kserra's emini trades

My head was somewhere else today, the worst part of it all is that there were real profit opportunities for me today, however my trading failed me. I came into today with a big head and tried to be the hero, you can guess the results.

Trade #1: Short @ 1140.00 , cover @ 1141.75 -1.75 pts

10:30: Way to break a new rule right out of the gate, I entered in the chop, thinking I KNEW where the market was going, I KNEW what was going to happen. Not looking at things objectively I did not notice the market was setup as a slim jim and that there was a ridiculous amount of support below my entry. I have seen this pattern a million times, the market chops around for an hour and a half, then there is a false move to one side of the other, the trend then really exerts itself after this false move. Next time I will call Ms Cleo it's cheaper and far more entertaining than trading like a psychic.

- Why this trade lost, I broke my rule about entering in a choppy market, then ignored the stop and reverse signal. This trade never should have happened.

Trade #2: Long 1147.00, exit 1146.25 - .75 pts

11:54: Still realing from the last poor trade I entered this trade off a legitimate signal, however for something reason I decided I did not need to define my risk or profit target, what ended up happening was me entering and then staring at the screen while price swung wildly in all directions. Got out when I realized that I had totally blown it.

- Why this trade lost, I entered without a profit target in mind, by the way the profit target project by my method was 1148.75 but I did not bother to calculate this.

Trade #3: Short 1146, exit 1145.5 +.5 pts

12:03: I entered this trade looking for 1144.00 then after watchin price go one tick from my profit target two times in a row I decided that my profit target was not going to reached, exited early. Price then immediately ran down to 1144.

- Why this trade was bad, got out too early.

- 2 pts on the day

Well the good news is although I traded really poorly today I only lost two points. The bad news is I broke all the rules in the book. Essentially what happened is once one rule was broken there was no stopping me in breaking any other rules, I also reverted back to my old ways of not trusting my trades and getting out too early.

Plan for tomorrow.

- Read my trading plan over and over and over. This is the guide to winning the war, adhere to it and I will win the war one day at a time.

- Read a few chapters in The disciplined trader concerning the problems I had today.

- Trade by the plan
 
I have looked at several of your trade setups. I have pulled up my charts and noticed a pattern in your trading.

You are consistently buying or selling the fade. My advice is to NOT trade as you appear to be losing more than winning.

I highly recommend going back to simulator. In addition, I notice your reference to the market being choppy and so forth....

Scale your entries and develop consistent strategies for each market type.

A good trader will trade and manage any market condition. It will come but I still highly recommend going back to simulator and printing out your trades and your charts in all time frames 1, 5, 15...etc.

I have been where you are, dont lose the cash....concentrate on your technique. Like they always say, stay in the game dont fade away. :D

Good luck and good trading.
 
Quote from YYNOTT:

I have looked at several of your trade setups. I have pulled up my charts and noticed a pattern in your trading.

You are consistently buying or selling the fade. My advice is to NOT trade as you appear to be losing more than winning.
More...

When I execute my trades correctly and stick to my plan, the trades come out in my favor.

You are correct though, the core of the methodology I am using is looking for reversals, I am however looking into creating a trend following methodology that I have begun to paper trade and everntually feel it will be ready for real time trading.

I highly recommend going back to simulator. In addition, I notice your reference to the market being choppy and so forth....

Scale your entries and develop consistent strategies for each market type.

A good trader will trade and manage any market condition. It will come but I still highly recommend going back to simulator and printing out your trades and your charts in all time frames 1, 5, 15...etc.

I have been where you are, dont lose the cash....concentrate on your technique. Like they always say, stay in the game dont fade away. :D

Good luck and good trading.
More...

My main issue with the market being choppy has been dealing with the small lunch time ranges. During these my Moving averages constantly criss cross providing no profit opportunities (except for maybe the very nimble scalper which I am not trying to be), When the range is broken it is then acceptable to enter on the next cross of the MAs.

I should point out that I have lost very little Cash since going live, as of today I am down .5 ES pts before commisions. If I am unable to tolerate such a small drawdown as the one I am experiencing now I feel I may as well give up trading completely.

I am still learning and will always still be learning. At this point I see no reason to go back to the simulator. I feel I have proved to myself that I can paper trade the markets very well, this is well illustrated in the beginning of this journal.

If I continue to be undisciplined and trade against my plan than I certainly do plan on going back to the simulator.

YYNOTT thank you for posting, you have motivated me to stick to my plan even more tomorrow and prove to myself that being disciplined in my trading will pave the way to profitability (This is not meant to sound stand offish, I honestly appreciate your input).
 
Why not concentrate on the opening or close? If i would sit on my chair all day and nothing happened i would MAKE things happen. Like a bad trade..
 
Quote from callmeput:

Why not concentrate on the opening or close? If i would sit on my chair all day and nothing happened i would MAKE things happen. Like a bad trade..
More...

I only trade the last three hours of the session. All times are westcoast based, so add three hours.
 
Today I proved to myself that I can trade with discipline. Now it's just a matter of staying out of the chop, which I believe I may have figured out how to do.

Trade #1 Long @ 1145.00, exit @ 1144.00 - 1 pt

10:35: After entering this trade I noticed that the most it went in my favor was also the exact amount of a 50% retracement, so I figured that there was a good chance that the trade would not work out, however I chose to hold feeling that I may get a stop and reverse signal, I did and stopped and reversed right away. Turned out this was the beginning of a range.....

Trade #2 Short @ 1144.00, exit @ 1145.00 -1 pt

10:50 Stop and reverse from previous trade, I knew if this trade did not work out we were definetly in for a range. I was looking for 1142.75 here, got within 1 tick and then once the trade went against me I decided we were ranging (from 1143-1145) and I needed to stay out until the range broke.

- I have added a stochastic in replacement of the MACD histogram as of late, I have found it much more helpful in determing true turning points and also signaling the chop, today I observed that when the stochastic gets flat so should I because we are likely about to range. I have also been watching the 3 minute chart for pullbacks in the stochastic and using the 5 minute to determine the end of the trend, this also helps for the new trend following system I am attempting to use.

Trade #3 Short @ 1144.25, cover @ 1143.00 + 1.25 pts

11:39: The top of the range had just been broken thereby signaling the potential for this trade to be pretty good. I was conservative with my profit target as I wanted to make money here and not pay the price in case earlier resistance proved true. I placed my profit target, I knew I wanted more and this trade had the potential for more, but that is definetly a limitation of trading only one contract.

Trade #4 Long @ 1143.00, sell @ 1145.25 +2.25 pts

12:03: Best trade of the day by far, executed it put in my profit target and sat patiently until that target was hit.


+1.5 pts on the day

- Tomorrow stay out of the chop and 1.5 pts will become 3.5 pts.

- Paper trade Short @ 1141.75, cover @ 1142.75 -1 pt on trade
Foolish trade in hindsight because the stochastic was starting to turn over here and didn't have much room left to go.
 

Attachments

Today I made some good entries that is for sure, but things just didn't seem to go correctly when it came to exit time. The good news is I stayed out of the chop (Thanks for the tip NihaAbashi)

Trade #1 Short @ 1139.00, cover @ 1138.5 +.5 pts

10:55: I was looking for a fakeout move here, but the consolidation near the low indiciated that we probably weren't going to be headed much higher, So I entered a little late. I was looking for 1137.25 (two ticks above what I have as S2) and placed an order there but did not get filled. I was sitting and waiting then price began to move unfavorably, these moves were confirmed by the TICK and TRIN, therefore i felt it best to get out of the position before it turned into a loss.

Trade #2 long @ 1139.25, cover @ 1138.25 -1 pt

11:25: This trade was entered too early, and exited too early on too tight of a stop. I stopped and reversed here.

Trade #3 short @ 1138.25, cover @ 1129.25 -1 pt

11:30 At this point I realized how terrible I was trading. I just got out of this trade and went to bed.

-1.5 pts on the day

Today was there were profit opportunities abound but I was unable to capitalize. I slept terribly last night and then woke up to pressing emotional issues that I was forced to confront and deal with. I should have just not traded at all today. Other than the first trade I did not do so hot. I still learned stuff though so that was nice. Monday will be a different story.

- New rule, no trading from 9-11 unless the range from the time period is broken.

Will post chart later.
 
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