Little Lex's YM Daytrading Journal

Today the Dow trades in a small range which means that it is difficult to catch a trend. Therefore I decided to stop for the day after only 3 small trades.

Trade 1: +5
Trade 2: +4
Trade 3: +5

Day & Week: +14
Month: +85

I have now opened a new account and will soon be working with Zen-Fire/Ninja Trader. I still have to wait for my new account to be funded. Until then I continue trading with the old platform.

Good trading to you

LL
 
Today was similar to yesterday. Again the Dow wasn't moving much and there wasn't much follow through. This was the second slow day in a row and I was getting bored so I took a stupid trade in the end.

Trade 1: +4
Trade 2: +10
Trade 3: -3
Trade 4: -12

Day: -1
Week: +13
Month: +84
 
Quote from Little Lex:

Today was similar to yesterday. Again the Dow wasn't moving much and there wasn't much follow through. This was the second slow day in a row and I was getting bored so I took a stupid trade in the end.

Trade 1: +4
Trade 2: +10
Trade 3: -3
Trade 4: -12

Day: -1
Week: +13
Month: +84
More...

Nice turnaround. One question, are your commissions included in your Month results?
 
Thanks Rice Rocket. Unfortunately commissions are not yet included with these results.

My goal for this month was to simply figure out if I could consistently "steal" YM" points. Including commissons the result would have been negative.

LL
 
In the first post of this thread I wrote that I would make decision by the end of April whether or not I would continue trading. I wanted to find out if I could be profitable trading the YM.

I am very encouraged by my trading results over the past weeks and I am now convinced that I can be profitable. I am aware that I still have a long way to go before being a good trader. Therefore I will continue to be very prudent in my trading.

So here's the plan for May 2008. As soon as my account with my new broker is set up I will trade one contract during one week. Afterwards, when I feel comfortable with the new platform I will increase to 2 contracts. The plan is to continue trading the same way as I did during these past weeks. I am not (yet) trying to scale out of positions.

If I then manage to get profitable results for another 2 consecutive weeks trading 2 contracts I will increase to 3 contracts. Well that's the plan at least. I will of course keep you guys updated on my results and experiences.

Good trading to all of you in May 08

Little Lex
 
Hello everyone,

I haven't posted since the beginning of the month but I continued trading 1 contract with my old account. I have now been profitable for 4 consecutive weeks. My gains have been modest but I now have the confidence to increase to 2 contracts. Also my new account is ready to go. I have worked with the demo software and I find it easy to use so I don't expect any problems.

My goal is now to continue trading in exactly the same way as I was trading for the last 4 weeks. I guess that will be more difficult than it seems. I might have the tendency to close my trades, both winners and losers, too early.

Starting today I will post my daily results trading 2 YM contracts.

LL
 
Terrible trading today. I think this week-end I was out in the sun too long. I did not stick too the plan, forced trades, took winners too early and over traded. I was not focused at all.

And my only good trade of the day was (unintentionally) in simulation mode. This is all extremely frustrating. I will now analyze today's trades and hope to come back strong tomorrow.

Today: - 68

LL
 
Things are getting really nasty over here. For a minute I was even thinking about not posting today's result.

Since I am now trading 2 contracts my maximum loss per day has been doubled to -90 points. Today I ended up with -85.

All it took for me to loose control after 4 consecutive profitable weeks was switching brokers and doubling contract size. With hindsight I shouldn't have done both things at the same time.

Main problems:

Overtrading: whereas up to now I had 4-8 trades per day I traded 15-20 times during the last to days. The much lower commission with my new broker caused me to trade more.

Size of winners vs. losers: Since I have started trading 2 contracts I take my winners to quickly so they are relatively small.

Today: - 85
Week: - 153

I may go back to 1 contract and wait until I get back on track. The goal for tomorrow is to be more patient and wait for the best opportunities. Smaller number of trades with better risk/reward ratio!

LL :mad:
 
Hello everyone,

I am still stuggling but today was much better than the last 2 trading days. It was still a frustrating day because I ended up with -1 after being up by 46 points earlier in the session.

The real disappointing part is that today's problems were pretty much those I wrote about yesterday: over trading & unfavourable risk/reward ratio.

Despite all of this I feel like I am getting back on track.

Good trading to you,

LL
 
Best day of the week so far but that does not mean it was a good day. At least I ended up in the green today which is good for my confidence.

What I find interesting is that now I am again struggling with the same problems I had when I started trading.

I was convinced that I had them under control before moving to 2 contracts. But then they reappeared. I was expecting that I could simply try to ignore the number of contracts but I guess I was wrong.

So here is the plan: focus on high probability & high reward setups and be patient with winners!

I know that sounds obvious but I did not manage to stick to the plan this week.

Today +13

LL
 
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