NoDoji's Day Trading Log

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Quote from oraclewizard77:

Seems you have a short bias for example you hesitate on your long trade. I have a bit of a long bias which meant I hesitated on a short trade a few days back and decided not to chase it.
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I do have a short bias only because with a solid setup behind it, price tends to fall more quickly than it rises and I like that kind of instant gratification.

However, I'm well aware of the power of breakouts to the upside especially after a strong selloff and that's why I was watching ES for any kind of breakout on volume. The only volume I saw early on was the selling volume as soon as the good ISM news drove ES price up just a few ticks above the previous resistance level. It was just too narrow and indecisive for me after that.

The bad AMZN trade was really the result of allowing residue of AMZN's long selloff to remain in my head. I had this notion that AMZN would have one more leg down to the $112 zone and no sooner did I short that bounce off lows to overbought, I saw to my horror that the moving averages no longer supported my notion. I almost exited immediately and very likely should have, but figured I'd let my stop do the job instead of second guessing. It was once stopped out that I should've immediately gone long or at least gone long at the next dip that found higher support. The fact that I made that dumb mistake though convinced me to just take a break from the screen.
 
I actually like your stop strategy, you been a master at it lately. Sometimes, I still rather average down a little and hold for a winner rather than taking a small loss. By taking your losses quickly and keeping your winners longer, you have been doing great. I actually think you should just stick to stocks. You are making money and doing well, no reason for you to jump into or watch other markets. If I am trading ES, I don't watch stocks or other futures, or go to chat rooms, I am concentrating. Trust me, I need enough time to check if everything is lining up for a trade and to try to keep unemotional.

Quote from NoDoji:

I do have a short bias only because with a solid setup behind it, price tends to fall more quickly than it rises and I like that kind of instant gratification.

However, I'm well aware of the power of breakouts to the upside especially after a strong selloff and that's why I was watching ES for any kind of breakout on volume. The only volume I saw early on was the selling volume as soon as the good ISM news drove ES price up just a few ticks above the previous resistance level. It was just too narrow and indecisive for me after that.

The bad AMZN trade was really the result of allowing residue of AMZN's long selloff to remain in my head. I had this notion that AMZN would have one more leg down to the $112 zone and no sooner did I short that bounce off lows to overbought, I saw to my horror that the moving averages no longer supported my notion. I almost exited immediately and very likely should have, but figured I'd let my stop do the job instead of second guessing. It was once stopped out that I should've immediately gone long or at least gone long at the next dip that found higher support. The fact that I made that dumb mistake though convinced me to just take a break from the screen.
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- $324

Massive overtrading and complete abandonment of my plan.

I wasn't going to trade at all today. Today the ATS was to go live, and I was going to watch it trade. Unfortunately, we found out too late that an API was missing on that PC and so the system didn't run.

By then I'd missed all the beautiful opening moves on my watch list and that caused me to lose my trader mind and I would become the ATS and trade anything that moved.

I jumped from one thing to the next, placing stops at really stupid places, getting whipped out of great trades as a result, chasing, placing dumb stops again, over and over. (I personified the definition of insanity today!)

By the end of the day I'd traded 52,000 shares, 110 trades and given IB around $260 in commissions. Considering how god-awful I traded, the $64 I lost on trades is actually quite a respectable result.

I was going to respectfully ask that everyone withhold comments about this day. But actually I know everything I did wrong, and I need a good laugh, so I've decided to encourage all sorts of comments; I'll even put up with dumb blonde jokes if they're really good.
 

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Quote from NoDoji:

- $324
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There was this magnificent butcher that always had the perfect cuts, and the best meats, etc, etc. and was very successful and profitable at it.

One day he blew a fuse and decided to make shoes instead of cutting meat. His results were awful.

He had the good sense to return to being a butcher again, and leave the shoes to the shoe makers.

:(
 
Hi NoD,

Sorry to hear about your day.

I know it is difficult to stick to one's plan. I am trying hard to do so. What I try to do to get my mind to focus on the plan is assume that I don't have a solid strategy, and that I am just forward testing this strategy out. I'll keep remind myself that if I don't stick to the plan, how could I find out if the strategy works or not?

I hope this would help.


PA
 
Quote from BPtrader:

May I ask how many were long and short trades?
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Out of 55 round trips, there were 23 longs and 32 shorts. My 3 most profitable trades were shorts; everything else was chop, churn, chase and slippage.
 
Quote from Pension_Admin:

Hi NoD,

Sorry to hear about your day.

I know it is difficult to stick to one's plan. I am trying hard to do so. What I try to do to get my mind to focus on the plan is assume that I don't have a solid strategy, and that I am just forward testing this strategy out. I'll keep remind myself that if I don't stick to the plan, how could I find out if the strategy works or not?

I hope this would help.


PA
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Hey PA,

Thing is, I do have a solid strategy. I need to simply wait patiently for the setup to become ripe: it sets up in my time frame, I'm not fighting the trend (unless the trend is tired and I'm looking at a counter-trend setup), and the market direction supports the trade. All I have to do at that point is put on the trade, place the stop at the invalidation price and wait for price to reach my initial target, at which point I should take off half, or trail a stop to try and get more in case it runs.

I had a few fantastic trades today when I did that. But it didn't matter, because I'd already churned away too much to recover. I missed the best moves of the morning, then figured I'd "get back" what I missed by trading the mid-morning and mid-day chop, trying to scalp here and there, long and short. This is the time of day I'm supposed to STOP TRADING. That's in my written plan!

So today I'd chalk up, say, $235 in losses, a whole bunch of itty bitty losses with slippage and commissions, all adding up, then the nice confirmed setup would show, and I'd jump on it with some size and make $197. On one confirmed trade. WTF was I doing before? I don't know. I simply lost my mind. I've done this 3 or 4 times now after a period of trading a few nice small trades each day.

And when a setup is ripe, it's smart to go in with size. But there's NO REASON to trade UNTIL THE SETUP IS RIPE.

New rule: If I ever put in a day like this again, I'm spending 2 days in sim practicing patience.
 
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