NoDoji's Day Trading Log
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NOD
I also prefer NOT to chase something that i wanted in and it got away from me. Notice that i said, "got away from me".
Lets say you are observing a "BULL FLAG" after the 1st leg (you are calling the previous 6 handle "run" a possible first leg of a possible trend day and are looking for the next "run" because 3 legs are what the odds say for a decent trend day). After the small retracement which formed up as the bull flag you are itching to get in. Maybe you want in before price takes out the high of the flagpole if a little aggressive, but at the latest you for sure want in if and when price goes a tick or so higher than the previous high of the now flagpole (before the flag formed you just had a new high on a regular bar).
OK, we all like to use limit orders on entry to "save" a tick. Over a ton of trades that tactic saves us a bunch. Then, we get the ahh, SHIT!!!, times when our limit order is not filled and we are left high and dry as the other boys and girls are having fun.
We do not chase if it gets away because if we chase we sure as heck usually get filled just before the next retrace and the retrace is good enough to STOP us out on our "LATE" fill just before price takes off on another leg. (thats the fallacy of picking "TOPS" for new rookies, they get in on a retrace and call the ex wife and tell them how smart they are and just as he hangs up price resumes the prior trend and he gets slammed ), haha
Here is how you handle missing a "FILL" that you wanted in on. In the first place you WANTED IN period, thats why you placed the limit order. OK., you were paying attention and not distracted by a chat room, etc..........you are focused........you see real fast your signal to enter the trade was correct, It was so correct it left without you. WHAT TO DO?
GO MARKET!!! Whats a tick or so amoung friends, you want to catch the meat of the next leg. BITE THE BULLET and dime the BID, get in. There is a far greater satisfaction getting in at a less favorable price than not filled at all and sitting there stewing away. Thats having the courage to believe in your signals, tactics to implement your strategy. Thats developing those trading muscles so necessary to play a game of chance.
OK, good going on the discipline part as you stated, now you need to toughten up on implementing the strategy, tweaking the tactics is an ongoing never ending part of trading because the mkt keeps tweaking itself as all the other traders are doing the same. Only thing harder in life is trying to outguess a women.
:eek:
I still feel you need to narrow the playing field...........be it stocks or whatever. Think of this, stock specialists handle a certain stock or couple of stocks, they do not every day come in and trade different stocks willy nilly. They are like the music man and play in the territory they know backwards and forewards. Most pit traders stay in the same pit day in and day out, they trade what they know and only go fishing on the weekends.
I suggest you trade fewer instruments and work on the tactics more and those trader muscles. I feel you will find that helpful. Like i always say: a great man can only handle one good women at a time. Maybe the reason he is so great is because she made him that way.
oK, TIME FOR GEORGE on TV.
I also prefer NOT to chase something that i wanted in and it got away from me. Notice that i said, "got away from me".
Lets say you are observing a "BULL FLAG" after the 1st leg (you are calling the previous 6 handle "run" a possible first leg of a possible trend day and are looking for the next "run" because 3 legs are what the odds say for a decent trend day). After the small retracement which formed up as the bull flag you are itching to get in. Maybe you want in before price takes out the high of the flagpole if a little aggressive, but at the latest you for sure want in if and when price goes a tick or so higher than the previous high of the now flagpole (before the flag formed you just had a new high on a regular bar).
OK, we all like to use limit orders on entry to "save" a tick. Over a ton of trades that tactic saves us a bunch. Then, we get the ahh, SHIT!!!, times when our limit order is not filled and we are left high and dry as the other boys and girls are having fun.
We do not chase if it gets away because if we chase we sure as heck usually get filled just before the next retrace and the retrace is good enough to STOP us out on our "LATE" fill just before price takes off on another leg. (thats the fallacy of picking "TOPS" for new rookies, they get in on a retrace and call the ex wife and tell them how smart they are and just as he hangs up price resumes the prior trend and he gets slammed ), haha
Here is how you handle missing a "FILL" that you wanted in on. In the first place you WANTED IN period, thats why you placed the limit order. OK., you were paying attention and not distracted by a chat room, etc..........you are focused........you see real fast your signal to enter the trade was correct, It was so correct it left without you. WHAT TO DO?
GO MARKET!!! Whats a tick or so amoung friends, you want to catch the meat of the next leg. BITE THE BULLET and dime the BID, get in. There is a far greater satisfaction getting in at a less favorable price than not filled at all and sitting there stewing away. Thats having the courage to believe in your signals, tactics to implement your strategy. Thats developing those trading muscles so necessary to play a game of chance.
OK, good going on the discipline part as you stated, now you need to toughten up on implementing the strategy, tweaking the tactics is an ongoing never ending part of trading because the mkt keeps tweaking itself as all the other traders are doing the same. Only thing harder in life is trying to outguess a women.
:eek:
I still feel you need to narrow the playing field...........be it stocks or whatever. Think of this, stock specialists handle a certain stock or couple of stocks, they do not every day come in and trade different stocks willy nilly. They are like the music man and play in the territory they know backwards and forewards. Most pit traders stay in the same pit day in and day out, they trade what they know and only go fishing on the weekends.
I suggest you trade fewer instruments and work on the tactics more and those trader muscles. I feel you will find that helpful. Like i always say: a great man can only handle one good women at a time. Maybe the reason he is so great is because she made him that way.
oK, TIME FOR GEORGE on TV.
Maybe this is a better way to put it: Advanced traders go through stages to reach each new level. I remember you being more aggressive in the beginning. We all did that i would assume. Then we back off because beginners luck quickly leads to losses and we backtrack until we get the controlling of losses down pat.
After we control the losses and no longer are shooting from the hip we are tentative about entering trades because we have not yet developed the confidence to go with all of our signals. Sound familiar?
OK, time for nod to move away from basic trading and become more advanced. What is the necessary step?
Answer: Be as aggressive pulling the trigger on entering with your signals, tactics as in pulling the trigger on the losers.
That will lead to yet another higher level because the more you narrow the field and narrow the choices of signals the more you will "KNOW" the odds relative to said signals. Performance increases come from doing what works and milking those signals and eliminating the dogs. There is no courage without confidence.
Ok, done, nice day today, i think i will go out and terrorize the pretty girls.
PS: I am really as innocent as a teddy bear and know a couple gals here that have in purse pepper spray and for night one of these. Onw weapon in each hand at night. haha http://www.surefire.com/L4-LumaMax
After we control the losses and no longer are shooting from the hip we are tentative about entering trades because we have not yet developed the confidence to go with all of our signals. Sound familiar?
OK, time for nod to move away from basic trading and become more advanced. What is the necessary step?
Answer: Be as aggressive pulling the trigger on entering with your signals, tactics as in pulling the trigger on the losers.
That will lead to yet another higher level because the more you narrow the field and narrow the choices of signals the more you will "KNOW" the odds relative to said signals. Performance increases come from doing what works and milking those signals and eliminating the dogs. There is no courage without confidence.
Ok, done, nice day today, i think i will go out and terrorize the pretty girls.
PS: I am really as innocent as a teddy bear and know a couple gals here that have in purse pepper spray and for night one of these. Onw weapon in each hand at night. haha http://www.surefire.com/L4-LumaMax
This has been my biggest fault, but after trading with a DOM on a real day trading platform, I realized how hobbled I've been and I actually pounded my desk and emitted a few expletives for not listening to every trader I know telling me to switch platforms for the past 6 months (was careful to keep my distance from the vintage 1986 IBM keyboard, though). Working with a poor day trading platform caused me to analyze every setup looking for perfection. It also caused me start using market orders more frequently resulting in slippage and less than ideal entry prices.
I'll say this: When you can pull the trigger 10x faster, you get the fill AND an ideal entry price. And when you can lock in a small profit as a result of an ideal entry price you are then playing with the market's money, not your own.
My setups are such that when I get in at the price I want (and this is rare with Etrade unless it's a setup from a range), 95% of my trades move in my favor enough to lock in some lunch money. Lunch money 20 times a day equals a very nice daily profit for me. And the chance of 20 out of 20 trades never making a larger move in my favor is slim to none. With Etrade my stops have to remain .10 cents from the bid/ask, which means I'm at the disadvantage of taking losses on these trades. About 30 times a day I want to scalp for .10 or .15 cent moves, and simply have not had the tools to do it.
- $46
At the open I was working on setting up new chart layouts and trying to figure out Mr. NoD's IB to practice trading with because I expected my own IB account to be funded any time. Sadly I didn't notice that my favorite short play, HANS, moved above 43.00 where I always love to sell it. I will catch it next time!
So I had my new PowerEtrade layout for charting/news/L2 and Mr. NoDâs IB for trading. Did some very small practice trades to see if I could figure it all out. Traded DRYS, HOTT and STEC to get a feel for things. Then I found out my own IB account was funded already, so I opened that and went about putting in the minimum four trades needed for PDT status.
I traded HOTT twice (-$13.92), FLR once (-$7.96) and MFE twice (+$12.06), kind of a "random trade anything" mode to get going.
The problem was my DOM wasnât set up properly yet. It took a while to get it matched to what I was using to demo trade last week, because as it was I couldnât move stops or put in bracketed orders properly.
When I finally got that all worked out, I had several more columns displayed and somehow managed to accidentally go long SYNA @ 33.44 instead of short. By the time I saw what happened I was down $30 on that one. At least it was easy to see the mistake because the price moved in my favor, but my P/L went negative. The trade was good for a .30 cent move if entered as intended.
After that I had the hang of things and was finally able to trade the way I wanted to (of course most of the day was done by then). I still traded very small because I want to be really comfortable with the platform before trading my regular size.
Short YUM @ 34.18, pull back from failure to make a new high, stop just above the HOD. Moved stop close to b/e, hit. This worked exactly the way I wanted it to. It pulled back a bit afte my entry, but then found buyers. This invalidated the trade, and sure enough as soon as it reversed, it made a new high. Once Iâm more familiar with IB, Iâll be looking to reverse my position in cases where this happens and the L2 action indicates (as it did in this case). I noticed there is a âreverseâ option, which Iâd like to set up.
Gave YUM another go @ 34.29, stop hit for - $13. Again, the break through my stop indicated yet another new high, and so a position reversal wouldâve caught a nice move.
Short MFE @ 38.90, overbought, pull back from a new high, stop just above the HOD, hit for -$11.
Short MFE @ 38.92, same setup, stopped out -$15.
Short MFE @ 38.92, same setup, covered 38.77 oversold +$42.
Good news is by the end of day I had my full PDT buying power in place.
At the open I was working on setting up new chart layouts and trying to figure out Mr. NoD's IB to practice trading with because I expected my own IB account to be funded any time. Sadly I didn't notice that my favorite short play, HANS, moved above 43.00 where I always love to sell it. I will catch it next time!
So I had my new PowerEtrade layout for charting/news/L2 and Mr. NoDâs IB for trading. Did some very small practice trades to see if I could figure it all out. Traded DRYS, HOTT and STEC to get a feel for things. Then I found out my own IB account was funded already, so I opened that and went about putting in the minimum four trades needed for PDT status.
I traded HOTT twice (-$13.92), FLR once (-$7.96) and MFE twice (+$12.06), kind of a "random trade anything" mode to get going.
The problem was my DOM wasnât set up properly yet. It took a while to get it matched to what I was using to demo trade last week, because as it was I couldnât move stops or put in bracketed orders properly.
When I finally got that all worked out, I had several more columns displayed and somehow managed to accidentally go long SYNA @ 33.44 instead of short. By the time I saw what happened I was down $30 on that one. At least it was easy to see the mistake because the price moved in my favor, but my P/L went negative. The trade was good for a .30 cent move if entered as intended.
After that I had the hang of things and was finally able to trade the way I wanted to (of course most of the day was done by then). I still traded very small because I want to be really comfortable with the platform before trading my regular size.
Short YUM @ 34.18, pull back from failure to make a new high, stop just above the HOD. Moved stop close to b/e, hit. This worked exactly the way I wanted it to. It pulled back a bit afte my entry, but then found buyers. This invalidated the trade, and sure enough as soon as it reversed, it made a new high. Once Iâm more familiar with IB, Iâll be looking to reverse my position in cases where this happens and the L2 action indicates (as it did in this case). I noticed there is a âreverseâ option, which Iâd like to set up.
Gave YUM another go @ 34.29, stop hit for - $13. Again, the break through my stop indicated yet another new high, and so a position reversal wouldâve caught a nice move.
Short MFE @ 38.90, overbought, pull back from a new high, stop just above the HOD, hit for -$11.
Short MFE @ 38.92, same setup, stopped out -$15.
Short MFE @ 38.92, same setup, covered 38.77 oversold +$42.
Good news is by the end of day I had my full PDT buying power in place.
I was very pleased with IB's book trader to initiate trades, and bracket my orders once I figured out how. Everything was quite fast. We'll see how it goes with larger orders. I'm curious if I'll get any slippage if stops are hit; there was certainly none with 100-300 shares.
I considered using QT for my charts, but decided to stay with Etrade because I can have my watch list, streaming news, L2, time & sales, TradeIdeas, and option chain displayed at once without taking up all my real estate.
Nod
Maybe you should just call this week "platform bonding week" and not worry about "makin bacon" until next week.
An observation combined with a possible suggestion:
You said you faded a couple failed breakouts to new highs which later went to new high ticks. You first went short and then considered "reversing".
You, the one and only you, it is you that should try a new strategy in your trading because there is a real possibility a new style fits your personality more than you might realize. To take a trade because it failed to make a new high (you could also do the same by going long on a failed new low) then to consider "reversing" would be overtrading and attempting to micro-manage the mkt. That option is destructive.
Think of this as a possible solution. Forget the fading for nickles and dimes when the mkt offers dollar moves in directional moves. To "reverse" a trade really is saying you indeed witnessed the possibility of the greater price move in directional breakout. Correct?
Why putz around paying commissions for a nickle? Dig into your purse and find the note that said>>>>>>>>>>>> scalping works and toss that to the wind and redirect your trading to getting the "MEAT" of the trade. You started trading with a couple very bad habits, we already discussed you being a one sided trader with the loaf of bread analogy. The other bad habit i have observed from your journal is the scalping for a nickle or a dime. Somewhere you get off on the wrong foot with these rather obvious habits. Trade like a LION hunts to survive, go for the meat and leave the leftovers for the buzzards.
Directional trading is so very much more relaxing and easier. You can actually iron Mr Nods shirts ( ) when not watching every tick and just observing price action as it sets up to move from "LEVEL to LEVEL". Thats what you want, scalping is working to much for so little. Scalping causes a single bad trade to wipe out a bunch of profits, effort, confidence and courage to move the trading to a higher level. Ask yourself how many times you have seen others do that, over and over.
You have the moxie to change, you just need to make the effort to decide if you are due to change the strategy.
Work less for more.
PS: yes i know i an biased toward index futures for "level to level" but there is a reason. The reason is that those instruments are terrific for said strategy in todays mkts. In the last century individual stocks were the way to fly because there were no financial futures like sp500, NQ, bond futures etc. The world has changed, stocks are still for investing for the long haul but TRADING is for futures. Get modern!!!!
Maybe you should just call this week "platform bonding week" and not worry about "makin bacon" until next week.
An observation combined with a possible suggestion:
You said you faded a couple failed breakouts to new highs which later went to new high ticks. You first went short and then considered "reversing".
You, the one and only you, it is you that should try a new strategy in your trading because there is a real possibility a new style fits your personality more than you might realize. To take a trade because it failed to make a new high (you could also do the same by going long on a failed new low) then to consider "reversing" would be overtrading and attempting to micro-manage the mkt. That option is destructive.
Think of this as a possible solution. Forget the fading for nickles and dimes when the mkt offers dollar moves in directional moves. To "reverse" a trade really is saying you indeed witnessed the possibility of the greater price move in directional breakout. Correct?
Why putz around paying commissions for a nickle? Dig into your purse and find the note that said>>>>>>>>>>>> scalping works and toss that to the wind and redirect your trading to getting the "MEAT" of the trade. You started trading with a couple very bad habits, we already discussed you being a one sided trader with the loaf of bread analogy. The other bad habit i have observed from your journal is the scalping for a nickle or a dime. Somewhere you get off on the wrong foot with these rather obvious habits. Trade like a LION hunts to survive, go for the meat and leave the leftovers for the buzzards.
Directional trading is so very much more relaxing and easier. You can actually iron Mr Nods shirts (
) when not watching every tick and just observing price action as it sets up to move from "LEVEL to LEVEL". Thats what you want, scalping is working to much for so little. Scalping causes a single bad trade to wipe out a bunch of profits, effort, confidence and courage to move the trading to a higher level. Ask yourself how many times you have seen others do that, over and over.You have the moxie to change, you just need to make the effort to decide if you are due to change the strategy.
Work less for more.
PS: yes i know i an biased toward index futures for "level to level" but there is a reason. The reason is that those instruments are terrific for said strategy in todays mkts. In the last century individual stocks were the way to fly because there were no financial futures like sp500, NQ, bond futures etc. The world has changed, stocks are still for investing for the long haul but TRADING is for futures. Get modern!!!!
Quote from bighog:
Scalping causes a single bad trade to wipe out a bunch of profits, effort, confidence and courage to move the trading to a higher level.
I disagree. Now that I'm on a platform that even makes scalping possible, every trade I put on will begin life as a potential scalp (I use a tight stop based on invalidation of the setup, and I lock in a small profit as soon as presented, so I'm playing with the market's money, not my own.)
However, I'm looking to catch a real move. An example would be HANS yesterday morning. I was busy configuring my systems and missed it when the price moved into my shorting range. If I'd seen that I would put in a sell order @ 43.05, stop @ 43.25 and moved the stop to b/e when the price moved below 43, then trailed from there. At "oversold" I'd be watching for strength based on buyers coming in. If it bounced off that level, I'd be stopped out for a small move. But if no buyers came in, it should test the previous day's close and if that was breached we should get a solid breakdown. Buying volume at previous day's close was miniscule (probably just scalper's looking for a little bounce), and the breakdown was complete. So what would've started as a potential $50-$100 scalp would've become a $500 or better profit.
- $341
There was no way I could document my trades today, because I traded over 12,000 shares (unusual for me).
In my haste to fully master my new trading platform, I took trades with less than ideal setups and then stupidly hesitated on some of the best setups and missed entries.
I traded with full size today and often had 3 trades on at a time. Not the wisest thing to do on the 2nd day with a new platform. This resulted in some bad order entry errors, undoing what had started out early as a small green well-controlled day. It's critical to success to take only the best setups and put them on without hesitation. I failed in this regard, but those weren't the most costly mistakes. It was trying to manage too many things at once, leading to errors.
By the time I decided to scale back size later in the day, the damage was done.
I will try to relax a bit tomorrow.
There was no way I could document my trades today, because I traded over 12,000 shares (unusual for me).
In my haste to fully master my new trading platform, I took trades with less than ideal setups and then stupidly hesitated on some of the best setups and missed entries.
I traded with full size today and often had 3 trades on at a time. Not the wisest thing to do on the 2nd day with a new platform. This resulted in some bad order entry errors, undoing what had started out early as a small green well-controlled day. It's critical to success to take only the best setups and put them on without hesitation. I failed in this regard, but those weren't the most costly mistakes. It was trying to manage too many things at once, leading to errors.
By the time I decided to scale back size later in the day, the damage was done.
I will try to relax a bit tomorrow.
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