NoDoji's Day Trading Log

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Nod,

Let me say your offer is very nice, let me say this. This winter my brother has said he is close to retire in less than a year. He has hinted maybe to do some trading with me. I have been thinking he and i could do something like a live paid chat with audio and live camera setup. I would be in Michigan and he and his wife are in Biscayne Bay, Florida.

I know him and he will not be able to do NOTHING even when retired. He is a year older than me. He had a bout with prostate cancer about a year ago and is doing fine. Believe me, that makes me be aware that i could be next. It is an awakening for sure. I never gave old age much thought before and now that it IS here i need to stay awake and face reality. I always said either i am alive when living and not afraid of anything except NOT being alive and WELL. I will never be put into a home to rot and he says the same thing. Hell!!! i never thought i would make it this old. :D

So what i am saying is lets see if we set up a so called "LIVE" way to communicate in real time.

Your courage will increase when you get tired and mad as hell by not pulling the trigger. keep doing what you are doing and build the confidence, it will come. I would suggest, take a live trade at least once a day. One car a trade, pick your favorite GOLDEN signal and perfect that single signal. then add another signal as you progress. Many pro traders only dance with the same person over and over and do just fine.

I have to say again about that Brooks book, many a lines in his book are in my personal toolbox. I always get a high when i read another person doing as i have done. That itself is a confidence builder for someone like you because it reinforces what you are learning. Read the book, reread it, practice some ideas you will get from it. You are just a little short in confidence........thats a hurdle you will get over. You have progressed very well. Victory is just around the corner.

When i needed a boost in my own confidence thats when i picked up on the fighter pilots and read their adventures in flat out courage to do what they did. Were they scared, sure they were, but they had a job to do. Many returned from a dogfight soaking wet, some admitted craping in flight suits, puked in the cockpit, etc, etc from fear. But they had the guts to do it all over again on the next mission. Some said fear was their greatest motivation. I myself like stress, stress can bring out the best in many of us.

Do not rush it, there is time, confidence and courage is acquired, it can not be bought, it can not be rushed.

In the mean time i will do some looking into the "LIVE" stuff.

I am not looking for a freebie live conference thingie.

Something private and personal. Then i can yell at you and you can yell back. Live calls, live trades, i always thought that would be fun and make some dough.

My bro is not a trader by the way.

Keep learning.


:) :cool:

PS: as a kid, i always thought to be a fighter pilot had to be even more exciting than being a "cat burgler". haha
 
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2) taking ALL my signals immediately (I keep waiting for too much confirmation and missing a lot of the moves)

I'm sabotaging my success by not making a firm decision here.
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i think the hesitancy and the reason for not taking your set ups is a fear a losing which everyone has BUT if you know the risk reward of your upcoming trade THEN there should not be any fear or hesitancy. try to focus on trades of R/R of at least 2 to 1. then with your high percentage win rate (u claimed to have 90% wow).

a combo of 2 to 1 R/R and 90% accuracy should completely erase any doubts, hesitancy or fear. may be if u generate projected stats with this combo u will be able to see it more clearly.:)
 
Quote from NoDoji:

+ $255

FWLT performing as expected, topping 49.50 a share when the big boys came out to play after lunch today. I closed out the Sept calls from last week earlier in the day for a $200 gain when the stock pulled back; not really sure why since Sept calls still had plenty of time to work and I left money on the table. I’m holding the NOV calls since they were put on as a long term high probability trade, are currently quite profitable, and I want to let the profits run, run, run.

Bought DV @ 47.64 on a failure to make a new low. It spiked and I moved the stop up to lock in some profit and got taken out @ 47.77 (slippage) for a $65 gain. Re-entered the trade @ 47.70 and got out at market @ 47.96 when the move stalled for a $130 gain. This is a much better way to exit the trade. Had I stuck with DV instead of moving on to another trade, and re-entered when it stabilized a few minutes later, I would have caught the best move of the day.

Bought STLD @ 25.12 off a failure to make a new low as it appeared it would retest 25.50, but it stalled and I exited at market @ 25 for a $60 loss. This is the second time I traded STLD and it’s done the same thing twice: appeared as if it would retest a resistance level, then suddenly drop and find a lower support level off of which it makes a great run. I will remember to trade them later in the day if they drop from the open.

Picked up some TEX Sept $50 calls on the recent pullback from their Monday high @ 1.75 after they twice tested a higher support level than yesterday. Looking for a retest of 50 to see how it holds up. TEX stock is not nearly as strong as FWLT, though they are both solid companies fundamentally.

Scaled into HW short @ average price of 16.01 not far from its 52-week resistance. They’re trading at 52-week highs and are not a very strong company. How can they be trading at 16.00 with a negative growth record, while a true growth stock like CDS with quarter after quarter of record earnings and revenue growth is trading at 6.50? There should be an SEC regulation against that kind of thing. :mad:

P.S. – Wise old traders, I know the answer to that question: Trade what the market tells you, not what you think should be so. The market tells me HW is good for another pullback to at least 15.80. I’ll take that. :cool:
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Great thread
 
+$11.70

Short ES @ 947.50 on pullback from upper channel line. I waited too long and it was already close to the 20 EMA by the time I got into the trade. I moved my stop close to b/e because the fact I traded so close to the open without waiting for a clear trend signal meant price could very well bounce off the EMA if the rise off the open continued. Price indeed bounced right there and I was stopped out for +$7.70.

The fact that I went into this trade impatiently and without waiting for a clear signal after being so careful all this time convinced me to paper trade the rest of the day. I was very mad at myself for my impatience. I feel I’ve been trading long enough to have this basic discipline under control. My paper trading has been very successful BECAUSE I wait for true setups and take them quickly. I can’t afford to trade differently when I trade live, so back to the training wheels for me.

ES provided a true long signal at the +6 line with a price of 949.25, and a 3 pt stop keeps me in the game. Signal to cover comes @ 953.25 when two attempts to test the newly established high fail at slightly lower levels. +4.0

Reverse to short @ 953.00, covered @ 950.50 on pivot off the 20 EMA (too soon). A stop left at b/e keeps me in for an additional point or so. +2.50

Watched pivot form a higher low, then at the top a lower high. I had no conviction in this zone, so no trades taken.

Later a new high was hit at a major resistance area and the pullback was very minor. Price moved to test the high. This was a safe area to go short IMHO because a stop just a point above the HOD minimizes the loss risk; paper short @ 955.50. Price dropped off that second test and I covered @ 953.00 pivot off lower channel line. + 2.50 (I realized I also had the confluence of the 1:30 p.m. reversal time in my favor, making me really wish I’d put on that trade live.)

(Hog, this was the exact setup you posted. I was the "quick" trader jumping in early on that setup.)

Just watched the ES action after that, looking for scalping strategies during ranges. Not sure how much value in doing that, though on paper it seems to be good for a few points..

Had one stock trade. Shorted X @ 38.80 after a series of lower highs pulled price below the MAs. Price moved down nicely and I moved my stop just near b/e and went to grab a bite to eat, figuring it would be all downhill for this one. Got back to find my stop hit on a small retest of that resistance area for +$4 and then price fell off a cliff, all while I was away.

OK, tomorrow my goal is to patiently wait for true signals, quickly put on the trade and do everything else I’ve been doing exit-wise, because I have no complaints there!

(ShortSqueeze, glad you're enjoying my thread; hopefully one day I'll make it happen!)
 

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Just wondering if you've totally written off trying to trade SPY as a lead-in to trading ES? I'm wondering if the $/tick is making you a bit nervous with ES after trading 100 shares of stocks at a time for so long. It is quite a leap in $ for the same amount of movement.
 
Quote from Susannah:

Just wondering if you've totally written off trying to trade SPY as a lead-in to trading ES? I'm wondering if the $/tick is making you a bit nervous with ES after trading 100 shares of stocks at a time for so long. It is quite a leap in $ for the same amount of movement.
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Hi Susannah,

I paper traded SPY and hated it. I don't even know why I hated it, I just did. I really really like ES, but I want to be totally mechanical with it, the way I am when I paper trade. I had a fear that once I started trading live, I would trade differently. And sure enough that's what's happening!

I've only had 4 live trades now. The first two I chose what I would consider low probability trades (I think just to prove that no matter how much I allowed my brain to get involved, I would still do OK). So that got my feet wet.

Then, yesterday, I was very pleased with my ES trade because I waited patiently for the opening range to be established, took a position as soon as it signaled, and made some money!

Today however I put on a trade very early without waiting for the market to establish itself. Had I waited for the signal, put on the trade, and exited when price action indicated the end of the move, I would've had a decent profit. The fact that I found myself thinking about where price might go, and even found myself starting to think about chasing entries really pissed me off, so I went back to mechanics again.

I can't believe the difference between trading on paper and trading live. It has NOTHING to do with slippage and commission (which is what you read all the time). It has to do with trusting what worked on paper even though the trade looks a little scary at the right edge.

I even watched one of my trading roomies trade ES a while back and when he called his trades the chart looked scary in terms of entry. It always looked like he was entering the trade too early without more confirmation. He was profiting on every damn trade and I realize now that when I paper trade, I have no fear of jumping in at ideal points, which do look a bit scary, kind of like jumping off a cliff. But that's what stops are for!

What I've found is that the easiest trades to put on are usually the least profitable and often stop me out at a loss.
 
If you made profit for the day, that is all that matters. If you lose but took correct setups, then that is fine too. However, if you have a losing day, and it was because you did not follow your setups that is when to be mad at yourself.

Feel free to post some trades in the es journal, I have and it sometimes helps since you know if you wrong, people may get on your case so you will trade less and take better trades.
 
Quote from NoDoji:


It has NOTHING to do with slippage and commission (which is what you read all the time).
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Getting filled on your limit orders IS a big deal though. If you're getting in and out with market orders then it obviously doesn't matter.
 
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