Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

[Bolimomo]

Quote from Matcha:


.....
I have been reading lots of blogs and lots of articles about how important it is. And I think the high winrate has something to do with my personality too. I like the instant gratification and encouragement to keep a positive attitude.
.....

Winrate:

Successfully picked up a quarter #1. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #2. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #3. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #4. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #5. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #6. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #7. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #8. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #9. You won.
You got run over by a truck while picking up quarter #10. You lost.

Your win-loss ratio is 90%.

Your real loss is only an arm and a leg.

 

[Snowman75]

Hey Matcha,

I agree about the above posts. If your targets are higher than your losses then you don't need a high win rate. Last week I had 3 winners and 8 losers. I still only lost 1 pt. The reason was I was risking eg. 5 points to win 8-10 pts. Of course, I also agree with you that more wins helps mentally. Just need a good balance but don't make it your only focus. I think you are doing just fine.

Concerning yty's trade I think you got suck in the mess from the day before. See the chart below. This is the DIA (basically the Dow Jones in Equity format). I no longer subscribe to YM as I have moved to FESX but if you see this chart is practically identical.

Look at the balance area on the left. Price just came back into that area of value and just rotated in there. Because of the activity from yty it was hard for price to make a significant move.

Anyway just my 2 cents. I'm still learning myself.

Good luck today.

 

[bighog]

Television down, cable down..............so here i sit, bored, so i go to the DSL box and read this.

Matcha, you are going through a known flawed strategy that is holding you back from those profits................FORGET the small stuff and go where the money is. The money is where price travels from one level to another.

5 tick stop losses for small wins will never get you to the promised land.

Trade a more exciting contract, the DOW is a dud contract. Spice up things a bit.

Gee, no tele yet, i will not trade the jobs report without a backup connection. ES, 6E, 6J, 6C and when in a wreckless mood i have CL and silver up.


Matcha, juice up your game, move to the next level up, get out of the DOW rut.

Well no tv yet, guess i go out for a breakfast, probably skip the jobs report...............no BIGGIE. There is always something to trade............ES and 6E try those. Matcha, it is a myth that just because the dow is what.... $5 a tick and the others are $12.50, that does not reduce your risk, trading is not all about risk control, it is also about OFFENSE, a scared trader will never defeat a game of probability, NEVER.

Off to a restaurant

 

[pookie]

hey, hey! bighog's back!

 

[Matcha]

Keep losing. But I am OK. I don’t feel too emotional now. Thanks everyone for posting and commenting.

Made 2 trades today. They are both bad trades. But through the losing trades and bad trades I made these past weeks, I once again find some errors in my trading style.

First of all, I feel like I didn’t “respect” S/R levels/magnet price level well enough. In another words, I don’t get to the point that I work with them very well. Sometimes when I “pay less attention” to them, the price bounce back right into my face. Such as buy bottom of the range, buy near support. Sometimes when I “pay too much attention” to them, I SOH, such as when price violate the S level then retrace back to S/R level, then fell, I did nothing.

Today’s trades are the example’s to demonstrate the problem.

Trade 1: 6:46. short into Support. I took the entry on 2 min, I thought the selling is very strong. The S could be violated. I need to get in early. When price take the 11997 support level by 3 ticks, buyers come in. I realized I made a mistake, I traded with what I thought and I short into S. I wanted OUT. But too late, price hit my stop in just 5 sec. -12tk

8:00: this time I learned my lesson, I waited. I also was waiting for D/B 2nd entry to go long, But it didn’t show up.

2nd error is: I should never underestimate “channel”, It’s a trending pattern that the breakout of the channel will often failed.

Trade 2: 9:11 short. L2 short. I also waited until sharp bull channel to break then took on the 2nd short entry. But I shorted on the S again. Besides it was a wedge bull flag, I shorted on the bottom of the wedge flag. I realized my mistake. So I got out before it turned into a Wedge bull flag long. But I was too slow to change my view and go long here....

In hindsight, looking at the chart, the bull channel from 8:00-8:30 is very strong, Yes, 9:10 technically setup a L2 short signal. But if it’s fail. the channel will most like continue… The trend is confirmed being reversed.

Next time, next time then. I will act quicker and be smarter…

Tired. I am glad it’s Friday. I can spend 2 days to take a break and re-visit my trading plan, learning curve. But this afternoon, I want to dismiss myself from trading study. I want to go back to my Asia& Hollywood gossip website/videos to keep up with another type of “trend”.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary since I started to learn Day trading fulltime. I still remember Last Year this time I went to this trading school to learn what candle bars are… I was very excited about what I see and all the charts and ticks make my heart beat faster. Can’t believe it’s already one year…. I still know nothing…

PnL:- -$85, 2 trades.

Weekly:
PnL: $53
Pts: 16pts
#of trades per day: 2
Profit Factor: 1.22
Winrate: 36%
Largest winning trade: $117.6
Largest losing trades: $62.40

I will still list winrate since its part of the criteria to gauge the methodology and my trading style. But I wouldn’t “over think” it from now on…

Will come back on Monday with a fresh mind! Carry on!
Have a great weekend!

 

[Matcha]

Quote from NoDoji:

......

What made the difference for me was the constant meticulous post-market analysis, months of it (I still do it regularly). Now I'm very excited to put on the trades. Many setups are run of the mill, but when I see my favorite setups forming, I can hardly wait for my order to trigger.

I have precise rules to follow, and all my levels noted before I start for the day, so there's very little thinking/analyzing now, just making sure I'm on top of the levels all the time.

You'll get to the point you trust the setups and you're thinking about the potential profit, not worried about the potential loss, knowing they'll be covered by nice runners. You know your seat belt is on if a setup fails, and you know whether to wait for a new setup or switch sides quickly. It will become a routine job, interspersed with moments of excitement when you see your "golden" setups, and even though I know that "anything can happen", there really are some golden setups out there

Hi, Nodoji!

I am so glad to hear that the excise helped you conquer the problem. I hope it help me too! I always see you as a great example of "we can do this"!

I have never stopped doing the "meticulous post market analysis"(ever since we spoke although in the beginning I did not have an organized speadsheet) and the "Max factor" analysis. For right now, I can say I did gain experience from it. when I went through them. I often think"oh, i know why."Next time I will have to do this/that. On some Saturdays, I use a single 5 min chart from 3 years ago, doing the same exersise of "trading hard right edge", marked my entry,stops, targets on the setup bars then, show the folloing bars one by one. Then inputting my speadsheet to track the result then compose max factors analysis-backtesting.... but in real-time, I still wasn't too sure most of time... The only setup I can take without thinking too much is a nice text book 2 leg move or wedge flag with a clean and strong trend(steep MA). Maybe it's already a progress for me?

It is indeed the best excise ever. I will keep working on it untill I "get it" and trade with no emotions and uncertainties!

 

[Matcha]

Quote from Bolimomo:

Winrate:

Successfully picked up a quarter #1. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #2. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #3. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #4. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #5. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #6. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #7. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #8. You won.
Successfully picked up a quarter #9. You won.
You got run over by a truck while picking up quarter #10. You lost.

Your win-loss ratio is 90%.

Your real loss is only an arm and a leg.

lol. i get your point!! still very funny!

 

[Matcha]

Quote from Snowman75:

Hey Matcha,

I agree about the above posts. If your targets are higher than your losses then you don't need a high win rate. Last week I had 3 winners and 8 losers. I still only lost 1 pt. The reason was I was risking eg. 5 points to win 8-10 pts. Of course, I also agree with you that more wins helps mentally. Just need a good balance but don't make it your only focus. I think you are doing just fine.

Concerning yty's trade I think you got suck in the mess from the day before. See the chart below. This is the DIA (basically the Dow Jones in Equity format). I no longer subscribe to YM as I have moved to FESX but if you see this chart is practically identical.

Look at the balance area on the left. Price just came back into that area of value and just rotated in there. Because of the activity from yty it was hard for price to make a significant move.

Anyway just my 2 cents. I'm still learning myself.

Good luck today.
]

Thank you snowman, you and bighog just remind me of respecting the Key price level, see how they traveled.

Thank you!

 

[Matcha]

Quote from bighog:

.....Matcha, you are going through a known flawed strategy that is holding you back from those profits................FORGET the small stuff and go where the money is. The money is where price travels from one level to another.

5 tick stop losses for small wins will never get you to the promised land.

Trade a more exciting contract, the DOW is a dud contract. Spice up things a bit.

.....

Matcha, juice up your game, move to the next level up, get out of the DOW rut.

...

Hi, BigHog!

Thank you for posting here! I read your great insights in Nodoji's jounal. So thank you for your inputs here now! Please don't stop by just because your everything is down down down!!

I see what you said. I understand "OFFENSE". I have been thinking of swtiching to "ES". Probably in a few weeks. I just have some YM analysis I want to at least finish. then try to SIM ES.

 

[PatientOperator]

Quote from Matcha:

Keep losing. But I am OK. I don’t feel too emotional now. .....


First of all, I feel like I didn’t “respect” S/R levels/magnet price level well enough.

....

Today’s trades are the example’s to demonstrate the problem.

.....

....

Next time, next time then. I will act quicker and be smarter…

Tired. I am glad it’s Friday. I can spend 2 days to take a break and re-visit my trading plan, learning curve. But this afternoon, I want to dismiss myself from trading study. I want to go back to my Asia& Hollywood gossip website/videos to keep up with another type of “trend”.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary since I started to learn Day trading fulltime. I still remember Last Year this time I went to this trading school to learn what candle bars are… I was very excited about what I see and all the charts and ticks make my heart beat faster. Can’t believe it’s already one year…. I still know nothing…


Weekly:
PnL: $53
Pts: 16pts
#of trades per day: 2
Profit Factor: 1.22
Winrate: 36%
Largest winning trade: $117.6
Largest losing trades: $62.40

I will still list winrate since its part of the criteria to gauge the methodology and my trading style. But I wouldn’t “over think” it from now on…

Will come back on Monday with a fresh mind! Carry on!
....

Hi Matcha,

What matters this week for you was you had a winning week. You have a positive profit factor. Largest winning trade to losing trades was 2:1. And the most important one that counts was on Monday. You picked the right day to trade LIVE using your analysis prior to the RTH. You stayed the course on Monday and executed your trades without hesitation.

The losing trades served well as your learning block. It will only reinforce what's important for your trading style and your trading plan. e.g. you have identified that S/R levels are essential structures to guide your trades.

Wow! Your are right, time flies, it has been one year also for me since I traded full time. I refuse to accept that "you still know nothing". You have learned a lot and have been making huge progress since you started.

Next week will be my one year anniversary, too. When I first started, I jumped right into it to trade LIVE and learned my lessons in the hard way. Thanks to you and your trading journal, I have learned a lot. The most important thing is I found out there is no overnight success. I still remember vividly when I saw you wrote about it takes multiple years and >10,000 hours to learn how to trade. At first I thought it doesn't apply to me. But now I have learned and have been humbled. I will continue to learn.

My trading today:
- 4 trades, 2 Shorts (1+, 1-) 2 Longs (2+), net 2 ES pts.
- Lessons learned: review throughout the day where the trend is heading. It can change direction. I need to trade accordingly.

Ha Ha! Any Asia& Hollywood gossip website/videos you would recommend. I need some thing to relax on other than staring at my charts everyday!

Have a great weekend everyone!

--po