Thanks for posting. I also trade NQ, as do a handfull of others here. All of them weirdos IMO, no offense. I say they are a handfull because they tend to be handful in the same sense as mindful or thoughtful. Your times are Pacific, right? You are a brave soul! Please keep it up!
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Keeping Records
- Thread starter garage sale
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Quote from Arthur Deco:
Thanks for posting. I also trade NQ, as do a handfull of others here. All of them weirdos IMO, no offense. I say they are a handfull because they tend to be handful in the same sense as mindful or thoughtful. Your times are Pacific, right? You are a brave soul! Please keep it up!
Thanks, I guess!!! I am in the Pacific time zone. I missed the rally today but am convinced that my set-up works, so feeling good about it since the market will be here tomorrow. There were 2 more long signals after 11 pst, that I did not take and which would have been profitable because yesterday I said that I wasn't going to trade after 11. It was hard but I followed my plan.
I am sure that all the other NQ traders here join me in looking forward to your posts. FWIW, all of my systems backtest wanting stops shorter than 3 and profits longer than 10. You might consider trying to code and backtest your setup to see what is optimal for it. Your approximately 3:1 single trade R/R is a mite weak if the win rate is modest.
Looking back at my paper-trading trades, I have had the most success till 11pst. After that there have been many stop-outs either with a loss or a tiny profit with a trailing stop.
I am going to trade the following hours only.
6.30 - 8 pst
8.30 - 11 pst.
On days if I have an appointment or something that needs to be done during that period and I cannot trade, then I may trade after that but that will be more of an exception.
So far for the week I am down -98. It will be nice to close the week with a profit however small.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Looking forward to the long weekend to go over past few month's paper-trades and review.
I am going to trade the following hours only.
6.30 - 8 pst
8.30 - 11 pst.
On days if I have an appointment or something that needs to be done during that period and I cannot trade, then I may trade after that but that will be more of an exception.
So far for the week I am down -98. It will be nice to close the week with a profit however small.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Looking forward to the long weekend to go over past few month's paper-trades and review.
Quote from Arthur Deco:
I am sure that all the other NQ traders here join me in looking forward to your posts. FWIW, all of my systems backtest wanting stops shorter than 3 and profits longer than 10. You might consider trying to code and backtest your setup to see what is optimal for it. Your approximately 3:1 single trade R/R is a mite weak if the win rate is modest.
My R/R is approx. 3.5 for the 3 month paper-trading period, and the win rate is 75% on up days and less than 25% on down days. Filtering trades by the % retraced brings the win rate to about 50 on down days. The only problem is that if I use the % retraced to enter a trade on some of those up-days, I'll be on the sideline..so the frequency of trades goes down. I want the frequency to go down on down days only. Hope this makes sense.
On second thought I could look at the previous day's support and if the market is below it, then use the % retracement to enter the trade. This could actually work....will look over my charts over the weekend.
Edit.
I started trading live on Monday and made 9 trades so far, and the total contracts traded were 24(buy and sell). The comission itself was $48 and on yesterday I entered a wrong number that resulted in a loss of $25. The past 4 days markets have been really weak and down 150 pts, from high to low and I'm down only 5 points. Once the market finds support I think my set-up will work and I'll make money.
FYI I am only posting to attract the REAL NQ traders here, guys like Gabfly1 for example. Then I can yield the field to them. No better way to get them to post than to say something stupid. So...if the win rate is only 25% on down days, should you be reversing the strategy on such days? Also, IMO 12 round trips in four trading days is excessive. I trade once a day. I catch it, or I get caught. Simple and low stress.
Also, at the risk of being pushy, you don't really know if you have something or not unless you can write unambiguous rules for it, code those rules in an algorithm, and backtest. Unless you are a nutural, an intuitive trading genius.
Edit: also, you might consider thinking of R/R as total dollar wins divided by total dollar losses, if you're not already doing that.
Also, at the risk of being pushy, you don't really know if you have something or not unless you can write unambiguous rules for it, code those rules in an algorithm, and backtest. Unless you are a nutural, an intuitive trading genius.
Edit: also, you might consider thinking of R/R as total dollar wins divided by total dollar losses, if you're not already doing that.
Quote from Arthur Deco:
FYI I am only posting to attract the REAL NQ traders here, guys like Gabfly1 for example. Then I can yield the field to them. No better way to get them to post than to say something stupid. So...if the win rate is only 25% on down days, should you be reversing the strategy on such days? Also, IMO 12 round trips in four trading days is excessive. I trade once a day. I catch it, or I get caught. Simple and low stress.
Also, at the risk of being pushy, you don't really know if you have something or not unless you can write unambiguous rules for it, code those rules in an algorithm, and backtest. Unless you are a nutural, an intuitive trading genius.
It's only 9 trades some trades were done with 2 contracts. On Tuesday after the prices fell convincingly through the support, I should have stayed out in which case my trades would have been 4, or on average 1 a day.
We'll see how this week and rest of the month pans out. I will like to test this on other historical data, but not good with programming. I know VB a bit. Any suggestions on how I can do it. I use NT for charting with IB datafeed.
Thanks for explaining. Testing your approach depends on its complexity. I think of that as the number of "strong" and "weak" rules. From what you have said you have at least two "weak" rules: consider trading after time T1 and don't consider trading after time T2. But you clearly have at least four "strong" rules: go long on an up day, the essence of the setup (ideally one rule only), the stop loss exit, and the trailing stop exit. Ideally there is a hierarchy to the "strength" of the rules, so that you can test them with some confidence. Usually the setup is primary, the stoploss secondary, the exit tertiary, and the trade direction quarternary. If that's all there is to your system, you can test it. If the entry is more complex (more rules), it gets dicey. I use ESignal, very easy once you get the hang of it.
No need to call me an idiot, I admit that I am a f-ing idiot.
Today I made the biggest mistake and paid for it dearly. In the morning I had 3 small losses (<2 pts. each). My fourth trade was working out fine. Instead of taking the 8 point profit, mid-way I decided I wanted to go for a larger gain and canceled the sell-order. I got out with a 3 pt. gain. Had I exited at my pre-determined price, I would have been profitable for the week. This would have been huge for my psyche. My entry was at 17.50, stop was 16.5 and target was 25.5. Price went to 25.75.
I learnt a lesson and I will never change my stop or target mid-way in the trade. So far down $104 for the week and $6 down for the month (including commissions). All in all, it was a good week. Learnt a lot more than when I was paper-trading. Realized that sometimes you are your worst enemy.
I followed my plan except for the last trade. The first trade was one of those weak set-ups, and the other 3 were the strong set-ups. I will only trade the strong set-ups from now on.
Even with all these mistakes and errors, I managed to lose about 5 pts. including commissions. I need to get myself psychologically alert and ready and follow the plan.
Today I made the biggest mistake and paid for it dearly. In the morning I had 3 small losses (<2 pts. each). My fourth trade was working out fine. Instead of taking the 8 point profit, mid-way I decided I wanted to go for a larger gain and canceled the sell-order. I got out with a 3 pt. gain. Had I exited at my pre-determined price, I would have been profitable for the week. This would have been huge for my psyche. My entry was at 17.50, stop was 16.5 and target was 25.5. Price went to 25.75.
I learnt a lesson and I will never change my stop or target mid-way in the trade. So far down $104 for the week and $6 down for the month (including commissions). All in all, it was a good week. Learnt a lot more than when I was paper-trading. Realized that sometimes you are your worst enemy.
I followed my plan except for the last trade. The first trade was one of those weak set-ups, and the other 3 were the strong set-ups. I will only trade the strong set-ups from now on.
Even with all these mistakes and errors, I managed to lose about 5 pts. including commissions. I need to get myself psychologically alert and ready and follow the plan.
Attachments
Today was a tricky day, one of those that I call "take your money" days. I went long in the AM and took my lumps quickly. From my perspective your first three trades were not informed by action at support or resistance. But the fourth trade was nice, well done!