Clowns ES Daytrading Journal
- Thread starter ESclown
- Start date
Nice journal. A few bits of thoughts from me. In general view, it seems you're trying too much to catch every wiggle and get caught in the 3-4-5 point noise action often with the lower probability setups. That's the source of these sequential small losses. There's nothing wrong with going for 5, 6 or 7pts with targets, but look at the swings - at least two-three 10, 12, 15 points daily, so perhaps you should look for and only take the most reliable setups at areas where you see the most confluence and then target around 10pts or more. Confluence is good, it's crucial, it's the grail.. and you should try to avoid trading out of boredom, when you don't see enough confluence, or just to.. "get on the train". Your analysis zones are nice, but don't try to measure every swing to spot the zones.. it'll mess you up and you'll end up with too many levels to watch. Just concentrate on the major intraday and multi-day swings.
I'm usually trying to keep my trade count per day quite low and never over 5 trades per day. It helps to avoid taking trades that I'm "not quite sure of" or trades that "seem good, but don't exactly know".. In other words, have a plan to enter and exit trades long in advance and try avoiding impulsive entries. They almost always end up being sucker trades.
One other thing - it might be worth considering to keep at least 70% of your trades in the direction of the multi-day trend and only take countertrend trades at a high confluence zone when you visually see that there already is a clearly visible multi-day trend lasting for several days. Then it's most likely gonna pause/consolidate or even turn, as you know and your countertrend trades will have higher probability especially if taken from confluence zones created from bigger, multi-week/multi-day swings. But for counter-trend trades, always use more aggressive stop management - no point in taking a several point loss just to fight the current bigger trend.. and that's exactly what you're doing with these types of trades. They can be extremely rewarding, but they're lower probability, so you should keep losses tiny.
I'm usually trying to keep my trade count per day quite low and never over 5 trades per day. It helps to avoid taking trades that I'm "not quite sure of" or trades that "seem good, but don't exactly know".. In other words, have a plan to enter and exit trades long in advance and try avoiding impulsive entries. They almost always end up being sucker trades.
One other thing - it might be worth considering to keep at least 70% of your trades in the direction of the multi-day trend and only take countertrend trades at a high confluence zone when you visually see that there already is a clearly visible multi-day trend lasting for several days. Then it's most likely gonna pause/consolidate or even turn, as you know and your countertrend trades will have higher probability especially if taken from confluence zones created from bigger, multi-week/multi-day swings. But for counter-trend trades, always use more aggressive stop management - no point in taking a several point loss just to fight the current bigger trend.. and that's exactly what you're doing with these types of trades. They can be extremely rewarding, but they're lower probability, so you should keep losses tiny.
Thanks for the sound advice RSX, the reason why my day-trade account is based on small little losses and the occasional big winner is because all my confluence trades on longer term charts are taken in my swing account.
I employ 2 different strategies, each has their own merits, my swing trade account will often go for 15-25 point moves whereas my day account generally aim for 6 points as a minimum.
Today had lot of counter-trend entries which were not part of the plan - that's just sucky trading on my behalf, i think i was due for a bad day.
I agree with limiting the amount of trades per day, i generally have a rule that i should not be trading anymore than 10 entries per day on my day account and 2 on my swing account.
This system is based on low win percentage of 30-40% and designed around big risk: reward on most trades.
Keep the advice coming RSX would be nice to have you share some more thoughts on this journal.
Good trading
Is this move down a fakeout before blasting higher. Will be watching this zone very carefully and maybe looking to get long here.
Only problem with further rallying is that the 60min has completed a 5wave move. Could this be the ABC retrace - I'm personally not much of an elliottician but I'm watching intraday value which is higher.
Only problem with further rallying is that the 60min has completed a 5wave move. Could this be the ABC retrace - I'm personally not much of an elliottician but I'm watching intraday value which is higher.