Spydertrader's Jack Hershey Futures Trading Journal

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You're correct. I should have taken the short on the red channel breakout, held and then followed the 'rules' from that point on.

Now, if I can bump those meetings off for tomorrow....

Quote from optioncoach:

I have heard so many opinions on scaling out. However here where you have a target in sight, you can take a piece off and let the others run. For those times where it bounces back you reduce what you give back and still bank profits.

With 1 contract I think you have nothing to feel bad about taking that profit cause it matched the rules. Once the breakout was confirmed you possibly could have gone short again with a tight stop if it moved back into the channel. Entering the short again was still profitable based on the chart.
 
scaling out is just too much trouble for me. I am either in, or out. I don't want to worry about half positions.

with SCT, we will be reversing instead of exiting. Therefore there is little reason, or time, to scale out.
 
i dont mention scaling out as a given but I feel it fits in with my style when I get in and the market runs to a trendline. Sometime it works for me to take profits and leave the remaining to see if it breaks or bounces off. I would not do this on every trade but sometimes it is good medicine for me.

Took 3 trades, 2 winners, 1 loser.

Good news is that in hindsight loser should have been avoided once I corrected a mistake in channels. A learning loser is very rewarding compared to a "why did I lose" loser.

off to bed...

P.S. channels work well on Euro from what I have seen. Keeps you out of chop and makes you wait for nice moves.
 
Quote from Bearbelly:

We must walk before we can run. Spyder has laid it out for us. Point 3 to RTL cross. This is the basic trade to build upon. Friday was a bit hard because you would have had to endure some 4-5 point moves against your position before the cross but it did work out. I personally chickened out a bit early but those days are not the norm. I am not going to attempt anything else until I have these down cold.

Yes I know. I stayed in the trade and got 12 points alltogether for the day but I am papertrading and this is different.

Ivo
 
If you don't think of it as a paper trade, you will mentally treat it with the same seriousness as a real trade. When you transition to real money, you will have no mental transition at all.

As a matter of fact, don't even think about it as a trade (i.e. don't think PnL). think of it as a video game where you have to catch all the FTT. :D
 
Following a HVS open, there was a nice FTT at 10am on DAX (note carryover TL also):

<img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1383775>
 

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Quote from Tums:

If you don't think of it as a paper trade, you will mentally treat it with the same seriousness as a real trade. When you transition to real money, you will have no mental transition at all.

As a matter of fact, don't even think about it as a trade (i.e. don't think PnL). think of it as a video game where you have to catch all the FTT. :D

Yes I know. I do take papertrading seriously. At this moment I just papertrade and some SPY's to gain more experience. It's hard though seeing all these great opportunities come by due to increased volatility at this moment.

regards,
Ivo
 
Paper trading is the best way to initially test and get familiar with a trading approach. But at some point you have to put 1 contract on the line because no matter how hard you try and forget it is paper trading, nothing replicates the emotions of having real money on the line :D.



Quote from Tums:

If you don't think of it as a paper trade, you will mentally treat it with the same seriousness as a real trade. When you transition to real money, you will have no mental transition at all.

As a matter of fact, don't even think about it as a trade (i.e. don't think PnL). think of it as a video game where you have to catch all the FTT. :D
 
Intresting moves this morning. In the chart below I missed the FTT in the Purple Channel where the double red arrow is. It was a FTT of the purple channel and was hitting resistance of the large major channel (thick green line). I will try and not miss that again lol.

A little further on I entered long at the blue arrow on what I saw as a FTT of the white channel and got out at the red arrow where it hit the left upper channel line and the Pivot Point.

The lines are drawn in real time and hopefully correct lol.
 

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Quote from optioncoach:

Paper trading is the best way to initially test and get familiar with a trading approach. But at some point you have to put 1 contract on the line because no matter how hard you try and forget it is paper trading, nothing replicates the emotions of having real money on the line :D.
Agreed.
Like you said before, $50 a point is not going to bankrupt anybody, unless you are so reckless that you don't know when to "stop".
 
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