Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

Matcha,

Awesome day! I've been taking a break and doing some back testing and staring at charts for the past week to get my set-ups back to where they need to be. I thought about going back in today, but once I saw the morning choppiness I decided to give it another day and do some studying instead. Pretty impressive to come out with such a high win rate and nice profit on a day like today! Keep it up!
 
Quote from Matcha:

Today we got some pretty nice “stage 1,2 3” setups.( Quote from Boli). I worked on the “stare” assignment over the past weekend. So everything today is pretty visible for me.
....

Then price started to chop. I called it a day before 12:30.

PnL: +$105, 4Trades, 75%winrate
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Hi Matcha,

Keep up the "stare" exercise! You are on the right track to STARE the profit out of the market. :)

Today was a very narrow range day. I did most of the "staring" in the morning and made only 2 trades both yielded a small profit, +2 ES points for the day. It's kind of strange that 2 days in a row, the action was during the lunch doldrums. No lunch break for me tomorrow. :)

I ran into this daytrading journal (The Evolution of an E-mini Trader) dating back to 2002. It was quite interesting that you might be interested to read. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6140&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

It shared a lot of resemblance on the challenge and struggle of a new daytrader just like us. Topics included the debate over SIM and LIVE trading; Price Action only vs. indicators; tight stops vs. wider stops; overtrading; trading discipline; trying too many different type of setups; the need to simplifying the system; and many more. Lots of good feedback from the ET community.

Best trading tomorrow! I am still working hard on focusing on trading only one setup this week and keeping my trade frequency in check.

--po
 
The reversal trades I took today didn’t work out very well. PS: I am not trying to pick tops/bottoms; I traded on HL/LH after the broken trend line.

First trade was a classic reversal trade set up, Buy at the S level, Trend line was broken, price made 4 pushes, price made a higher low, buy at High2-the second leg up. Selling was too strong. My stop was hit. -5Pts

Second trade was a bad entry, I should have waited until the bar almost closes. The 7:55 bar. The bar was a full body bullish bar for almost 3 minutes, then it turned to be a shooting star at the last 10 Second. I was traped. Took a loss. -8Pt

Around 8:30. Next few trades were both losing trades. I continued to go long. The price finished another 2 leg down 7:40-8:10. Then formed a D/B and retest the LOD again. They both stopped out. Then I gave up trying. I realized that I was trading on all those overlapping chopping area….

9:00am, market dropped in doldrums. Now the chopping zone became a visible. Failed D/B to me…

10:54, long, 24Pt. reversal finally happened. But I lost too much on previous trades…

PnL: -$66, 7 trades, 30%winrate

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Matcha,

I know it's harder for you to make your choices in the heat of battle, than it is for us to make suggestions when the trading day is finished. Entering the market in that sweet spot between confirmed direction and our stop at the precise moment in time takes skill and knowledge. You know what you're doing and you will continue to improve your skills, catching that last trade is proof of that! You stayed at your post and didn't give up, nice job.
 
I made an “assumption” this morning after the morning sell-off. I “assumed” today would be a range bound day. So I would be looking for fade the move on a 2nd chance pattern.
But after the 7:30 sell-off. Price turned to a runaway bull, it did not give me any time to shift my gear. I couldn’t convince myself to join the bull move-buy at the shallow retrace. But after 9:30, I got the idea that I would buy the 2-3 leg pullbacks to major support level since the day has turned out to be a bull day! Great thing I at least know not to fight with the bull…

Trade A: breakdown short. Stop out for a 10Pts small profit

10:53am took a long, one tick above the hammer bar. Stopped out. -9pts
Trade B: Long. Buy at a higher low. Moved my stop too prematurely. Stop almost b/e. Price was just grinding up.

Today’s pnL: $17. 3 trades 67%winrate

Weekly recap -SIM
PnL: +$367
#Trades per day: 5
Winrate: 55%

Have a great weekend!

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Quote from Went Fishing:

Matcha,

I know it's harder for you to make your choices in the heat of battle, than it is for us to make suggestions when the trading day is finished. Entering the market in that sweet spot between confirmed direction and our stop at the precise moment in time takes skill and knowledge. You know what you're doing and you will continue to improve your skills, catching that last trade is proof of that! You stayed at your post and didn't give up, nice job.
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Thank you! WentFishing! Thanks being so nice and patient to me!:p
 
Quote from Matcha:

Second trade was a bad entry, I should have waited until the bar almost closes. The 7:55 bar.

The bar was a full body bullish bar for almost 3 minutes, then it turned to be a shooting star at the last 10 Second. I was traped.
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Or waited till it closed - imho

This is a trick used often to do just what it did... Learn to spot em and exploit em… (in due time though) :)

RN
 
Quote from Matcha:



Weekly recap -SIM
PnL: +$367
#Trades per day: 5
Winrate: 55%

Have a great weekend!
More...

good job sweetie ... now try to do it in "live" not only in "sim" coz you need real $$$ to buy food & shopping ...:p

you gotta train how to "control" your "emotions" when trading "live" ... trading "sim" is difference coz no real $$$ involved.:p

when trading "live" just be careful... no need to trade everyday when you are not confidence enough to enter the market ..
 
Quote from Matcha:

...

Weekly recap -SIM
PnL: +$367
#Trades per day: 5
Winrate: 55%

Have a great weekend!
More...

Hi Matcha,

I think you did pretty good this week. The most important thing was you kept your discipline and have increased your confidence in spotting the trends. With more practice, I know you will get to where you want it to be....

I have by-and-large kept my promise for this week to trade ONLY the one setup I intended to improve on. It is sometimes hard to have that autonomy to exercise my discretion to make the decision to pull the trigger. My goal is to become as close to robotic as I can with my setup and to really do some disciplined forward testing to give me the confidence. One thing I noticed, I have significantly reduced my number of trades this week (avg 2 ~ 3 trades/day) only focused on the ones my setup calls for. My plan for next week is to do the same.

This weekend, I went over my recent trades and found that the worst days were the days that I overtraded, many times more than 10 times per day and the best days were those that I traded only 2 to 4 times per day. I think for the next few weeks, I will take up on John Carter's advice [As in Mastering the Trade, pg 392, Trading Tips #8] - "Don't Overtrade - be patient and wait for 3 to 5 good trades."

Oh! As with Sis ~~~'s great advice, John Carter also mentioned in his Tip #12 on page 392 - "The best way to minimize risk is to NOT trade. If your stocks or other markets aren't acting right, then don't trade them. Just sit and watch them and try to learn something....." Also, Tip #13 on page 392 - "There is no need to trade 5 days a week. Trade 4 days per week, and you will be sharper during the actual time you are trading." Sounds good to me.

Keep up the good work and the good spirit! Your journal is an inspiration!

Have a great weekend everyone! And thank you everyone for your great mentoring!

--po
 
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