NoDoji's Day Trading Log

[jim2000]

For the fun of it I have a small challenge for you. Why don't you do a little experiment. If you choose to accept my challenge this just might be educational.

For the remainder of this week and all of next week do the following:

1. Only trade ES using real money. No stocks and no sim.

2. Only take 3 trades max per day.

This would be fun to follow and be a test of your focus and discipline.

Are you game?

 

[elit5314]

jim2000


Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 44


08-12-09 07:15 PM

Quote from trader_david:

paper trading produced paper money. it is for entertainment.



I have to agree with trader_david on this. With no skin in the game your focus and attitude are just not the same. Your mental state is different. IMO with no skin on the line it is like
comparing apples to oranges.

It's not even entertainment it's really detrimental. Because your thoughts and emotions are totally different trading real $. IMO it can take you backwards. Also, when you mix paper and real trading the line between the 2 gets blurred and can cause confusion. Why make it more difficult then it already is?

IMO the only reason to paper trade is to learn the mechanics of a new platform. It has no correlation whatsoever to your success as a trader.

IMHO i disagree. sim trading is like game practice. then skill acquired in practice is employed in the real game.

it has to be understood that skill has been acquired; until this understanding takes a foothold in the mind the real game should be postponed.

because if u dont understand that you have a skill it makes no sense entering a real game because others in the game have skill and they will beat you everytime.

there are 2 stages: a stage of learning and a stage of understanding; learning is an ongoing dynamic process but understanding is a static state of mind.
once you understand u subject A u dont need to learn any more about subject A.

understanding here means being able to duplicate sim profits with real cash.

having learned something and having understood something are two different animals; though the destination of understanding evolves out of being on the path of learning.

nodoji have a skill (shorting) but she thinks she has to be more skillful to feel more confident etc. but until she aquires more skills she should use the skill she already has to the max.

 

[jim2000]

Quote from elit5314:



IMHO i disagree. sim trading is like game practice. then skill acquired in practice is employed in the real game.

it has to be understood that skill has been acquired; until this understanding takes a foothold in the mind the real game should be postponed.

because if u dont understand that you have a skill it makes no sense entering a real game because others in the game have skill and they will beat you everytime.

there are 2 stages: a stage of learning and a stage of understanding; learning is an ongoing dynamic process but understanding is a static state of mind.
once you understand u subject A u dont need to learn any more about subject A.

understanding here means being able to duplicate sim profits with real cash.

having learned something and having understood something are two different animals; though the destination of understanding evolves out of being on the path of learning.

nodoji have a skill (shorting) but she thinks she has to be more skillful to feel more confident etc. but until she aquires more skills she should use the skill she already has to the max.

From reading what Nod writes my impression is that she has learned the skill and also understands it. The hesitation to pull the trigger IMO is caused by the emotional or psychological barrier of being wrong or losing $ that IMO can only be conquored by trading real $.

Regarding her skill to short, that is great. She could just look to take the shorts until she gets more comfortable with the other side.

 

[ps0013]

Quote from NoDoji:

+3400 day, one of my best ever


N,
I check out your journal every now & then...(quote above is pg 2 of your journal) I'm sure that you've made adjustments to the way you traded back then and what you are doing now...Now you have a better idea of risk, etc.,.but IMO, which I usually try to keep to myself, it is time you

GO FOR IT!

 

[oraclewizard77]

Did good today even after waking up really late from getting some food poison from port wine cheese (note to traders don't eat this type of cheese if you plan on waking up early and don't want to be sick).

$ 87 profit from 1 trade es long today. Volume analyse worked today for setup even though I usually don't use it much.

This trade should have made $ 100, but realized that I had set the stops and targets on my sim account and not the real account, so when I got back saw sim already out at a profit and killed the real account at profit since target was already hit and market was starting to fall a little.

This just shows you that there are trading opportunities all day, and you need to choose when you want to trade, for example do some time analyse work. Keep track in excel for your trade logs. Maybe trading at night before market open is good for some. Some may want to hold a trade a few days. Some may just want to scalp a point here and there. By testing, you can see what is right for you. Some people treat trading as a 9 - 5 type job. It is not, there are some that don't even watch the market, they just create automated programs based on their signals. If you can make $ 100 to $ 500 in one hour, then you take off the rest of the day.

 

[NoDoji]

+$83

No sim today. I know how to trade, I’ve paper traded ES for weeks, live traded a few times, sim traded and no excuse not to just plain trade. Thanks to all you guys for getting on my case about this.

After all that I royally screwed up my ES trading. Pre-market I really, really wanted to play the news because it was both jobs and retail. About 4 minutes before news, nature called, so I made the mad dash and returned to find ES already down 9 pts and it turned out my computer clock was off by 2 minutes.

Shorted ES pre-market @ 1006.00, trailed a tight stop because price had already dropped 9 pts on news; out @ 1005.75 on a quick pivot off 1005.00 for +$7.70.

Took opening short signal @ 1004.50, 6-tick stop hit for -$79.80.

Short again @ 1004.50 on failure to thrive, signal now confirmed, then as soon as the trade went in my favor I trailed the stop 1 pt instead 6 ticks, obviously too close, taken out @ 1002.25 for +$107.70, only to see price reverse and fall off a cliff, and I left twice as much on the table as I took off it.

Stop management is still tricky for me and especially since I just had a loss on the first short signal, I think I was too aggressive moving the stop to 1 pt away instead of trailing it further. Price was jumping around at least a point. Helpful hints, anyone??

Now, I didn’t have my 2-week chart up so I neglected to see that the next support level to be tested was 998.00 from Monday (price already broke down yesterday’s last support level). In my mind somehow it was lower, and I didn't stick with ES and play the long move off support to the 20 EMA (or better). Instead I moved on to stocks. Later I was peeved that I didn’t have 2-week chart up for reference. I would’ve seen that level quickly and played it long.

Short X @ 45.45 sharp pullback from a lower high, trailed what I thought was a decent stop, but X was really jumpy and took me out @ 45.33 for a mere +$49. I really missed a better entry on this; should’ve been short @ 45.65, but I chased it as it dropped, and although it did drop a tiny bit further, there was not a lot of downside left.

Short TIF @ 30.58, failure to thrive at the 10-period EMA off a lower high, stop moved quickly to b/e because this market has been a bear trap recently and I expected this one to fall through the 20 EMA or bounce, hit for -$2. It actually did drift down from there about .08 cents over half an hour.

I didn't trade after that; instead I studied the effect of S/R levels in different time frames on intraday action. It's OK to study static charts, but much better to watch this in real time and see how well you can predict the next move.

 

[StevenBruce]

With all respect Nodoji

Its like there are two people posting on your behalf. You say you "know how to trade" and then solicit advice regarding stops

You comment on the open, then on the pre-open...

What it tells me is that your mental organization is all over the place, you seem distracted...Frankly I think there are too many cooks in the kitchen...and it shows in the way your opinion vascilates from post to post.

I'll finish by offering a potential context for your ES trading. Professionals look at the settlement as the as the most important element of the ES chart. They gauge moves off this important price point. For instance we look to see how far from the settlement the overnight Globex market moves (we want to see 10 points) We evaluate possible game plans based on how the market closed (settlement again). Although there can be controvesey over terms, we look to see what the "gap" is between the settlement and the next day's open. Then we ask ourselves, is the market opening by moving in the direction of the gap (to close it) with conviction? or is it moving in the other direction (again with conviction or not). As far as deciding on trades, most decent professionals look at "value" (either market profile or volume profile) and trade tests of the high and low end. If we observe price moving away from value during RTH, we evaluate (in the context above) and plan our trades around these tests. Variations on that theme call for putting in S and R lines based on 30 min charts (highs, lows, Globex highs/lows). Finally we look at distributions from a statistical viewpoint. Specifically we look at the average daily range and add that to the previous day's high and low (66-70% of that range is the first standard deviation) and we look for tests of those boundaries.

I hope some of this helps. In my opinion the psychological challenges you face are probably more important than the technical ones. There are lots of ways to make this work.

I wish you the best, and I hope I haven't intruded too much. I won't post again here unless you request more comment.

Best Regards
Stevesbg

 

[tomahawk]

Quote from NoDoji:



Stop management is still tricky for me and especially since I just had a loss on the first short signal, I think I was too aggressive moving the stop to 1 pt away instead of trailing it further. Price was jumping around at least a point. Helpful hints, anyone??

Hey NoD ... IMHO 1 pt. or even 6 ticks is always too tight a stop for ES - especially when we get back to normal volume trading in the fall, when we likely won't see so many of these clean breaks and 10-pt runs off the open.

You can use a tighter stop if you fade a breakout at the extreme, but for your kind of entries I think you have to stick with your original stop of 2 pts or whatever for a little longer, because often these entries will be revisited for another test or two.

There are too many people taking these early entries for them to be allowed an easy path to profit.

As always, good trading.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from ps0013:

Quote from NoDoji:

+3400 day, one of my best ever


N,
I check out your journal every now & then...(quote above is pg 2 of your journal) I'm sure that you've made adjustments to the way you traded back then and what you are doing now...Now you have a better idea of risk, etc.,.but IMO, which I usually try to keep to myself, it is time you

GO FOR IT!

ps, I remember how blindly confident I was back then. I saw a setup and jumped on it. If there was a major drawdown, I didn't care because I "knew" where the trade would go. And at first everything went my way. Until it didn't. My initial large losses (overnighters) were actually profitable day trades, and I held without risk management until they seriously ran against me.

I refined my overall trading ability between July and December last year, but still did not truly implement proper risk management. Started this year amazingly well, until my lack of reasonable risk management caught up to me again.

It's taken me a long time to regain my confidence. I can't begin to describe the respect I have for Robert Weinstein, who can face down a crushing loss and just get right up and trade like nothing happened.

Because I'm a beginner, I don't have that magic in me yet.

I really look forward to some more of those home runs in the future, but right now, I'm working on refining my overall trade management skills, and adding to my arsenal of strategies. I'm also trying very hard to honor my rules regarding patience and consistency. I still chase entries, which costs me valuable profits. I also still "pick and choose" instead trading every signal I see, which is a very bad habit.

Trading easy, very easy, damn easy; and trading is hard, very hard, damn hard. :eek:

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from jim2000:

For the fun of it I have a small challenge for you. Why don't you do a little experiment. If you choose to accept my challenge this just might be educational.

For the remainder of this week and all of next week do the following:

1. Only trade ES using real money. No stocks and no sim.

2. Only take 3 trades max per day.

This would be fun to follow and be a test of your focus and discipline.

Are you game?

Yes, one day down