Getting back in The Game

Quote from doublea:

I don't think I understand your first question. I do not subscribe to any indicators/vendors. Like I said in my first post I trade divergences between indexes...pretty simple. For me it is part time because I have other businesses, that is why I am trading small with limited capital. I am paying $4.02 roundtrip.

carry on. let see how this old timer will turn out. i give it 50/50 for now based on looking at your entry and exit prices
 
Good luck.. thanks for sharing your methodology. What is moderate success? Can you quantify in that terms of net % return on capital and CALAMR (net return/max drawdown)?

Quote from doublea:

I have traded in the past with moderate success, managed to make some here and lose some there. I have been out of the market for a few years and now want to give it a shot. I just funded my account and will start trading tomorrow. I will trade NQ and/or ES. I will try NQ for a month and if I am profitable and want to increase size, I may give ES a try.

My general method is trading divergences between indexes, primarily Russell, Nasdaq and S&P. The indicator that I use is MACD (4,13,4) and will trade on the direction of MACD only. It's a pullback method where I wait for the price to pullback and I want to see a divergence between the indexes. I expect the Russell to show strength before Nasdaq or S&P.

I will trade reversals too, when I see strong divergences between the indexes.

My target is usually 21 ticks. I have certain scenarios where it could be higher. I always use a trailing stop usually 1 or 2 ticks below the previous 5 min bar.

Wish me luck.
 
Quote from emg:

carry on. let see how this old timer will turn out. i give it 50/50 for now based on looking at your entry and exit prices

Wow...seriously? Is that the sort of constructive criticism people get here these days? I don't remember asking you what my chances are of making it. I am just jotting down my thoughts here, and the only reason I think an online journal is better than a paper journal is that everyone can see it and you try your best not to take too many sub-par trades.

I told you my story, now please tell us yours too. What do you trade? What is your starting capital and how have you done so far?
 
Quote from Lucias:

Good luck.. thanks for sharing your methodology. What is moderate success? Can you quantify in that terms of net % return on capital and CALAMR (net return/max drawdown)?

When I said moderate success I meant that I never blew up, and was net postive. As a return on capital it had been as high as 100% but that is misleading because I was trading 2 ES with $3500 in margin....this was years ago.
 
+106...Calling it a day.

I was busy this morning so did not get to trade, but there were 2 great short opportunities. Got a long signal after 9.30 but did 1 only instead of 2 because the market was still down over 1%.

The week has been good so far. There were 7 total trades where 6 were for 2 contracts and 1 was for 1 contract. 3 wins and 4 losses. The best part is that I followed my plan except for 1 instance where it cost me 14 ticks on 2 contracts.

Total $303 for the week in 3 trading days and $546 for the month in 4 trading days since I did not trade on Tuesday.
 
No trade today... There were few short signals but did not take any. On the first short signal, I had an order to sell at 69.75, with a stop at 73 and buy-limit at 64.5. I entered the order when the market was bid 70-ask 70.25, but my order didnot go through because when I attached a bracket order, IB defaults to Stop-limit and not stop. By the time I fixed the order, it was down 2 pts and never came to 69.75. In the future, I will just attach a stop, than a bracket order and manually exit the trade if my target is met.
 
+145 today.

Made a mistake on the third trade. The trailing stop should have been at 48 instead of 49.25. Everything was pointing towards a reversal and would have been good for 10 points, so instead of making another 400, lost 20+ commish.

No more trades for the day if I do not follow my plan.
 

Attachments

Even though it is too early to give suggestions. Here are the few things that I have learnt.

1) Trend is your friend: We do not know when it ends but it is a good idea to buy pulllbacks and exit preferably with a profit rather than waiting to ride it all the way.

2) How do one know if the trend is ending or not?: This is hard to tell but if the indexes are divergening once they reach resistance/support, it is a good idea to look for reversals. I always look for confirmation before I place a trade though.

3) It is necessary to write down your entire methods/set-ups and look at those every morning. When you are first starting it is a good idea to have NO more than 4 set-ups and only take the trade if that set-up occurs.
 
Quote from doublea:

Wow...seriously? Is that the sort of constructive criticism people get here these days? I don't remember asking you what my chances are of making it. I am just jotting down my thoughts here, and the only reason I think an online journal is better than a paper journal is that everyone can see it and you try your best not to take too many sub-par trades.

I told you my story, now please tell us yours too. What do you trade? What is your starting capital and how have you done so far?

Please don't let the trolls trouble. They are decent folks here, but many were driven out by the trolls.

Good luck to you ..
 
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