Hello,
My name is Ashan and this is will be a snippet of my daily trading journal, mainly the trades I make and why.
BACKGROUND
I am a swing trader who trades commodity futures. I started a couple days before December 07, which means Iâve been trading for about 7 months. I started with $20,000 exactly and have made about $70,000. I wish I could say I am a futures trading maverick but my early success was due to Chick Goslin and his book âTrading Day by Day.â Chick used to put out a daily market letter that was invaluable in learning the trading methodology and small details that went into his consideration of every trade he made. Having a professional to guide me is what allowed me to grow my account very fast. My risk/reward was very high in those days and the combination of chickâs guidance and a raging bull market in commodities gave me some early $20,000 months. My current balance after withdrawals is about $67,000.
Chick stopped his letter In early March. Since then my risk/reward has been reduced substantially. However I will not let it be that way forever. I devote a lot of time to reading the markets and writing in my journal each day. I would like to post my excel spreadsheets of my journals with full details but it is probably too much information to be of any interest and there isnât a convenient way to do that here anyways (besides attachments which I donât like)
MY METHOD
Position trading method with a timeframe of days to weeks, with most of my own trades falling in the 2-5 day range. I use some very bare bones technical indicators. This method is highly subjective. No black boxing here, it requires a brain to analyze what the indicators are saying.
I have 3 primary technical indicators I use:
The TL or trend line, which is a simple 10 week moving average (49 days to be exact, 49 vs 50 is not that significant and is more of a customary thing I got from my mentor than anything else) The trend line gives me the overall direction of the market.
The SL or short line. This line take the last 3 days of price average and compares it against the last 10 day average of price. If the 3 day average is higher, the line will be somewhere above 0 (depending on the magnitude of the difference) Vice versa if the 10 day average is higher. This is used to get an idea of short term price flow.
The ML, or middle line. This is a 16 day average of the SL. By averaging the short term price indicator we get a reasonable indicator or intermediate term price flow (in this setup, the flow of price over a couple weeks or so)
All the lines are imperfect indicators which are reasonably reliable, as Chick Goslin says, but far from perfect. Because of this a margin of error is used on each one. It is very acceptable to âdropâ old values off of the ends of the lines to anticipate where they will head. Obviously we donât want to over anticipate, but when done correctly, anticipating these lines will paint a reasonably reliable picture of where price flow is heading in the long, medium, and short term.
I could rewrite Chicks entire book explaining the decision making process for entering a trade, but the basic idea is this: Trend is the strongest indicator especially when steeply up or down. Intermediate term pressure (as seen through the ML) is the second most important, with short term pressure being the least important. To get a decent risk/reward move I want to try to get into trades that have the trend pointing the same way as the ML line, or anticipate such a move so that I get into before my lagging indicators reflect the price flow that has already happened. The short line is used mainly for timing dips and rallies, or overbought/oversold conditions.
Timing moves is much easier said than done. The market is a clever beast and likes to make spotting a pattern as difficult as possible. Iâll keep track of my trades here and weâll see how well I do.
MY APPROACH
Trade the markets as best as I can by using and anticipating my technical indicators (which are merely indicators of price action over different spans of time) Any other indicator is acceptable to use, but must be weighted correctly in how much of a factor it is in the decision making process.
I follow several market groups: Stocks, financials, currencies, energies, metals, grains, and softs. About 20 markets total, although most markets are just variations of others in their group.
Trade on as little emotion as possible. Not doing much intraday trading helps enormously with this. I also only check my balance about every 2 weeks. I wonât check a balance for longer than that if I feel that my week was bad.
Be meager with withdrawals. Live like a broke shmoe until I hit my financial goal. My goal is $200,000 (conservative) to $500,000 (optimistic) after tax, by 2010, right about the time I believe will be a bottom in real estate. Real estate investment is my end goal. I donât really seek the posh expensive lifestyle. I do want complete financial freedom, the ability to do as I please with my time. This means generating about $80,000 a year in income purely from real estate investments.
Ask any questions and I will answer. Of course any feedback is welcome, though I do try to watch out for what information I consider and what I have to filter to avoid analysis paralysis.
My name is Ashan and this is will be a snippet of my daily trading journal, mainly the trades I make and why.
BACKGROUND
I am a swing trader who trades commodity futures. I started a couple days before December 07, which means Iâve been trading for about 7 months. I started with $20,000 exactly and have made about $70,000. I wish I could say I am a futures trading maverick but my early success was due to Chick Goslin and his book âTrading Day by Day.â Chick used to put out a daily market letter that was invaluable in learning the trading methodology and small details that went into his consideration of every trade he made. Having a professional to guide me is what allowed me to grow my account very fast. My risk/reward was very high in those days and the combination of chickâs guidance and a raging bull market in commodities gave me some early $20,000 months. My current balance after withdrawals is about $67,000.
Chick stopped his letter In early March. Since then my risk/reward has been reduced substantially. However I will not let it be that way forever. I devote a lot of time to reading the markets and writing in my journal each day. I would like to post my excel spreadsheets of my journals with full details but it is probably too much information to be of any interest and there isnât a convenient way to do that here anyways (besides attachments which I donât like)
MY METHOD
Position trading method with a timeframe of days to weeks, with most of my own trades falling in the 2-5 day range. I use some very bare bones technical indicators. This method is highly subjective. No black boxing here, it requires a brain to analyze what the indicators are saying.
I have 3 primary technical indicators I use:
The TL or trend line, which is a simple 10 week moving average (49 days to be exact, 49 vs 50 is not that significant and is more of a customary thing I got from my mentor than anything else) The trend line gives me the overall direction of the market.
The SL or short line. This line take the last 3 days of price average and compares it against the last 10 day average of price. If the 3 day average is higher, the line will be somewhere above 0 (depending on the magnitude of the difference) Vice versa if the 10 day average is higher. This is used to get an idea of short term price flow.
The ML, or middle line. This is a 16 day average of the SL. By averaging the short term price indicator we get a reasonable indicator or intermediate term price flow (in this setup, the flow of price over a couple weeks or so)
All the lines are imperfect indicators which are reasonably reliable, as Chick Goslin says, but far from perfect. Because of this a margin of error is used on each one. It is very acceptable to âdropâ old values off of the ends of the lines to anticipate where they will head. Obviously we donât want to over anticipate, but when done correctly, anticipating these lines will paint a reasonably reliable picture of where price flow is heading in the long, medium, and short term.
I could rewrite Chicks entire book explaining the decision making process for entering a trade, but the basic idea is this: Trend is the strongest indicator especially when steeply up or down. Intermediate term pressure (as seen through the ML) is the second most important, with short term pressure being the least important. To get a decent risk/reward move I want to try to get into trades that have the trend pointing the same way as the ML line, or anticipate such a move so that I get into before my lagging indicators reflect the price flow that has already happened. The short line is used mainly for timing dips and rallies, or overbought/oversold conditions.
Timing moves is much easier said than done. The market is a clever beast and likes to make spotting a pattern as difficult as possible. Iâll keep track of my trades here and weâll see how well I do.
MY APPROACH
Trade the markets as best as I can by using and anticipating my technical indicators (which are merely indicators of price action over different spans of time) Any other indicator is acceptable to use, but must be weighted correctly in how much of a factor it is in the decision making process.
I follow several market groups: Stocks, financials, currencies, energies, metals, grains, and softs. About 20 markets total, although most markets are just variations of others in their group.
Trade on as little emotion as possible. Not doing much intraday trading helps enormously with this. I also only check my balance about every 2 weeks. I wonât check a balance for longer than that if I feel that my week was bad.
Be meager with withdrawals. Live like a broke shmoe until I hit my financial goal. My goal is $200,000 (conservative) to $500,000 (optimistic) after tax, by 2010, right about the time I believe will be a bottom in real estate. Real estate investment is my end goal. I donât really seek the posh expensive lifestyle. I do want complete financial freedom, the ability to do as I please with my time. This means generating about $80,000 a year in income purely from real estate investments.
Ask any questions and I will answer. Of course any feedback is welcome, though I do try to watch out for what information I consider and what I have to filter to avoid analysis paralysis.