Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

Quote from ~~~:

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 ..
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~~~ - Great advice as always. You are the voice of balance and reason.

Matcha - Your results are inspiring, your charts and analysis as always are illuminating. Looking at the past couple weeks, what really stands out is how well you've been able to gauge where the market is going. You are learning to build out market reaction in lieu of bias. Your market intuition is growing and your discipline is you balance. Win rates show this very clearly. Very Well Done Young Lady :D
 
Thank you everyone again, for being so supportive! I definitely learned more last week even though it's in SIM. I felt like I need some more time in SIM in the next few weeks or months probably. Being trading in SIM for the past week made me realize I still have a lot of work and study to do before I put my real money on the line. :p

Trading is a long journey:p
 
Quote from PatientOperator:

.....

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."

.....

--po
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Hi, PO.
Great work on reducing the # of trades.

IMHO, I think trading one set up is easy, but how to trade it is not just that "simple" and black/white. There are more to it.

For example, the easiest example. in a bull day, you saw a D/T pattern after a major trend line break, price made it's 3-4 push leg etc. Then you short it because the signal is very "obvious". But you shouldn't really do that since the rally is still intact. That's why you ended the day fighting with trend, But the set up is still the best set up you have worked on and could "see". The market evrionment is changed. So once you realized you are wrong. You got to find a failed setup to enter on the flip side, or ofcourse do nothing.

What I am trying to say is in order to trade this one set up profitable. we have to learn:
Context of the market
Dominant trend
Failed pattern- so if we were trapped, we might want to find an entry to flip. Failed patterns can make good trades!
Money management in different market context.
Those are what I am working on...


See Nodoji's post on Tlow's thread :

from NoDoji:

I've been trading one thing for so long now and studying the price action every day live and then bar-by-bar after the close, that I've developed different trade management strategies for different methods, for various price action moves, for micro-trends within different macro pictures, etc. Breakout and counter-trend trades, for example, I handle differently from other trades: I move my stop to b/e very quickly and I look for solid follow-through, targeting a specific minimum move, but willing take more if offered.
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Matcha
 
Didn’t take any quality trade today. All stop out. Not too much to report here.

6:56. Long at pullback, D/B with YTD close. No follow through on the next candle(bearish). I exit at a -8Pts loss. But price moved up to test YTD’s high…

7:21 long at higher low pullback. Stopped out. +3Pts

8:03 short. Pattern turned to be a false breakout.

Then I took a long trade, stopped out again.

12:10 Price broke out from the intra-day tight trading range then pulled back. I didn’t take the trade because the next support level was too close. Being watching the uncertain price action most of the day, I was concerned the price is going to continue to trade in a range.

PnL” -$84.6, 4 trades, 50% winrate
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Matcha,

That chart looks like an Elektrokardiogramm of a heart attack victim. A bit of a pulse at the open and then, flat lined. The bond market was closed today for Columbus Day and that led to quiet trading and tight ranges.

Your style of trading appears to need a little more breathing room, by the time your set-up was valid the moved reversed. I think the markets will "hold their breath" until the release of the FOMC minutes tomorrow, unless something else "shocks" them back to life.
 
Quote from Matcha:

Hi, PO.
Great work on reducing the # of trades.

IMHO, I think trading one set up is easy, but how to trade it is not just that "simple" and black/white. There are more to it.

For example, the easiest example. in a bull day, you saw a D/T pattern after a major trend line break, price made it's 3-4 push leg etc. Then you short it because the signal is very "obvious". But you shouldn't really do that since the rally is still intact. That's why you ended the day fighting with trend, But the set up is still the best set up you have worked on and could "see". The market evrionment is changed. So once you realized you are wrong. You got to find a failed setup to enter on the flip side, or ofcourse do nothing.

What I am trying to say is in order to trade this one set up profitable. we have to learn:
Context of the market
Dominant trend
Failed pattern- so if we were trapped, we might want to find an entry to flip. Failed patterns can make good trades!
Money management in different market context.
Those are what I am working on...


See Nodoji's post on Tlow's thread :



Matcha
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Hi Matcha,

I agree with you for what you said about trading one setup. It is definitely not black and white. The hardest part for me is to set the context right to trade with the dominant trend because it is a moving target. I often found myself got caught at the turning point when I thought I was trading at the pullback of an established trend.

Thank you very much for the pointers, I got to sort out all these things and work through these perplexing puzzles.

For now, I will accept the failure of a trade as a part of the outcome of my setup - knowing my setup will not give me a win every time. I do hope in the long run, I can have a slight edge, say 60% winrate or better!

Today, I did mostly SOH because of the low volume and narrow range day. I did only one trade at where you saw the SHORT opportunity and got stopped out at a loss.

Best of trading for you tomorrow. BTW, market is down quite a bit after-hours and the range is wider than the previous RTH !

--po
 
Quote from Matcha:

Thank you everyone again, for being so supportive! I definitely learned more last week even though it's in SIM. I felt like I need some more time in SIM in the next few weeks or months probably. Being trading in SIM for the past week made me realize I still have a lot of work and study to do before I put my real money on the line. :p

Trading is a long journey:p
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Did you say it takes 10,000 hours of hard work?????? :D
 
Quote from PatientOperator:

Did you say it takes 10,000 hours of hard work?????? :D
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I don't know where this "10000 hours" figure came from. Maybe the rough measure for most highly skilled professions like pilots and sport stars and golfers and etc..

Matcha, PO and tlow I think you guys will do all right in the long run. You all are very modest and eager to learn and listen to comments. It will take time but you are on the right track. Some people (like me) will take more than 10k, some geniuses will take less. :) All depends on you. (And how much testosterone you have... LOL :D ) And whether you have people watching over you and helping along the way.

Just don't be like some cocky newbies who blew out the account over and over again. The sad thing is they seemed to have "made believe" explanations and justifications for everything... including a good "trading system". "I just need to this... I just need to that..." People... You really can't be your own shrink. Shutting out all comments. And have tunnel vision... It seems to be part of the denial process.

Matcha: keep up the good work. Sim or real. It's really hard day trading YM or ES. Because you have a very tight time window to ride the swings. Swing trading may be easier, especially with 1 contract. Be mindful that... as one broad poster pointed out... the market may have a big down swing soon. I kind of lean towards that thought too. But... I have been wrong for the past months. Not to say it won't happen. Anything can happen in this market. A black swan event can completely take you out. The Devil is always at the gate, pointing a rifle at you... and shoot when you are not watching...
 
Sorry for the delay. Been very busy these days. Tomorrow I will be back trading full time with 100% focus.

I only traded the afternoon session. Only took one trade after the FMOC meeting.

11:43 Long, buy at H2, support level, breakout pullback. Set my target to test high of YTD. I moved stop too quickly. Stopped out at 12:05. Market made a lower high. Then printed a strong green reversal bar @ 12:10. So I was expecting a bull trap, looking to getting for a short if market test the high one more time and failed. But the bullish reversal candle @12:10 followed by a small pause bar. I wasn’t sure what to do since I was “expecting” a lower high… Then another pause bar made it’s higher high…At this point, I should have switched side to play long. A “looked like bull trap” turned to “bear trap”. But I still wasn’t too sure if I should get in to pick up a momentum. I SOH. But clearly price had made a bull flag-triangle pattern. So I missed the late day break out play.

I got to remember this pattern now. Next time,I will catch it.

PnL:+17.60 1 trade.

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