going to say you should learn on your own but some things are just VERY difficult to do by yourself and if someone could help assist you then why not. Learning how to trade without a mentor is like teaching yourself calculus. It can be done but your going to spend a lot of time fixing silly errors that could be avoided. Ideally at the end of the internship period I would feel comfortable with the daily routine of being a trader and ultimately be offered a job when i graduate.
If anyone has any firms that they think would be a good candidate for me to send my resume and cover letter to please let me know!
Well its getting late, im going to bed. Look forward to any replies. Happy trading.