Keeping Records

+107 for the week.

Total 7 trades, 1 winner (target met), 2 winner (trailing stop), 4 losses, out of which 3 were from Wednesday and 1 was today.

I have been going through my trades and it seems that I am just making things too complicated. I need to simplify my logic and reasonings. On Monday I trades my Strategy 2 which was good for 15+ points. There was similar signal today at 9.50 but I hesitated. This would have been good for 20+ points. The good thing about this set-up is that you put an order, set the stop and let the trade play out for 4-30 min bars.

From now on I will trade my Set-up 2 only, put the stop and exit after 1.5-2 hrs if I am not stopped out. Watching the market every minute is putting a lot of unnecessary stress on me. For example, I was long 2 times yesterday after the initial run-up, as the market went up I trailed my stop and got stopped out and the market went higher. Instead of making few hundred I ended up with 17. My only good trade was on Monday, where I put the stop and went for a hike.
 

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Makes you feel good about yourself, doesn't it, when you make a profit and see how you can make more in the future? You are definitely on the right track with longer, less stressful trades.
 
Quote from Arthur Deco:

Makes you feel good about yourself, doesn't it, when you make a profit and see how you can make more in the future? You are definitely on the right track with longer, less stressful trades.
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I hope so....I will certainly like to think that I am on the right track. Using a longer time frame allows me to capture a bigger trend, and gives me time to do things that I really want/love to do. After I put on a trade, I am going to work-out or go for a run or do something else besides watch the screen. Sometimes I am my worst enemy.
 
Quote from Arthur Deco:

You are too kind. The best advice anyone can give him here is to affirm that it is possible starting with an outsider's total lack of trading insight and somehow spin success out of thin air. And also give him examples of what is achievable as he finds his own unique way. Best of luck to you doing the same. A modest first step is to ignore the advice on anyone on ET. Don't make me conjure up a mental image for you of what we may look like. Private traders are all losers, nut scratchers and nose pickers.
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I think NoDoji is quite impressive in demonstrating that one can achieve in trading. She started it as a musician but she is now doing a lot better than most professional trading experts in terms of profit ratio and success rates of trades. Her passion, dedication and perseverance and hard working finally pave her way to freedom of living one's life on his/her terms. Again, exploring and obtaining a successful strategy in trading is, as many people with wisdom put it, a unique personal endeavor, and everyone succeeded finally has their own story of struggling and eureka moment. Hitting a lottery with millions and making your millions in trading is different: you feel lucky and you think God loves you more in the former, but in latter you are filled with a sense of accomplishment because you demonstrated that you can make it happen when most people deem it impossible. Of course it is easy said than done. At ET, There are lots of craps and nuisance, but we can also find, extract and distill lots of wisdom from those people with strong characters and diverse personal experiences.
 
Quote from dst888:

I think NoDoji is quite impressive in demonstrating that one can achieve in trading. She started it as a musician but she is now doing a lot better than most professional trading experts in terms of profit ratio and success rates of trades. Her passion, dedication and perseverance and hard working finally pave her way to freedom of living one's life on his/her terms. Again, exploring and obtaining a successful strategy in trading is, as many people with wisdom put it, a unique personal endeavor, and everyone succeeded finally has their own story of struggling and eureka moment. Hitting a lottery with millions and making your millions in trading is different: you feel lucky and you think God loves you more in the former, but in latter you are filled with a sense of accomplishment because you demonstrated that you can make it happen when most people deem it impossible. Of course it is easy said than done. At ET, There are lots of craps and nuisance, but we can also find, extract and distill lots of wisdom from those people with strong characters and diverse personal experiences.
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WOW!!!! I really felt an inner peace just by reading this.
Thank-you.
 
I was going to update on weekend only but this week has been terrible. I have made one mistake after another. Being impatient is my main problem. Not sure what all I'm doing wrong but I feel like I'm going one step forward and two steps back. This week I made 11 trades for a loss of 329. Only one of the 11 was a winner and I the trailing stop gave me a tiny profit. I do not like trailing stops.

I had just recently moved to the west coast, hoping to trade successfully and enjoying the nice weather and trails. Everyday it is becoming a pipe dream. I am not ready to give up yet but I am getting to that point.

I had two losses this morning and looking back I should not have traded, it was not in my set-up. At 10.30 when I got a long signal, I did not take it, that one trade would have made up all my losses.

Today I took out most of my money and have left just enough to trade 1 contract. My stops are usually 3 points so I have 20 chances to make it. If I do well I can always add more money. I got a part-time job too so that I can have some income on the side. The job is fairly flexible and I can usually trade after 9pst only. Since I have very few shots left, I need to wait for the fat-pitch. Pass everything else.
 
Quote from garage sale:

Not sure what all I'm doing wrong
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Here are some clues.

Quote from garage sale:


I had two losses this morning and looking back I should not have traded, it was not in my set-up.

At 10.30 when I got a long signal, I did not take it.

Today I took out most of my money and have left just enough to trade 1 contract.
More...
 
Yesterday I was feeling really bad because of all the mistakes and losses. The losses were small but the frequency was huge. I had 11 trades but I should have traded 1 only. After some of the losses, I got the fat-pitch that I was waiting for but could not re-enter especially yesterdaay. I promised yesterday that from now on I'll just take the high probability trades.

Today I made 1 trade and made up for all the losses and actually turned a small profit. Good thing that I did not use a trailing stop because I would have been stopped out for a gain of $100 instead of $350. This month is over, and if I can maintain the discipline for another month I can always add more money and trade big.
 

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Made $64 on 6 trades for the week. Did not trade on Wednesday. Today's trade hurt the most because I thought I had my stop at 80, but was actually at 80.50. I usually have 2 pt. stop. I got stopped out and NQ went up 20 points.

I am profitable 3 weeks in a row, which is a personal best but the profits are tiny so it is going to be a matter of time before I have more losses.

My goal was to be profitable every week and I am doing that but it is not satisfactory. From now on my goal is to make $1300 in a month. This comes to an average of $350 a week or 4 points a day.

Here is the trade that hurt.
 

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