Background
Having enjoyed a year off from trading due to a new family (he's just turning 1) and then some more due to some travel and business startup... I am essentially going to start from scratch here with some new markets. Spent 2012-15 pretty much up all night in Australia trading the Bund / Bobl and/or the Notes / Bonds which is a schedule I don't want to return to unless necessary. I made some money finally after some mentoring with a prop trader and leaning heavily on a good friends experience as a prop trader (though he didn't give me any secret sauce trading methodology). With new family life, the Mini-Nikkei futures and possibly currency futures are more ideal to trade during Asian session and seem to present some short term trading opportunities, and if I can't trade the Asian session due to work/life will trade the Eurex morning session.
Why Post Here / Read This
Inspired by some recent interaction on the forum, I want to actually see if can trade these new markets purely using modern tape reading / order flow reading techniques and tools. Posting here keeps me accountable. ET also has some of the most outspoken, obnoxious experienced traders of all forums, as well as a good mix of frauds confusing the rest of the genuine traders / wannabes out there.. and I want the full internet forum experience (though I'll hit the report if you get too insulting). There are plenty of guys trying to sift through the crap which I think I can help by sharing what I have filtered through over the years of trading for a living (since 2009.. not all successful), plus I may be able to pass on some of the perspective I have obtained and some of the grounding from guys who literally spend 12 hours or more trading a day (with big swings). As usual there are plenty of trading strategies that work... but the guys I do know, swinging clips of 100+ all started out looking at the DOM when they got an in with a prop firm, and had to throw everything else out. They now incorporate a whole range of strategies in many different markets.. from mean reversion spreading to automated trend following...
Goals
Generally spend no more than 2-3 hours a day trading outrights initially. I don't want to risk much out of my own pocket before seeking someone else's money, and want to move through the full trading development cycle quickly based off of previous experience. Ultimately I want to automate what I can after I have found something discretionary that works in these new markets.
Tools
Will be using some automated tape reading tools which I will keep out of the discussion as much as possible as anyone can pull up a T&S and / or DOM to achieve the same. To follow Nikkei i am currently limited to Multicharts through my broker. I will be using CQG data - and initially their sim trader - to get a feel for these markets before risking my own mula, plus may as well find out if I can read this market before gambling with it (yes trading is a form of gambling IMO). The Nikkei especially is apparently well gamed. I am told I am mainly competing for fills with automated trading being placed from collocated servers in Osaka, and that the bids / offers I am seeing in my platform in Australia are going to be a bit behind the action. I don't think this is a huge setback for my time frame of trading. Plus as mentioned I want my own automation to trade for me down the line. I am a software developer so can hopefully write some code to replicate my trading edge down the path.
Process
Markets
Mini-Nikkei Futures. Maybe Aussie Dollar Futures, Yen Futures. Backup is Bund / Bobl - DAX / FESX.
Pre-Market
Like any trader - I will keep informed of commonly watched price levels each session so know where games might be played. I will also know when relevant economic releases are due. That will be my pre-market prep which should take 5-10 minutes.
Trading
I will monitor the tape for these things:
1. Volume Flow (how much is trading in general.. Buying vs Selling volume etc)
2. Absorption (how much is trading at these prices)
3. Aggressiveness (who is in control at the micro level and macro level. Lots of assumptions being made).
4. Price Action (how is price responding to the above)
Trade short short term intra-day swings based on the above for bias, using a tight as possible stop. Getting out when bias proved wrong, or conditions changed, bias played out (large buying had come in, and is now taking profits) etc.
From experience, the longer I sit at a trading screen, the more likely I am going to do something stupid. I thus will be relying mainly on the automated tape reading to spell out the above 4 things for me so I aren't hunched over the computer the whole time waiting to click a button. I can also utilize mobile trading (bracing myself for those opinions) if necessary.
Review
Where possible I will record the screen and review that way. Given I have daddy daycare a couple days a week, help out at the local brewery for some fun and cash some days (and drink there afterwards), I will likely not post updates every day. I will probably miss a day or two a week of markets in the learning phase and try to make it up trading similar patterns in Eurex at evening. I will at least post a weekly review for progress updates.
Having enjoyed a year off from trading due to a new family (he's just turning 1) and then some more due to some travel and business startup... I am essentially going to start from scratch here with some new markets. Spent 2012-15 pretty much up all night in Australia trading the Bund / Bobl and/or the Notes / Bonds which is a schedule I don't want to return to unless necessary. I made some money finally after some mentoring with a prop trader and leaning heavily on a good friends experience as a prop trader (though he didn't give me any secret sauce trading methodology). With new family life, the Mini-Nikkei futures and possibly currency futures are more ideal to trade during Asian session and seem to present some short term trading opportunities, and if I can't trade the Asian session due to work/life will trade the Eurex morning session.
Why Post Here / Read This
Inspired by some recent interaction on the forum, I want to actually see if can trade these new markets purely using modern tape reading / order flow reading techniques and tools. Posting here keeps me accountable. ET also has some of the most outspoken, obnoxious experienced traders of all forums, as well as a good mix of frauds confusing the rest of the genuine traders / wannabes out there.. and I want the full internet forum experience (though I'll hit the report if you get too insulting). There are plenty of guys trying to sift through the crap which I think I can help by sharing what I have filtered through over the years of trading for a living (since 2009.. not all successful), plus I may be able to pass on some of the perspective I have obtained and some of the grounding from guys who literally spend 12 hours or more trading a day (with big swings). As usual there are plenty of trading strategies that work... but the guys I do know, swinging clips of 100+ all started out looking at the DOM when they got an in with a prop firm, and had to throw everything else out. They now incorporate a whole range of strategies in many different markets.. from mean reversion spreading to automated trend following...
Goals
Generally spend no more than 2-3 hours a day trading outrights initially. I don't want to risk much out of my own pocket before seeking someone else's money, and want to move through the full trading development cycle quickly based off of previous experience. Ultimately I want to automate what I can after I have found something discretionary that works in these new markets.
Tools
Will be using some automated tape reading tools which I will keep out of the discussion as much as possible as anyone can pull up a T&S and / or DOM to achieve the same. To follow Nikkei i am currently limited to Multicharts through my broker. I will be using CQG data - and initially their sim trader - to get a feel for these markets before risking my own mula, plus may as well find out if I can read this market before gambling with it (yes trading is a form of gambling IMO). The Nikkei especially is apparently well gamed. I am told I am mainly competing for fills with automated trading being placed from collocated servers in Osaka, and that the bids / offers I am seeing in my platform in Australia are going to be a bit behind the action. I don't think this is a huge setback for my time frame of trading. Plus as mentioned I want my own automation to trade for me down the line. I am a software developer so can hopefully write some code to replicate my trading edge down the path.
Process
Markets
Mini-Nikkei Futures. Maybe Aussie Dollar Futures, Yen Futures. Backup is Bund / Bobl - DAX / FESX.
Pre-Market
Like any trader - I will keep informed of commonly watched price levels each session so know where games might be played. I will also know when relevant economic releases are due. That will be my pre-market prep which should take 5-10 minutes.
Trading
I will monitor the tape for these things:
1. Volume Flow (how much is trading in general.. Buying vs Selling volume etc)
2. Absorption (how much is trading at these prices)
3. Aggressiveness (who is in control at the micro level and macro level. Lots of assumptions being made).
4. Price Action (how is price responding to the above)
Trade short short term intra-day swings based on the above for bias, using a tight as possible stop. Getting out when bias proved wrong, or conditions changed, bias played out (large buying had come in, and is now taking profits) etc.
From experience, the longer I sit at a trading screen, the more likely I am going to do something stupid. I thus will be relying mainly on the automated tape reading to spell out the above 4 things for me so I aren't hunched over the computer the whole time waiting to click a button. I can also utilize mobile trading (bracing myself for those opinions) if necessary.
Review
Where possible I will record the screen and review that way. Given I have daddy daycare a couple days a week, help out at the local brewery for some fun and cash some days (and drink there afterwards), I will likely not post updates every day. I will probably miss a day or two a week of markets in the learning phase and try to make it up trading similar patterns in Eurex at evening. I will at least post a weekly review for progress updates.
