Growley's New Journal

[GrowleyMonster]

Starting fresh, so fresh journal. I am concentrating on the index micro emini futures, trying to get back up to $25k. Right now, I stand at $17,681, with all three day trades available, which could come in handy I suppose, but I don't have to worry about that, trading futures.

I was in and out a few times and it looked like another $1k day, at first. I made a hard and fast rule, to never enter a trade once I have given back half of my profit for the day. I was up over $500 at one point, and $194 being under half that, I left the table a winner instead of a loser. Or instead of a bigger winner. Whichever way you want to look at it. I know this, I'll never go broke trading if I make $194 and quit every day, but I WILL likely go broke if I won't settle for less than a $1000 day and I keep trading until I get it.

So I started the day at $17487 and made $194 so my increase was 1.1%. Meh. I'll take it.

Traded instrument was MNQZ2020, 5 contracts at a whack. IB increased the margin requirement prior to elections, so I can't swing the NQ anymore. I was trading a single contract of NQ, which is the regular E-Mini contract, for those not familiar with index futures. MNQ is the Micro version. Z us fir December and 2020 is of course the year. The underlying is of course the NASDAQ.

And as I write this, MNQ is taking off again. But I said I am out and dammit I am out. I'm not falling for that "Come On, Charlie Brown, kick the football!" crap again. I'm out for the day. OUT, I say!

Sometimes these micros are like the shell game. Or 3 card Monte. The guy lets you win a little, then takes you to the cleaners when you lose a little and try to get it all back and more. Just my caffeine-charged ramblings there. Okay I got stuff to do so later, gators.

 

[Retief]

Interactive Brokers has paper trading. If you're out for the day with your real money account, you could switch to the paper trade account to see how much you would have won or lost if you kept trading through the end of the market session.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

HAHA Yeah that's a good idea. But I will be keeping the live IB account up on screen, mostly, for the next few days. I got TradingView set up to give me an audible alert anytime MNQ crosses below the lower Bollinger. That's my "Hey, dummy, pay attention cause this might be a buy opportunity coming up". When I go work on the boat today I will take the laptop with me and if I hear my audible alert, I will stop what I'm doing and watch the chart. So basically I will be multitasking, working on the boat and trading, but cherry picking my trades really hard. I haven't set up the paper account with a separate user name and I can only have one or the other running unless I have separate user names for each.

What I COULD do is paper trade on TradingView or with my Alpaca account on TradingView. Well, maybe leave Alpaca out. No futures trading on Alpaca.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

The Naz 100 futures are looking pretty trendy today. I am running my stops pretty loose right now, being over $200 in the green and playing with the house's money. My profit taker is at 11795 and my stop is at 11660 right now, well below the lower bollinger. Hope I'm not making a mistake with that loose stop but if I stop out there, I am still just barely in the red for final P&L. If I limit out, I will be at around +$1300 for the day. I am thinking the current up-trend could continue to 12k or more. Every additional 100 points is another $1k for me.

A quick eyeball analysis shows I have lost considerable money or failed to make a good profit even in uptrends. When I run my stops high and tight, I stop out. When I run them loose, the price heads for the bad place. Once I am down $1k or so it is really hard to stay in the trade and sometimes pretty stupid to stay in the trade, but I already lost that much money... woe is me. The obvious solution is play smaller positions but I suspect the smart solution is to be more sure of my entry and the trend. Several times I have failed to acknowledge a developing down trend and bought in to it.

So, back to today. MNQ toucked and barely broke ``700 and I was hoping it would break on out. It bounced down instead and the doji candle at 13:10 should have been my exit cue according to my usual trading style. Instead I elected to ride it down through the dip however deep or shallow it might be, and be in the hand for the next attack on the 11700 level. And so now at 13:44 it had twice crossed the lower bollinger and I expect the next candle to be a greenie.

And... okay now it is turning up. That was 5 consecutive 5-minute candles under the 9EMA. Now it has crossed up above 9EMA and headed for the middle Bollinger. Touching it... tickling it... crossing up over it now. 16 points below the high of the day, 11703. I am expecting it to bust up through 11700 and ride that line as the new support level. I sure hope this goes up to the 12k level! And more relevant to the here and now. I hope it does break 11700. But this will only be the second tap on that level. Will this be a three-tapper? A "W" pattern? I will know in about 10 minutes.

And now, for the last hour, the trend has been mostly sideways. Possibly due to the glass ceiling at 11700, possibly just a more or less normal lunchtime slump, or maybe the news just wasn't strong enough to continue the trend for so long. Now it has crossed back down and teasing the lower bollinger. Just a probe by the bear clan? Volume isn't all that... around 2500. Upper and Lower Bollinger bands are only about 25 points apart and they have been slowly slowly squeezing together.

And now at 14:15 it's crossing up over the middle Bollinger again. Here it is, I hope, the third tap of the resistance at 11700. Once it is within striking range, I am moving my stop high and tight cause if it bounces down again, I want out. Got things to do.

Okay I didn't feel confident because the trend is definitely starting to turn downward and the triple tap wasn't gonna happen. I set my stop up under the candle body and she stopped out with my P&L exactly at +$200. I'll take it. But if I had got in at 0700 this morning and dumped it at 1315, I would have made more like $1400 so in a way I lost $1200 today. So I am going to work on some alerts to wake me up in the early mornings when something spectacular happens.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

More adventures with MNQZ2020! The day started out like crap. I got faked out right and left, was $750 down at one point after 4 trades. Then it started trending up nicely and I made it to $1600 and back down to +$1023 buying in to dips that were actually just segments of a plummet. I REALLY wanted a $2k day or I would have quit at $1400 or $1500. There I go again, chasing sexy numbers. But I am happy and Mrs. Monster is happy, with my $1k+ day. Will I go back in? Maybe if I see three green candles in a row coming up off that bottom Bollinger line, but not before. So my total is back up over $17k again.

So, I have had all three day trades available to me for some time now. I might trade some stocks tomorrow. I haven't even ran my scanner in a long time it seems, so I got to figure out what goes on my watch list for the morning.