Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

[Matcha]

Quote from FreeMarketRider:

Matcha,

What a great journal you've been writing here. Thanks so much for your invite. This is concentrated learning at it's best, I can't help but be impressed by your progress and by all the great advice provided here. I'm looking foward to following this and tackling NoDoji's journal as well.

Hi, FMR
Thank you for kind words!

Nodoji and Boli are the ones who inspired me to write a journal here!

I figured even if I couldn't finally make as a trader. I at least contribute something meaningful to the trading community But really the greatest efforts and knowledge are from all the Sifus who are so selfless!

...The recent comments about engineers brought more than a few chuckles as that's my background as well I struggled with a need for reasons - It gets wired into the brain in engineering school. I've also worked for years on the "operations" side so I know chaos is part of physical processes and market processes...

FMR [/B]

Good luck to you too! And another engineer.

 

[~~~]

Quote from Matcha:

Weekly Recap:
PnL: -$269
Avg Trades Per Day: 8
Winrate: 38%

A losing first week, but I am still OK to live trade next Monday.

Ooh Sweetie ... first i would like to congrats you for trading "live" and please don't feel bad coz you had a "bad" first day/week of "live" trading ... always remember the Chinese Sayings .."taste the *Bitterness* first ... then the *Sweetness* will soon to follow*..." You started out being '-negative ' - on profit made you more careful, alert and not carried away... Some people started out first day/week/month making profits ... then they started to think they're Jesse Livermore II ... over confident ..got carried away ... and crashed like a beer can...You don't want to be like them.

I always make 'typo errors', 'wrong spelling', 'wrong english grammar / sentence' etc, etc... gosh so many careless mistakes here and there but i have Never, i mean Never "Pressed" the wrong buttons when i'm trading , coz i checked and double checked again b4 i pressed the buttons...so Sweetie, Please remember Never, Never "Press" the wrong buttons again! Check and Double check again , Please!

Try to do some Yoga during your free-time coz you're trading "live" now & you need to be calm and relax when you're trading and don't get emotional...

Now i am "Sleepless in NYC" coz "jet-lag" but it's okie coz one special friend called me on the phone and i'm so, so Happy!!!! tomorrow i will do some shopping and go to China town to eat "wanton noodles" ... Hurray!!! Hope Everyone has a Great W-end !!!

 

[~~~]

Quote from Matcha:



Hi, FMR

...............................

Good luck to you too! And another engineer.

Wow!!! ... So many good engineers here.. Boli, PO and now FMR ..Good Luck to YOU too!.. FMR

 

[Bolimomo]

Quote from Matcha:

Only two trades were taken today, not too much profit. Spending lots of time reading articles about Price Histogram.

TRADE A: great entry to go long. Price pullback on Pivot Point,+ support level, bottoming tails, price moved above MA. Larger time frame bullish.

I too just started to look at volume profile to assist my trades.

I just completed my own volume profile indicator "BoliVolProfileRT".

Here I looked at the DIA (proxy of Dow). Early in the morning, today's profile has not been built in the first few minutes. So you would lean on yesterday's profile and even a longer term profile (e.g. over 30 days) to help you ID where the support/resistance areas are. Looks like YM was dropping slight into the Value Area Low from yesterday. If you are aggressive, you can long that low and expect price to bounce back to the bulk of the value area (reversion to mean). But if it breaks that, it may go down in a hurry. If it does go down, then you consider flipping.

 

[PatientOperator]

Quote from Matcha:


Volume was super light today. Hopefully more volume comes in next week.

Today’s PnL: $55. 2 Trades

Weekly Recap:

Avg Trades Per Day: 8
Winrate: 38%

A losing first week, but I am still OK to live trade next Monday.

I learned a lot from first week of live trading. Only pick up the “finest” and not to over trade are key issues for me. If I can achieve these two goals in live as soon as possible, at least I can work towards to become a B/E trader and not to go broke.

Hi Matcha,

Glad that you now have the first week of LIVE trading experience under your belt!!!!! A great journey starts with the first step. And I know you are on the right track. You will soon "withdraw" what you have "invested" into the market plus a lot more!!!!

Friday was a very slow volume day. On top of that, the range was extremely narrow, hi to lo during the regular trading hour was only 7.50 ES points. I only traded once picking up 0.50 points.

Price histogram and volume profile are new to me. I may start looking into these goodies.

Have a great weekend everyone!

--po

P.S. Remember to be "picky" and not to overtrade next week... And don't press the wrong button!

 

[PatientOperator]

Quote from FreeMarketRider:

Matcha,

What a great journal you've been writing here. Thanks so much for your invite. This is concentrated learning at it's best, I can't help but be impressed by your progress and by all the great advice provided here. I'm looking foward to following this and tackling NoDoji's journal as well.

Boli, ~~~, PO, NoD - You all are great, very knowledgeable and helpful. I'm working on a new approach to markets (or re-validating what I remember of my old approach) - There is a lot of insight here. I used to use a subset of the TA that Boli is teaching. It amazes me how so many here dismiss TA especially fib. The recent comments about engineers brought more than a few chuckles as that's my background as well I struggled with a need for reasons - It gets wired into the brain in engineering school. I've also worked for years on the "operations" side so I know chaos is part of physical processes and market processes.

Best to All/
FMR

Hi FMR

Best regards to you too!

Engineers have to work harder in this field.

--po

 

[FreeMarketRider]

Quote from ~~~:

Wow!!! ... So many good engineers here.. Boli, PO and now FMR ..Good Luck to YOU too!.. FMR

You just made me smile

Many years ago (before WWW) my first exposure to learning about trading was on CompuServe's financial forums. On line stock trading was just becoming popular and I posted a message lamenting the lack of on-line futures trading. I got a reply from someone who outlined the relatively small number of participants vs the number of on line equity traders. He said that vocationally the demographic was pretty closely split between two groups - Farmers, and Engineers. As President of ETrade, I think he was in a position to know. He said they looked at it, but decided it was not a profitable enough to offer brokerage / clearing services. How things have changed

BR/
FMR

 

[Went Fishing]

Quote from Matcha:

Today I use your chart and draw grey trading area and POC on my YMZ chart(the Dec contract).

Matcha,
Forgive me for not realizing you would be trading the Z contract Friday morning. I had just gotten the CBOT mini data that day and I guess I was caught up in some sort of "irrational exuberance", I'll get the Z to you. As with most indicators the P/H has it's strengths and weaknesses.

I'm glad to see you intend to keep going with your live trading this week, some things I just couldn't learn in 'sim'. Last week I began my start up routine and as I writing down a few notes I got a buy signal, the time of day was a bit questionable but prices pulled back and I took the long. Within a few minutes prices were approaching my initial target. I looked at the notes I had just written and moved my target up to another level. Prices traded through my target by 3 ticks fell back and never returned. I was done for the day within a half an hour. When I saw that signal I had my strategy in within 30 seconds, but I never clicked that button to change from 'sim' to 'real', damn, damn damn! I didn't realize I was in sim until that evening when I was gearing up for the AM session! That winner sure tasted like a "real" trade (for hours), it was one of my best trades of the week!

#%It Happens

 

[Matcha]

Market gapped up 70 Points at the open. The previous resistance level 10395 has been taken out. I would look for next resistance level 10622. But for today, the plan will only be buy at pullback.

TRADE A: Long
7:00 A clean buy set up shows up. Classic D/B(with premarket) pullback trade. Didn’t plan to hold on for a 3 leg push since market is making it’s 3rd wave move. (Gap-wave 2).
Besides the momentum dries up at 7:45. So time for me to get out in order to protect profit.
26 pts

I thought after the move, today will again be those choppy price actions most of the day. But at 8:00 market sell off 80 points. With such a steep sell off, I don’t want to jump in and buy immediately; plus it will be painful to jump in buy at the doldrums to observe overlapping candle movement. So I would want to wait and see more confirmations even though I might miss the trade. So I choose to wait.

11: 00 A W bottom formed at the MA. It was a nice pattern to get in. I hesitated, so I miss the entry. So I waited again for a breakout pullback from base(if the base is going to form).


TRADE B: Long Nice breakout pullback set up. Although its’ not the cleanest look!

The trade was painless. I took profits right away at the next R level which is also a measured move from base, since its’ near close, I didn’t want to bet on it’s retest to HOD, and it didn’t test the HOD.
27 Pts

Today’s PnL: +260, 2 trades.

Wish everyday is like today… ;-)

 

[Matcha]

Quote from ~~~:

Ooh Sweetie ... first i would like to congrats you for trading "live" and please don't feel bad coz you had a "bad" first day/week of "live" trading ... always remember the Chinese Sayings .."taste the *Bitterness* first ... then the *Sweetness* will soon to follow*..." You started out being '-negative ' - on profit made you more careful, alert and not carried away... Some people started out first day/week/month making profits ... then they started to think they're Jesse Livermore II ... over confident ..got carried away ... and crashed like a beer can...You don't want to be like them. ...

Now i am "Sleepless in NYC" coz "jet-lag" but it's okie coz one special friend called me on the phone and i'm so, so Happy!!!! tomorrow i will do some shopping and go to China town to eat "wanton noodles" ... Hurray!!! Hope Everyone has a Great W-end !!!

So nice to hear from you, sis! Wish you had great time in NYC! Also wish next time I can join you there!

Thanks for always being so supportive! That what I have been thinking too. Starting with small loss, I can ID my problems early and fix them in order not to damage my account later on.

Press the wrong buttons are unforgivable! I will try my best not to make same mistakes! Trade less can prevent that happen too.

"Special friend". heee...