Originally posted by jboydston
Moved up to two contracts today. As you can see from the trade confirmations, absolutely no problem getting filled. I wonder how many more I can trade without time-slipage?
Does anyone out there find the charts that I posted usefully? I'll do my best to get them posted if make a difference somehow. Let me know if I should continue.
jboydston,
I find charts useful when they have annotations showing Price Entry and Exit along with indicators (if you use them) that you were applying with each trade decision.
Charts speak a thousand words.
Thus...I find your Trade Journal very useful only for the charts. I simply cannot find anything useful out of the copy & paste of your actual broker's trade log.
Post more charts and you'll probably grab a larger audience from ET and get more constructive criticism comments.
It's also nice to look at charts and compare them to my own trade signals to see what other trade signals other traders see.
However...the ultimate charts (more work...reason why most probably don't do it)...
are charts of what the trade signal looked like (on your computer screen) at the time of the trade that you reacted upon and initiated a Price Entry and then another chart of what you saw for Price Exit...instead of one complete chart that produces a different image because it contains all the intraday down/up peaks.
Another way to explain it...Price Entry charts contains no data after price entry...just prior data...same for Price Exit charts...requires a lot of scrolling to setup for image capture...reason why most don't do it...however it provides a more accurate image of what you were seeing.
Remember this...the goal is for your TRADE JOURNAL to be useful to you.
Now...here's my opinion about
increasing contract size per trade...
1) Only do it after you have had
consistent profits (months).
2) Obviously because more contracts provides more flexibility (scaling out of profitable trades at different profit targets)...it also increases the risk.
3) Figure out which trade setups (your most profitable trade setups) would benefit from the increased contract size...and your less profitable trade setups...continue trading with the lesser contract size (your previous trading size).
Simply...don't make the mistake (many beginner Emini traders do) of applying the same contract size to ALL trade setups when trading multiple contracts.
It's all about
controlling your risk exposure.
4) Last of all...if you find yourself hesitating more (not taking trade signals) with the increased contract size...reduce your contracts back to the previous level until the anxiety/stress goes away.
Good morning and I wish you good trading today.
NihabaAshi