NoDoji's Day Trading Log
- Thread starter NoDoji
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yw; fibonacci turning me from athiest to religious; almost;
another shocking fib video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD2323zkQUM&feature=PlayList&p=BDE4541E386B3A63&index=7
Es trading as if it was yesterday redux.............except this time the support failed and gave a couple sugarplums on the short side as 1071 .50 cracked as support..........now we are above da Long line and 1065.50 new support.
Love this game
PS: The trade pal is reviewing my bunch of years ES 5 minute printouts and says she likes what she sees and has some strats in mind. Automate with some flex we are working on. I doubt i will ever fully automate..........just can not imagine that.
just took out resist............what was previous support.
Love this game
PS: The trade pal is reviewing my bunch of years ES 5 minute printouts and says she likes what she sees and has some strats in mind. Automate with some flex we are working on. I doubt i will ever fully automate..........just can not imagine that.
just took out resist............what was previous support.
+ $511
ES and AAPL gapped down in pre-market. Looking for short entry on AAPL. Off the open, price nudged up just a bit and stalled at a tiny pullback from the high. I jumped in quickly @ 198.32, just 200 shares because I was top-picking, although I couldâve gone larger since I had a .12 cent stop, ha! Price fell nicely right away and I covered @ 197.59 on the pivot off oversold for +$144.
Short POT @ average price of 109.82, pullback from a lower high. The shares were lifted in pieces and I chased entry to get to 300, then left it at that (400 was my intended size). Covered @ 109.32 for +$148 on the pivot off the LOD, which left a double bottom.
Now if you look at a chart of AMZN you ask, how could she possibly have lost money? I was pissed I missed the nice short near the open and I started trading it in that whippy barb wire you can see on the 3-min chart, and simply got chopped with stops. Left AMZN at that point andâ¦
Noticed X pushing for a 3rd leg up off lows. The breakout through the HOD was shallow (shrinking stairs) and the retest of that new high failed to break out further, so I shorted very quickly @ 47.36, and since technically this was a counter trend trade, I covered @ 46.87 for +$241 when buyers came in from oversold right on the rising 20 EMA.
I took a break then because I had a nice profit already, hadnât even had my morning tea, and it was approaching that time of day when I usually accomplish nothing of value with my trades. Well, I then became protective of my profits and didnât trade any more. I missed a nice breakout on both POT and AAPL even though I saw them setting up. I just didnât trade them. I was protective of the P/L.
Then later I didnât trade the lower highs off the 3rd pushes up (beautiful short setups), because I was going to leave the office in a while. Turns out I had enough time get at least a chunk of that great reversal, but I figured the afternoons always reverse slowly when they do.
Donât skip trades!
I imagine there are worse problems to have to work on.
ES and AAPL gapped down in pre-market. Looking for short entry on AAPL. Off the open, price nudged up just a bit and stalled at a tiny pullback from the high. I jumped in quickly @ 198.32, just 200 shares because I was top-picking, although I couldâve gone larger since I had a .12 cent stop, ha! Price fell nicely right away and I covered @ 197.59 on the pivot off oversold for +$144.
Short POT @ average price of 109.82, pullback from a lower high. The shares were lifted in pieces and I chased entry to get to 300, then left it at that (400 was my intended size). Covered @ 109.32 for +$148 on the pivot off the LOD, which left a double bottom.
Now if you look at a chart of AMZN you ask, how could she possibly have lost money? I was pissed I missed the nice short near the open and I started trading it in that whippy barb wire you can see on the 3-min chart, and simply got chopped with stops. Left AMZN at that point andâ¦
Noticed X pushing for a 3rd leg up off lows. The breakout through the HOD was shallow (shrinking stairs) and the retest of that new high failed to break out further, so I shorted very quickly @ 47.36, and since technically this was a counter trend trade, I covered @ 46.87 for +$241 when buyers came in from oversold right on the rising 20 EMA.
I took a break then because I had a nice profit already, hadnât even had my morning tea, and it was approaching that time of day when I usually accomplish nothing of value with my trades. Well, I then became protective of my profits and didnât trade any more. I missed a nice breakout on both POT and AAPL even though I saw them setting up. I just didnât trade them. I was protective of the P/L.
Then later I didnât trade the lower highs off the 3rd pushes up (beautiful short setups), because I was going to leave the office in a while. Turns out I had enough time get at least a chunk of that great reversal, but I figured the afternoons always reverse slowly when they do.
Donât skip trades!
I imagine there are worse problems to have to work on.
Two years ago almost to the day, I traded for the first time ever. When my husband set up our IRA accounts with Etrade in the late 90âs, he researched some high quality dividend stocks, bought them in our IRAs and we never gave the accounts much thought until the selloff from Oct 2007 highs and a bad overall feeling about the market convinced us to convert mainly to cash. So on a day in February 2008 when I looked at the old stock list on our internet homepage, I noticed that a couple of the stocks we previously owned had dropped 5% for no apparent reason. I decided I wanted to buy them at that price and sell when they went back up. That was the stock market, right? Buy low, sell high!
Iâd never logged into Etrade before that day and never looked at my IRA account on-line. I was so nervous it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to buy shares. I sold my shares 5 days later for a significant gain. And that was my invitation to trading.
We were in a bull run off January lows, and every trade I took was a winning trade, even trades that initially drew down became profitable pretty quickly. I was making returns in a month that I didnât think possible to make in years. As a result I came to believe two things: 1) All long positions in fundamentally sound companies become profitable if youâre patient 2) Weâd be multi-millionaires in no time!
Nothing like changing market conditions combined with absolutely no plan for risk management to bring a new trader back to earth rather violently. I decided to undertake a dedicated and serious crash course in trading, attending many free webinars, learning Japanese candlestick analysis, reading books, learning about options. I had a very nice option trade on RIMM and bought 4 monitors with the proceeds. I then installed Etrade's direct access platform and started watching charts in real time 6.5 hours a day every day.
I started this journal in July 2008, just 5 months after my first trade. The reversal of my initial success and the frightening macroeconomic backdrop (the failure of Bear Stearns was a wake up call) convinced me that day trading was the road to success, as was mastering the short side as well as the long side of trading. (In fact, if I never held a position overnight from the time I started this journal, I would have a LOT more money right now.)
This journal turned out to be far more valuable to me than I ever imagined. Over time I learned about reading price bars, about moving averages, trends and reversals, about overbought and oversold conditions. I documented what I learned and began to illustrate my trades with charts so I could âseeâ them again and again and come to recognize common patterns. I became technically adept, but was still hindered by the difficulty of mastering the mental game.
I continued to make many mistakes, but gradually improved. I was profitable my first full year trading, not nearly as profitable as I expected to be, but I had so much to learn and the lessons were surprisingly harsh. I imagine they wouldnât stick if they were easy.
I recently underwent a paradigm shift. The soil was tilled with my education and the tuition of many losses. The seeds were planted with several âaha!â moments that came out of bighog pounding me again and again about trend following, reading Al Brooksâ awesome book, and discoveries I made during months of sim trading. Finally, the fertilizer was created as I made the same psychological mistakes again and again and again (nothing like the same old bullsh*t, day after day to enrich that soil). Very recently I realized that if I âstopped doing thatâ, the outcome would change. It was like emerging from a dense fog. Suddenly, I went from âknowingâ to âbelievingâ to âtrustingâ. It happened very quickly and there were two catalysts: Two crucial conversations with Redneck Trader and a very thorough reading of Trading in the Zone.
RN, you said something to me that echoes in my mind every trading day and I sincerely hope you donât mind me sharing:
âI know of no reason not to have many consecutive winning days - well except that one nagging dilemma we all have at one time or another... We are fighting our self, and not trusting/acting upon - what we see... irrespective of what we're thinking.â
I found that a combination of high probability setups and inviolable risk management is a recipe for success. Anyone can read this journal and know exactly how I trade. My strategies are but a few of many successful ways to extract money from the markets. Iâm sure Iâll add to them as my screen time and continued study add to my knowledge base.
I'm also sure I'll break down and make dumb mistakes again. That's human nature. I also have so much to learn; I seem to learn something new every day. I feel like I've come full circle back to that level of unshakable confidence I had when I first started out. But what I have now, which is far more important, is the ability manage risk with specific rules, including a max loss per day.
And so on the 2-year anniversary of my first interaction with the market, I have decided to end this public journal, and I've asked Magna to close the thread. I now recognize my mistakes right away, I take my setups, I recognize my mistakes pretty quickly when I make them, and I willingly pay the cost of admission to each trade without cursing the market when a stop is hit. I plan to analyze my trades in spreadsheet format rather than continue a journal-type log, so I can focus purely on my trading without distraction. This is my livelihood and I'm ready to launch myself to the next level. For me, focus is everything.
Iâve shared the most difficult parts of my journey with you, and so many of you shared invaluable information with me. I thank all of you who took the time to answer my questions, post helpful advice, and provide encouragement when I screwed up royally.
I especially want to thank bighog for encouragement, advice, market insights, stories, humor, books, Al Brooks(!), and a whole lot of great music! Hog, Iâm still awaiting that email from youâ¦you know the one.
Iâd never logged into Etrade before that day and never looked at my IRA account on-line. I was so nervous it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to buy shares. I sold my shares 5 days later for a significant gain. And that was my invitation to trading.
We were in a bull run off January lows, and every trade I took was a winning trade, even trades that initially drew down became profitable pretty quickly. I was making returns in a month that I didnât think possible to make in years. As a result I came to believe two things: 1) All long positions in fundamentally sound companies become profitable if youâre patient 2) Weâd be multi-millionaires in no time!
Nothing like changing market conditions combined with absolutely no plan for risk management to bring a new trader back to earth rather violently. I decided to undertake a dedicated and serious crash course in trading, attending many free webinars, learning Japanese candlestick analysis, reading books, learning about options. I had a very nice option trade on RIMM and bought 4 monitors with the proceeds. I then installed Etrade's direct access platform and started watching charts in real time 6.5 hours a day every day.
I started this journal in July 2008, just 5 months after my first trade. The reversal of my initial success and the frightening macroeconomic backdrop (the failure of Bear Stearns was a wake up call) convinced me that day trading was the road to success, as was mastering the short side as well as the long side of trading. (In fact, if I never held a position overnight from the time I started this journal, I would have a LOT more money right now.)
This journal turned out to be far more valuable to me than I ever imagined. Over time I learned about reading price bars, about moving averages, trends and reversals, about overbought and oversold conditions. I documented what I learned and began to illustrate my trades with charts so I could âseeâ them again and again and come to recognize common patterns. I became technically adept, but was still hindered by the difficulty of mastering the mental game.
I continued to make many mistakes, but gradually improved. I was profitable my first full year trading, not nearly as profitable as I expected to be, but I had so much to learn and the lessons were surprisingly harsh. I imagine they wouldnât stick if they were easy.
I recently underwent a paradigm shift. The soil was tilled with my education and the tuition of many losses. The seeds were planted with several âaha!â moments that came out of bighog pounding me again and again about trend following, reading Al Brooksâ awesome book, and discoveries I made during months of sim trading. Finally, the fertilizer was created as I made the same psychological mistakes again and again and again (nothing like the same old bullsh*t, day after day to enrich that soil). Very recently I realized that if I âstopped doing thatâ, the outcome would change. It was like emerging from a dense fog. Suddenly, I went from âknowingâ to âbelievingâ to âtrustingâ. It happened very quickly and there were two catalysts: Two crucial conversations with Redneck Trader and a very thorough reading of Trading in the Zone.
RN, you said something to me that echoes in my mind every trading day and I sincerely hope you donât mind me sharing:
âI know of no reason not to have many consecutive winning days - well except that one nagging dilemma we all have at one time or another... We are fighting our self, and not trusting/acting upon - what we see... irrespective of what we're thinking.â
I found that a combination of high probability setups and inviolable risk management is a recipe for success. Anyone can read this journal and know exactly how I trade. My strategies are but a few of many successful ways to extract money from the markets. Iâm sure Iâll add to them as my screen time and continued study add to my knowledge base.
I'm also sure I'll break down and make dumb mistakes again. That's human nature. I also have so much to learn; I seem to learn something new every day. I feel like I've come full circle back to that level of unshakable confidence I had when I first started out. But what I have now, which is far more important, is the ability manage risk with specific rules, including a max loss per day.
And so on the 2-year anniversary of my first interaction with the market, I have decided to end this public journal, and I've asked Magna to close the thread. I now recognize my mistakes right away, I take my setups, I recognize my mistakes pretty quickly when I make them, and I willingly pay the cost of admission to each trade without cursing the market when a stop is hit. I plan to analyze my trades in spreadsheet format rather than continue a journal-type log, so I can focus purely on my trading without distraction. This is my livelihood and I'm ready to launch myself to the next level. For me, focus is everything.
Iâve shared the most difficult parts of my journey with you, and so many of you shared invaluable information with me. I thank all of you who took the time to answer my questions, post helpful advice, and provide encouragement when I screwed up royally.
I especially want to thank bighog for encouragement, advice, market insights, stories, humor, books, Al Brooks(!), and a whole lot of great music! Hog, Iâm still awaiting that email from youâ¦you know the one.
D,
ET will be quite a bit worse without your journal.. At least it is immortalized to live on.. Hopefully you still hang around to heckle people.. You have progressed very well.. I am envious! At the end we must remember to do all things in life for the right reasons.. And sometimes ET is detrimental to trading. Keeping a public journal sometimes resembles work!..
In those moments always ask.. "what would a great trader do"?
ET will be quite a bit worse without your journal.. At least it is immortalized to live on.. Hopefully you still hang around to heckle people..
You have progressed very well.. I am envious! At the end we must remember to do all things in life for the right reasons.. And sometimes ET is detrimental to trading. Keeping a public journal sometimes resembles work!..In those moments always ask.. "what would a great trader do"?
Nod.....Thks for the kind words. I would be proud to say i was a bit player in your progress. I know the list of helpful persons, mostly from real live floor traders from me bothering the guys at the CBOT (Chicago Board Of Thieves) and the Merc all helped a lot, many books, and actual live trading from the git-go. Mistakes that cut deep helped a lot and another often overlooked aspect of "Just where does all this money come from and from who?" I wanted to put myself into the minds of the winners and also the losers in the game. I laugh even today at new players that are only interested in making money without a clue who is willing to lose it for them to suck in. Always learn how people lose their money i like to say.
As a kid from the bad side of the South side of Chicago from a family of 6 kids always on a tight budget i always was looking for pennies and nickles. When i realized pop bottles were worth 2 cents each i went and walked all over for them...........then one day saw behind a grocery store there were stacks and stacks of pennies. Me and a buddy worked that until the store wised up paying over and over for a few stores same bottles. Then one day i got caught stealing a tube of glue from Kresges dime store......the store manager said: I called your parents so go home and talk to your parents sonny...............i was scared stiff for 2 days and dad and mom said nary a peep. Then i figured out the store manager used psychology on my head and taught me a valuable lesson................stealing was not gonna work. After that i always asked myself a question>>>>>>>>>Where does the money come from? I never stole a dime since and was never a fool about easy money either, great lesson.
I might surprise you yet.........never say no.
Keep up the good work, keep learning, keep condensing the plan down to a few strats for different conditions. I firmly believe you will do good because you are kinda like me..........you want to KNOW WHY this or that works and willing to try this or that but quick to discard what does not work. Many new folks go from one losing toy to another because they read about it without trying it out under fire in battle. NOTHING BEATS LIVE FIRE exercises.........NOTHING. You learned that fast, congrats.
You will still have rough times, they will be less painful though, less costly but thats the price to pay to reach the promised land called CONSISTENT trading.
PS: Today was a steller day for ES, the support/resist numbers were golden. Some days just flat work. You will have them........not far away for you.
As a kid from the bad side of the South side of Chicago from a family of 6 kids always on a tight budget i always was looking for pennies and nickles. When i realized pop bottles were worth 2 cents each i went and walked all over for them...........then one day saw behind a grocery store there were stacks and stacks of pennies. Me and a buddy worked that until the store wised up paying over and over for a few stores same bottles. Then one day i got caught stealing a tube of glue from Kresges dime store......the store manager said: I called your parents so go home and talk to your parents sonny...............i was scared stiff for 2 days and dad and mom said nary a peep. Then i figured out the store manager used psychology on my head and taught me a valuable lesson................stealing was not gonna work. After that i always asked myself a question>>>>>>>>>Where does the money come from? I never stole a dime since and was never a fool about easy money either, great lesson.
I might surprise you yet.........never say no.
Keep up the good work, keep learning, keep condensing the plan down to a few strats for different conditions. I firmly believe you will do good because you are kinda like me..........you want to KNOW WHY this or that works and willing to try this or that but quick to discard what does not work. Many new folks go from one losing toy to another because they read about it without trying it out under fire in battle. NOTHING BEATS LIVE FIRE exercises.........NOTHING. You learned that fast, congrats.
You will still have rough times, they will be less painful though, less costly but thats the price to pay to reach the promised land called CONSISTENT trading.
PS: Today was a steller day for ES, the support/resist numbers were golden. Some days just flat work. You will have them........not far away for you.
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