NoDoji's Day Trading Log

[NoDoji]

Quote from fkbsuhites:

I didn't read the journal so I have no idea where you are in your trading. The following suggestions are made assuming you are new to the business.

Stick to 1 instrument and master it. I usually recommend the SPY, GLD or USO. Trade a small lot until you achieve consistency. Then start scaling up.

Stick to 1 chart setting. We're all looking at the same thing. Only using different filters. Find the sunglasses that fit well and you like. stick with that pair.

Back test every observation.

When you find the method that suits you, Automate everything.

Once you have a profitable automated system, plug in other markets. Good systems are robust enough to work in most markets.

Some people take forever to learn because they keep changing their charts and instruments they trade. Unfortunately most never learn.

I have to agree with you 100%.

By the way, the automated system should be going live the week after next. In real-time tests with a demo account, it's been netting $300-$400 a day trading 200-share lots, no stocks over $100. I'm very excited to see if it maintains a consistent performance record record and especially to see if I can outperform it.

 

[pak]

Nod,

I usually don’t post many things BUT what u said about how things came easy to u struck a similar chord in my life too…except the trading.

To be really successful in the trading seems very similar to being a real success in music/film/ a sport. As I grew up in the entertainment biz and tried myself for 10 years..i can tell u there is a lot of very good out their but very few great ( to achieve a career). I believe anyone with moderate talent can get lucky and have a hit as in anyone can pull a few big winning trades but eventually fail cause they don’t really have the talent ( most likely due to lack of long term commitment/practice).

Im beginning my 3rd year in the trading ( I believe like u) and have had small success both years BUT have to remind myself everyday that it took me playing guitar for 10 years before I was very good.

Likewise I was a professional skier for 3 years in my college years-but I started skiing at 5 and killed myself with training and practice for 8 years before I turned “pro” and then made it to the top 20-but NEVER winning. (not quite good enough to make a living)

I believe big hog and others have talked about these 5,000-10,000 hours of dedication in order to get to the “ I have a good chance stage”- and I couldn’t agree more…

So keep at it-just as I am-1 day at a time-cause maybe 1 day I will stop making the same mistakes over and again (like u mentioned) and get better!

 

[webpearl59]

BIGHOG,
Great post very to the point,

Best regards,

Webpearl59

PS. Very strong statement, that to me shows why you are trying to help Nodoji, I hope she takes the time to read what your trying to teach, I know that I do.
WP
(Here i sit never messed anything really up but did not steal $160 million either. I fought hard just to be a daytrader. Life is never fair, we just deal with it.)

Quote from bighog:

I can tell you real fast one area where you are causing difficulty for yourself. Your post today said you were using a 1 minute chart to get in early for longer time frames profits. That in my opinion is a flaw,a bigger flaw then you can imagine.

A 1 minute chart will not allow for profits in a larger time frame except by luck now and then. You actually stated that in a round about way when you said because mkt conditions changed it became a mistake to hold overnights when it was best just daytrade. In a 1 minute chart the so called early signals are not setting up for the 5 minute, or the 15, etc. Thats a fallacy. I would never invite a bimbo from a trailer park to go downtown for a Play or to see the Royal Ballet. She probably had the Forest Preserve in mind anyway.

Yes, trading is tougher than politics. Other professions have a playbook to follow, repetition doing the same thing over and over. In any field only a select few rise to the top, i once worked for General Motors on a production line, so did Stanley O'Neil. I also was a salesmen and a truck driver. Stanly O'Neil left Michigan and became the top guy in Merrill Lynch. Stanley blewup Merrill big time and managed to suck about $160million out of them as they showed him the door. Here i sit never messed anything really up but did not steal $160 million either. I fought hard just to be a daytrader. Life is never fair, we just deal with it.

If Stanley was a trader he never would have made the $160 million, better chance to lose $160 and showed the door. Life is not fair.

Your discipline sounds sound in your previous travels, all well and good. In the trading game you are correct, it is going to mess with your mind big time. If you were a guy, i wound say even mess your mind ALMOST like a women can. HA,

You need to do less drifting around. Your trading plan needs to be narrowed down, you need to decide on a single time frame and stick to it. You need to decide what you want to trade and stick to it. Work on your trading rules..............NOT just on what you want to trade as the flavor of the day. Drop the 3 minute charts, no one takes signals from that. You need to do some unlearning.

Trading is hard mentally because it goes against all we learned in the past on how to learn something new.

In trading it is making mistakes and deciding if correcting the mistakes is worth the challenge. Correcting them is not enough, eliminating them is the real challenge.

No easy gig is it?

 

[learningTrading]

Quote from bighog:

A 1 minute chart will not allow for profits in a larger time frame except by luck now and then. You actually stated that in a round about way when you said because mkt conditions changed it became a mistake to hold overnights when it was best just daytrade. In a 1 minute chart the so called early signals are not setting up for the 5 minute, or the 15, etc. Thats a fallacy. I would never invite a bimbo from a trailer park to go downtown for a Play or to see the Royal Ballet. She probably had the Forest Preserve in mind anyway.

For a swing trader(hold for 2-3 weeks), which chart should I be focusing on? 30 min 10days? 30 min 1 month chart?

Thank you!

 

[bighog]

Quote from NoDoji:

I think what everyone's missing is that I'm using the 1-min chart in conjunction with the 3- and 5-min charts to spot setups early enough that I can get in before price moves to a level that I feel I'm chasing a good entry. I'm not trading off the 1-min (unless I'm intentionally scalping).

I really don't think my problem is whether I use 3-, 5-, 10-, or 15- min charts. They all work for day trading. My problem is trusting the trade to work fully and giving it a chance to do so.

The only solution I can think of is to scale out of my positions half and half, the first half when I start getting nervous the trade will reverse on me, and the second half stays with my initial stop in place until the trend truly ends by violating a technical price point.

But the point is: Lets say you see on the 1min what you consider a setup. What you are saying is i will take the 1min setup because it will get me in ahead of the players that are looking at the 5min for entry. That logic sounds good but the flaw is that after you get filled on the 1 minute entry signal your eyes will no doubt shift to the 5 min for profits and you will miss the exit signal that nullifies the 1 min signal. Those that are watching the 5 for entry will have just saved thenselves a losing "NOISE" trade. OK, grant it, if a person insists on using the 1 to trade off of...........they should plan on it as the only chart to use for entry and exit.

About scaling out of a TRADE. I consider a TRADE and a POSITION as seperate and not equal. More advanced traders possibly can massage a trade by scaling but thats complicating things as i view daytrading. In my world there is no such "dump half" if getting nervous and sitting around and letting the other half get chewed away. Why be so generous?

We put a trade on and place mental stops if we have the discipline under control, if not we place a stop. Ok, we get filled, the first 4 ticks up or down are really meaningless because even though breakout traders need "satisfaction" almost instantly we do understand timing a trade is never perfect. Ok, lets say we are 4 ticks behind in ES but the technical of the trade is still valid...... I will not consider to chuck it unless it hits the fifth tick, chances are it will "BOB" around like a fishing cork as the small fishie nibble at my bait. If the "LUNKER" wanted my bait it would swoop in and brush the small fishie aside and take my bait. Price action after filled and before the STOP is hit matters a whole lot. That action and how it is read makes a big difference in holding a trade or just reeling in the bait.

First time i went deep sea "STILL" bottom fishing in Florida, i kept reeling in parts of the bait, if not just a skeleton. Another guy said: You ever deep sea fished before? I laughed and said, well it must be obvious, he laughed and said>>>>>>>>> you are down at least 300 feet, at the slightest nibble you feel.........SET THE HOOK, after you do that 2 or 3 times and no fish, reel er in because your bait is probably gone. My fishing immediately improved.

PS: as far as holding with a winner, that has a lot to do with the quality of the entry more than anything else. Picking the spots to enter takes time to work on. The good trades do come, that is obvious, catching them is the challenge. Thats basically why some traders have only a couple, few select sigbnals. Sitting and waiting is boring but a part of the job.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from bighog:

But the point is: Lets say you see on the 1min what you consider a setup. What you are saying is i will take the 1min setup because it will get me in ahead of the players that are looking at the 5min for entry. That logic sounds good but the flaw is that after you get filled on the 1 minute entry signal your eyes will no doubt shift to the 5 min for profits and you will miss the exit signal that nullifies the 1 min signal. Those that are watching the 5 for entry will have just saved thenselves a losing "NOISE" trade. OK, grant it, if a person insists on using the 1 to trade off of...........they should plan on it as the only chart to use for entry and exit.

Hog, I understand everything you're saying. The fine point where you're misunderstanding my tactic is that I'm NOT using a 1-min chart for setups. I'm actually using a combination of time frames as follows: daily combined with overall market sentiment for most likely direction if a trend were to materialize; 30-min 5-day chart for near-term S/R levels as well as the previous day's high/low/close; a 3- or 5-min chart for intraday setups. Once the 3- or 5-min chart starts winking at me, I THEN use the 1-min chart for entries, to help me get in quickly rather than hesitate. My problem was that I kept seeing these setups then I'd start thinking, price would quickly move .10-.50 cents in my direction, then I'd avoid the trade because I felt I was chasing entry, and that would mean I'd most likely mismanage the trade because instead of say a stop loss of $100, the stop loss price might now mean a $200 loss because I lost that much of the move already.

So I'm using 1-min as a crutch to get over hesitation in entering the trade that is setting up in the time frame I trade (3- or 5-min*), and it's really helping me.

I also feel like you do about scaling out. I believe it's crucial for me to trust in my trades and why shouldn't I then take my full profit, trailing a stop only when that price has been reached? However, if taking half off at that point where I start getting nervous the trade will reverse on me, then allowing the rest to possibly run well beyond even my expected target, stops me from totally sabotaging myself, then I'm OK with it. Monday I'll do my best to simply trust my trades and let them run, but if I keep cutting the winners short, then I'll scale out and see if I can at least let half my winning position run.

* I use a 5-min chart for ES and for volatile higher prices stocks like AMZN & AAPL, and I use 3-min charts for calmer lower-priced stocks. I definitely agree that with stocks like AMZN & AAPL anything happening on a time frame less than a 5-min chart is definitely noise, unless you're strictly a scalper.

 

[bighog]

I agree with your logic but there is something else that should be considered.

Daytrading is position trading condensed. Decisions come fast and furious, you will surely concur on that point. Entry is not difficult because we play the odds of our signals. Once filled it is up to the individual trader to fullfill their expectations of those odds. Once filled, the trader can no longer be confident the odds placed on said trade will work to fruition. With that in mind the trader must MANAGE the trade. Forget about risk and money management, when filled we are in the "here and now", nothing else matters. Our single all important "Job #1" is to preserve capital. We need not panic, we after all have a mental STOP in mind. What to do now?

Is scaling out a failure to admit defeat? The normal trader takes a trade because they planned on a profit. Fine, but the normal person also has a difficult time admitting the trade is not working out as planned because they put the odds in their favor without an escape plan except at worst case STOP being hit. They fail to take into considertion the utility of the moment once a trade starts to show a loss. They fail to ask the question: "should i bail out of this fighter before it blows up in my face or should i be a hero and stick with a injured pigeon?

The trader feels fear of not making a profit instead of feeling fear from being wrong, in that case the trader is letting greed to be right overtake their fear of defeat.

Their is another thread which i do not post about what is the more powerful force.........FEAR or GREED. In my daytrading world, GREED is the driving force because i need my capital to make more money. Greed is what drives me to save my capital to fight another day. When i can save my capital i have no fear.

I have ZERO fear about profits, but i am very GREEDY about keeping my capital.

The best way i found to save my capital and come back to fight for more profits is to anticipate if this trade is going to be a loser or not..............the first hint of a loser is time to move the finger just above the mouse to snatch away the mkts cheese. Profits take care of themself.

As far as time frames go, watching yesterdays closing price, the high, low are just points to watch relative to todays price action. I use them (especially yesterdays close) as CAUTION LIGHTS. It is a challenge to not have a bias in daytrading but it is essential because what the chart is telling us about the "here and now" is all important.

OK, back to SPEED channel, the 24 Hours endurance race at Daytona. Started yesterday at 1530EST so ends this afternoon. I love these type of races. How can your expensive toy hold up to constant beating.............good stuff. Jimmie Johnson smashed up their car in practice. talk about being ambarrased after weinning a lot of Nascar races, those nascar guys think smashing race cars is normal. haha

 

[TGpop]

NoDoji, you ever trade forex? you're missing out on some of the best trends, if not the strongest trends, amidst financial markets. I've been developing a method for around a month now after a solid 6 months of breakeven/slightly green demoing but its going well now.

Mutiple timeframes is the key, the H1 charts on some pairs are like wow, a stock could never trend like this! just a suggestion, keep up the journal

 

[bighog]

Nods problem is trade management, not what to trade.

Multipal timeframes are simply just another way to describe the 3 stages of trends: major, intermediate and immediate. In daytrading only the immediate matters. Face the truth or lose your ass: if the major is up, if the intermediate is up, if you are a daytrader and the immediate trend is down and falling do you watch the major, intermediate or the immediate? Any other questions?

It is a fallacy to try and manipulate a losing trade just to try and prove yourself correct.

Do not ask me what i think about rookies playing with retail forex. :eek:

Done posting for awhile.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from TGpop:

NoDoji, you ever trade forex? you're missing out on some of the best trends, if not the strongest trends, amidst financial markets. I've been developing a method for around a month now after a solid 6 months of breakeven/slightly green demoing but its going well now.

Mutiple timeframes is the key, the H1 charts on some pairs are like wow, a stock could never trend like this! just a suggestion, keep up the journal

I never traded forex, but I believe it would be no different for me than trading anything else. My teenage son brought a co-worker of his over to visit one evening. I got to talking at length with this guy, who'd been trading fx for 2 years and had taken a $300 account to $10K in that time. It was fantastic to talk shop with a fellow trader.

My son became interested in learning more so we went to my workstation, signed him up for a demo account with Oanda and brought up a EUR/USD chart. We explained he could buy if he thought price would go up, sell if he thought price would go down.

We saw that price had run up VERY strongly in a short period of time. My son looked at the chart and decided to sell. He drew the classic noob conclusion that because price just went up a LOT, it was now "due" to go down.

I saw that in the minutes after the run up, price action had formed a perfect ascending triangle. "That's a bullish signal," I said to him. "Price should continue in the direction it just went."

My son decided to do what any red-blooded teenager does when provided with advice from Mom. He shorted. And no sooner was his position on and stop in place, price made a measured continuation move up.

I found that between the ES and a handful of momentum stocks, there is plenty of money to be made and I'll be sticking with these for now.