NoDoji's Day Trading Log

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No Doji,

You seem to confuse stops with missed opportunities. Stops are by nature a mechanism devised to save you from unforeseen disaster. They're like insurance. Sure, it sucks to pay annual premium when you made it throughout the year without a hitch. But what makes you so sure that a catastrophe will not hit next year?

As for missed opportunities, I can only say that opportunities never cease. If you miss one, so what? There will be another before ya know it. :)

Be that as it may, wide stops are the fastest way to land in a poor house. Personally, I never regret getting stopped out with small losses. I know that I could have a string of small losses and still make them all back with just one large winner. When you're knocked out with a large stop, it not only affects your bottomline but your head as well. When you lose confidence and harbor doubts about yourself, you're finished as a trader. I can's emphasize this enough. Confidence is everything in this game!
 
for a beginner, better find good major support or resistance, then buy or sell. wait for a day or several days to let the trade work out.

just like learning to drive a car, pick a wide road or a big park lot to practice driving, not learning driving in a major bussy road to do that, that may realy create accident. after you get comfortable with those buttons, then gradually to drive on those a little bit challenging road.

ES is hard to trade if you want neat trade becuase too many partcipants on that thing.

you need fast fingers to survive. if you get fat fingers, better do those a little longer timeframe trade






Quote from bighog:

Well for starters, there is no way i would sit through a trade with 10 handles loss. That would require the next trade to be more than 10 handles + commission just to get even.

this is a game of hard and FAST rules laced with a lot of subjective decisions.
:eek: :D
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I think wider stops are better to be able to let your winners run. One of traders who I used to trade with who was an Admin here named Chaos used 10 point stops and went for 5 to 10 points of profit per trade.

However, he was doing price reading and watching time and sales, and would kill a trade based on that rather than wait for the stop to be hit.

If you have the skill to read the market after you are in a trade, and have the ability to stay calm in a trade, use the wider stop.
 
Using wide STOPS when trading the 5 minute chart is like driving a fast car around a long curve and the driver only sees a portion of the curve ahead. The portion of the curve the driver can see is his "CONTROL ZONE". That means the driver can control the car and safely stop the car WITHIN that control zone ONLY. If the speed of the car exceeds the CONTROL ZONE the driver is risking his life to just get around that curve. Not a wise option. The driver does not know what is coming around the curve in the other direction or just sitting on the road itself waiting to be hit because the driver can not stop the car past a certain speed relative to the curve.

In trading i know this for a fact.............i do not know what the next "TICK" will be. As traders we can not begin to assume we know what is around the curve ahead of us so that is why we slow down and stay in our trading "CONTROL ZONE". We must stay in control and not let the mkt control us.

Using wide stops means the trader is not in control of their entry. In other words never allow yourself into a situation where you are not in control of your ESCAPE, know your SAFETY ZONE which will allow you to calmly and safely move your car to the side of the road and or come to a safe and controlled STOP. When driving a car always know your escape, always know your "OUT" if the unexpected shows up. EXPECT the unexpected.

Be a defensive trader as well as a defensive driver and you will arrive at your destination in fine shape. When i get in the car or in a trade i am not worried about myself ........i am worried what the other idiot will do to endanger me. The same for each and every trade.


The longer the time frame the wider the STOP can be. That does not mean we can extend the time frame for losers. :eek:

PS: A safety tip when driving 80 MPH in Arizona or anywhere else on the highway. What is your "OUT? Stay in the right lane and keep a really good distance of the car in front of you and if a car follows you to close either slow down a bit so he/she will pass you. Lose the loser behind you sucking your tailpipe to save a nickle in gas. :) I have actually pulled to the side or taken a pit stop to lose loser drivers behind me.
 
Thanks guys, I've gotten a lot of good advice here.

What I need to work on is preparing my orders in advance, ready to activate when price reaches that level. These have always been my most successful trades and when I get in the trade that way, with advance planning, instead of reacting to move that's started without me because I wasn't prepared in advance, that's when I get a less-than-ideal entry price, chase the trade and end up stopped out b/e because my regular stop loss at the invalidation point would be too wide for me after I chased the trade.

When doing this with limit orders, not all the orders get filled, but when they do they are the most profitable and most comfortable trades. I keep having to remind myself that new opportunities come along all day long and it's OK to miss some.

"Being aggressive at or just before your signals is relative to your courage."

By doing this, your courage to stay in the trade and let a winner run is also increased, IMHO, because you're in at the ideal price level.
 
Quote from mindtrade:

I try to scalp ES and do longer trades with NQ.
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What is your average NQ hold time and what size stop do you generally put in to survive it?

I'm very interested in doing some swing trades on futures.
 
I think you almost there. when I phase into bussy work at night when everyone starts to sleep, I start to work on my next day's trade, metntally prepared several scienio, then next day when I do it, I get better results.

the market moves fast, when it opens, you have no time to think or collect thoughts, the only way you can get fast fingers is you think and prepare it aheda of the game, until it becomes your intutive action (almsot you do not need think,just like drive a car, you do not need go through the learning steps to do it)


Quote from NoDoji:



What I need to work on is preparing my orders in advance, ready to activate when price reaches that level. These have always been my most successful trades and when I get in the trade that way, with advance planning, instead of reacting to move that's started without me because I wasn't prepared in advance, that's when I get a less-than-ideal entry price, chase the trade and end up stopped out b/e because my regular stop loss at the invalidation point would be too wide for me after I chased the trade.

When doing this with limit orders, not all the orders get filled, but when they do they are the most profitable and most comfortable trades. I keep having to remind myself that new opportunities come along all day long and it's OK to miss some.

"Being aggressive at or just before your signals is relative to your courage."

By doing this, your courage to stay in the trade and let a winner run is also increased, IMHO, because you're in at the ideal price level.
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Yes, "ANTICIPATION" of the possible move matters a whole lot on a 5 minute chart. Pre-placed limit orders work just fine to get yourself in at the pre-determined spot. Then if price takes off and leaves without you ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and you still believe in the move you simply cancell the limit order and DIME the bid or ask and BOOM you are in the trade. No fuss, No muss.

Something that must be understood about daytrading is making decisions and making them fast and almost automatic. Thats why we anticipate so much, we must see the upcoming move the same as those that will want in at the same time.

When we fail to anticipate the upcoming move at a designated support or resist spot we might end up doing a CHASE.

We always deal with "ODDS" in this glorified game of risk taking. We are not bonified hedgers or producers of something, we are nothing more than the person accepting some risk someone else is willing to lay off in the market place. Bonified hedgers are protecting PRICE of a product, we as specs are accepting PRICE that is presented to us on the chart...............thats all we have to work our business with, OUR WITS.

We gamble on price, pure and simple. The mkt does what it will, we fight ourself and nothing else.

ODDS, thats all we have in our favor, we must know the odds of our playing cards. The sooner new players admit they are gambling and understand what that means, the sooner they will get the odds on their favor.

PS: chasing a move at its BEGINNING is not all bad..........it tells us we did not anticipate correctly or someone just was ahead of us that got the industry excited. I am almost guaranteed a loss if i chase, i am lousy at it.......i bite my tounge and wait for price to settle down or settle back some and then have better odds to jump in. Kind of like a self inflicted filter before entering a missed trade. Nothing hurts more than missing the move you woke up and got out of bed for . :mad: Get in but "BE careful out There!!!"

:)
 
Hey Nodoji,

I have something to share regarding your choice of stop.

You seem to be moving up the stop too tightly for your trading timeframe (price comes back and stops you out and moves on without you.)

If you have an inital stop maybe you should keep it there till you have met your anticipated target or PA says otherwise on your timeframe. When you are in a profit be abit more generous in your stop to get a bigger target because there are always fakeouts to get people to fuel the next move.

Think about it =)

DT
 
Hope you made money today NoDoji. I woke up earlier to trade, and did well and made good profit today. I have decided to take the rest of the day off. I currently have a max win besides my max loss. Since I got close to my max win real money. I decided not to push it. Also, it looks like some of the other people I trade with took more trades than me which were also all winners. 1st trade I went in market on signal, but 2nd trade, I let it come up to my limit to get me in. I like that both gave no heat.

I am looking to waking up on time more often even though I am on the west coast right now so its a little harder for me.
 
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