New Trader: Journal

M

m_c_a98

June was my first month trading although I've been around the markets as a broker for the last two years out of college. Couldn't take the conflict of interest between generating commissions in a bear market and the clients interests on the other side.. Anyway, I didn't have a good month last month and I'm starting fresh in July. So if any new traders want to talk about what your doing and what works for you, I'd love to hear ideas. Either by email or this board.
here's my journal for today if anybody might find it interesting.....
................
Monday 7/2/2001
It's 12:40pm and the markets are slow Nasdaq up 9. bias today has been positive but light volume. Beginning free trial of http://www.undergroundtrader.com chat room. Not very impressed. Played with a few of the calls and basically came out even. Will check them out again tommorrow.
Bought HGSI on the aggressive TP long trigger but stopped out -.25. Markets selling off in lunch hour. Nasdaq up 6.
Shorted VRSN at 62.51 and covered at +.30. VRSN now at 61.55; that could have been the trade of the day. Need to exit with stops, not random exits.. In the green with JNPR and CIEN shorts; now tightening stops and trailing to protect gains. JNPR broke below BP1 tightening stop to just above bp1(31.9). CIEN target BP2(36.6) Looking good on the shorts(12:55pm).NAS up .50
Now a little pop in futures. keep stops. ...stopped out of JNPR small gain. 1:10PM and NAS up 3. Still short CIEN, stop at 37.05, stock at 37.03! oops, stopped out of CIEN at 37.11. 6 cent slippage on the stop price. 1:25pm NAS down .34 Sloooow..
+$100 for day so lowering default share size.
2pm NAS down 5.4 slowly trending downward. Watching S/R levels. SOX is strong watching for breakdown.
HGSI held DS support and bouncing. Long at 60.50 stop 60. JNPR has been hugging BP1 forever. raising HGSI stop to breakeven.
HGSI looking nice. watch resistance at BP1.. Spoke to soon, stopped out HGSI at 60.44 (6 cent slippage on stop, again)
2:23pm NAS up 4.
5min emini nas breakout 20pd moving average. Long HGSI again 60.74 stop 60.35 target 61+
raising HGSI stop to breakeven. sold HGSI at 60.94 resistance(BP1)
Choppy market 2:40pm NAS up .30... 3pm short HGSI at 60.33 stop at 61. MACD crossover on 5min.
watch HGSI DS support 60.1. Lots of support at current range 60-60.2. Out at 60.32(breakeven) waiting to reenter if breakdown.
Long HGSI at 60.30 stop below DS. NAS up 5. -----nas futures hitting resistance.. reversed short on HGSI No direction. short HGSI at 60.05 stop at 60.50..
lower stop to 60.25... lower stop to 60! MACD getting oversold on 5min Hammer candle. Stopped out .07 gain. HGSI is very fast. big thick candle should have been my signal to cover. Always retraces some after. HGSI now tanking. should have given more room. Let profits Run.....
Short CIEN 37 stop 37.50 short JNPR 32 stop 32.50
Give it room..... exit with trailing stops this time! stop looking at HGSI(oh what could have been 58's..)
lower JNPR stop to 31.80... lower JNPR stop to 31.60.... covered cien, to strong...
market tanking 3:45pm....... covered too soon on CIEN. once again took discretionary exit (EXIT WITH STOP ALWAYS!)
lower JNPR stop to 31.50..... 3:55pm still tanking NAS -19.... covered JNPR at 31.50 (+.50)
Whoa! IB says i'm long HGSI, what?? I haven't been looking at Account summary for awhile. LESSON>make sure to know what is in the Account summary. Geesh... sold HGSI for a point loss.
net +$103 for day. after HGSI debacle.
 
Hi, I like your post. I did a trial at underground but it didn't fit well for me. I'm now following action at tradersalliance chat room. It's free and some of the calls are very good. They update the futures moves and volume and that's about all I need. Everyone that wants to posts their trades.

I noticed your trades started late in the day. Noon strikes me as a bad time of the day to start working. ;) Does BP1 etc refer to pivot points? If so are you calculating them from a formula or using support / resistance?

I watched for some things I didn't see this morning and didn't take on any positions. Boring.

Good trading and keep posting. Thanks

PS Are you using a basket? If so do you calculate the pivots the night before? How about posting them?
 
El Cazador,
thanks for the reply.
I actually didn't bring up the Journal to start typing until noon..(I was up this morning at 8am sharp:)
but before noon I just tried the undergroundtrading.com calls but I didn't mention them in my writing.

Actually those BP,etc. are support and resistance levels for the day from a program I use called Trade Prospector. These levels definetely give me a road map for the trading day and their S/R's sometimes amaze me at their accuracy. What I do is each night I draw the important S/R lines that the program gives me for the following day. I do this on all the stocks(ie. basket) that I'm going to track the following day. This S/R roadmap makes life a lot easier for me.
I don't think Trade Prospector would want me to post their S/R levels!:)
 
also it's important to not blindly follow S/R levels but also the action of the stock near those levels and especially I look at MACD histogram(signal line crossing MACD line, trend of histogram, etc,), volume, oscillators like Stochastics and especially the condition of the futures and TICK.
 
You don't know of a site that gives the futures, the tick and trin and maybe the status of the programs do you? If I had all of those from one site I'd be happy. Thanks
 
I'm of course new at trading and there are a lot of experienced traders who might have your answer but I'll tell you my basic set up.
Executions through Interactive Brokers, price data and charts with Qcharts, Trade Prospector for S/R levels.
I have 3min charts up all day on TICK, TRIN, 5min and 1min for EMINI's with my indicators using Qcharts.
I got burned twice last month holding overnight even though its against my rules. I also reference some trading books a lot:
Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas
Technical analysis of financial markets by john murphy

I don't know of a website that gives tick, trin etc.. I thinnk you need a charting program.
 
I forget where it is on the site... I have a copy at home and will post it later. Here try this:"http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=1307"
 
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