Chronicles of the NQ

+10, took a short earlier that didn't work so I quickly scratched it, and then the long trade flew right by me.

Aapl on a tear.. still holding my long position from 408. So while I missed out on this up move in the NQ, I am still long this market and watching aapl price action has been a blast, literally.
 
Quote from usrx201:

"fairly consistent" means not losing money but about breakeven with some positive outliers?
More...

Modest but consistent gains, coupled with negative outliers that eat up 2 to 3 days worth of gains.
 
-70; price took out my trailing stop on my last long at 2892 right before blasing off. Was down -230 at one point so not too bad of a day. I will probably take tomorrow off, NFP historically have very limited opportunities, at least for me. Trade well everyone, and most importantly enjoy your weekend.
 
Not sure what is the total return of NQ this year. It is a lagger. I've made 30% trading TQQQ this year with my IRA, but I still missed chunk of potential profit.

I figure it would have been higher with triple S&P or even Russel...
 
-80 on Friday and -180 today. Four losing days in row... doesn't get anymore indicative than this of a broken trading mentality.

Stopping my posting for now and going to shift my focus more on another business matter that is non-trading related. Taking a breather from trading but will still monitor the markets and if I get a nice setup I'll take it. Just will focus less on trading and more on other things in life. I'll likely just update my results sometime in the future.
 
Quote from Instynct:

Stopping my posting for now and going to shift my focus more on another business matter......Just will focus less on trading and more on other things in life.
More...

Good idea.....

You're struggling because you lack an edge....you appear to be competent regarding price action but that isn't enough....if you ever decide to return to trading make sure that you have thoroughly tested your edge over many many months using a good simulator...otherwise keep your money in your pocket
 
Quote from Instynct:

I have always been one to believe that trading one market and developing an intuitive sense for its price action is a great way to become consistently successful ... Price action unfolds differently every day ... So the only thing on my charts is this: R1, R2, daily pivot, S1, S2, weekly pivot, monthly pivot, key levels from the daily/weekly charts, and Vwap ... Less but effective information.

I am almost to the point where I do not scalp those single lots anymore...
More...

Although I am no legendary trader yet... I will offer you my thoughts;

At first you say you trade 100% discretionary, but then you have indicators you use in some form and trade when you see relationships between them. I would urge you to stay as far away from the discretionary trading as possible. Most pro traders would call that gambling and want you to do it.

If you add together a couple market truths i.e. most traders lose + the market is constantly trying to find equilibrium between buying and selling.... you know that simple patterns will recur until the end of time. I am surprised that with the indicators you have you are unable to see that (IMOHO, you have too many). I'm trading ES with a paint bar study (no variables) and trend lines. There is no question a seasoned trader could rake in a small fortune every day with these tools.

I am glad to see you stay away from scalping... the smaller your profit the more likely it is that you will lose (coming from personal experience).
 
An update to my trading, I’ll try to make it brief.

I am still trading NQ’s, but in 2013 I went back to work with my old company on a part time basis. Trading was on and off, including some sim trading for a couple of months which I absolutely hate, but I felt like I had to. Total last year was about (-2k), mostly if not all to commissions. This year started off a little rough because of the mirus/zenfire disaster, so in Jan I finally left them and joined AMP. My commissions is lower now and data is more stable. I’m not sure what took me so long to leave Mirus but I’m glad I did.

A few times last year I contemplated just giving up futures completely because I thought it was just too stressful for not much to show for. I was thinking of just swing trading or investing in stocks and ETF’s as I was having some success in that area. But part of me just kept holding on to NQ’s and every morning I would at least sit there in front of my computer and watch price unfold, even if I didn’t trade. I now understand that I have a very good edge when markets are volatile like in recent months and when markets just grind then I struggle. Also my approach or setup now is a bit different, but I still use the same principles and charts/ tools.

For January to March of this year my results : +165, -167, +595 respectively. April results attached.

For the really volatile days with lots of opportunities, I am only taking about 20 or 30% of my setups partly because its very tiring to focus on price action for more than a couple hours, and also because I just want to lock in gains. And I am trading 1 and 2 lots at a time.
That’s all for now, tomorrow I may just watch and/or maybe take a couple trades but definitely keeping it light and starting my weekend early. Just noticed that Goog missed earnings again and down AH so tomorrow should bring some vol in the morning. Happy Easter to everyone!
 
Hi all, I'm giving this another try. Screenshot of today's trades attached. Let's see how far I can take it this time. Good trading

P/L is net of fees, I pay 4.26 RT with Amp Futures
 

Attachments

  • 4-18-16_PL.png
    4-18-16_PL.png
    13.1 KB · Views: 52
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top