Quote from jones247:
Hi Big,
It's hard to determine your track record. Would you be willing to state how many winners/losers/scratch trades you had on a daily or weekly basis...
For example,
with today as a down day, it seems that most of your trades were an attempt to time the reversals... unless I misunderstood your posts...
Nonetheless, did today have more winners than losers?
thanks,
Walt
He Walt,
I try to post as many trades in real time as I can. Some trades are very quick eg. a Counter Trend scalp for 3-5 tics & I don't think anyone is interested in me posting 20-50 trades a day....I know I'm not lol. I have gotten much better at not taking so many trades per day but sometimes I will tic trade if that is what the mkt is calling for. My only other option is to hold a position, which is not my style or walk away & call it a day.
I was looking for bounces because i Had a few levels I was concerned with as well as the ATR around 30 or so(maybe I should just look at the ATR for the trading session only and not include the gap) it would have been a much easier way to make points on the short side.
One other issue is that I do trade other mkts & it is too much for me to enter everything in real time. If ET had voice recognition built in it would be easy but I still don't think anyone is interested in hearing trade after trade. I will also trade around a position or area, which can make it very difficult to decipher. Let me give you an example:
On Thurs 6/3 I still had the 91-92 area on my radar. About 12PM est I noticed that we were making a 2nd attempt to take out the prev days hi of 98.25. we had already filled the gap(96.75) @ 10:40 or so. Price was hanging around that area but it wasn't looking very strong and I knew that 91-92 below could be a good support area.( I sent you a few snapshots @ about 1PM that day) I also posted @ 11:44 & 12:09 that day with the comment "any clues" which meant, any clues as to which way it might break. So that's the setup and reasoning behind the Long trade.
This is how I traded that area starting @ about 12:21-12:22 on a 1 min chart:
L 92.75, 4 cars (no fill at 93.75 so moved stop to -1 because 92.75 was a bit higher than I wanted to pay)
L 91.5, 8 cars...close 92.5 on 4 cars & close 91.5 on 2 cars.
L 92, 8 cars(10 total)... close 93 on 4 cars & close 94 on 3 cars
L 94.5 4 cars(7 total)... close all 94
L 93.25, 8 cars... close 94.25 on 4 cars and BE on 2 cars
L 93.75, 8 cars(10 total)... close 94.75 on 4 cars & 94 on the Balance.
Did u understand that? cause I sure didn't but I consider that 1 trade. Bottom line is that I traded during lunch(which I try not to but I think I was making a post or 2 on ET & traded the 91-92 area) & I kept everything pretty tight. maybe I made a point or two maybe I lost a point or two. I took a break and continued trading later on.
Sorry for a long answer to a simple question but I want you to be clear in the way that I'm thinking. We all think about the mkts i a diff way and what makes sense to one, might not make sense to another. Maybe I should just talk about the areas instead of the actual entries. Many traders would say I should have held my original position of 92.75 & they are not wrong but I also think what I did was not wrong because it fit my personality.
Maybe I should just talk about the areas and why I like them. If anyone is looking at this thread can then determine for themselves what is right or wrong. Even if I put out a very specific trade plan with entries, exits & stops to 100 people, everyone will trade it differently anyway. Any thoughts & suggestions are welcome.
Lastly, a very important thing to remember/realize is that trading is 90% mental and 10% skill/mkt knowledge. knowing yourself is much more important than anything else. The fear, the greed, the high's, the lows & how we handle those emotions is far more important than any method or system, imho. I'd rather spend my time focusing in on how I deal with gains & losses then looking at tons of indicators & the best way to use them and in what combination because we are still going to have gains and losses.
So again, a long answer to a short question is that it will be tough to post all of my trades but maybe I should just stick with the philosophy for now?? Your thoughts are more than welcome. I certainly don't want to confuse anyone & this whole posting thing is very new to me.