Spydertrader's Jack Hershey Futures Trading Journal

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Quote from cnms2:

Now you just have to figure out what could've made you trade each one of those turn points you've drawn, in the right direction, and only those. In my opinion, at this stage this is a goal so high that could be discouraging and not helpful.

I'd suggest a different path...

we are only talking about 10 trades. ;-)>

In hindsight, don't you find the signals are easy to detect? They are all there, we just have to believe they are speaking to us.


edit: I am not in the "33 Points Club" yet.

 

[Jander]

Thanks for your input, but Im not sure what you mean by ' a different path ' . Like you mentioned in an earlier post, drawing in the optimal turns on your res. level and comparing with your own action points seems the best way to improve. There has been no mention of trading here really so I am all ears if you have another way to do it.

I think 33 points is quite a high goal if thats what you are referring to, but considering the volatility of today and the yellow lines are taking into effect waiting until after a clear cut ftt bar has closed, I dont see it as unreasonable. I was on pace until the afternoon tripped me up a bit, and is where I gave back alot of the gains....Sure looked clear in hindsight

On another note, hopefully this will spark some discussion. I think the most important (and controversial) key to this type of trading is to be in the market all the time. I used to try just trading the easy pt3s, and got frustrated as hell. I would hop in at the RTL, ride it up for a couple pts, then exit when it looked like it had peaked.. So far so good. Then you get a retrace and when it's done, you re-enter... but wait, that retrace wasnt near finished yet! Eh, looks like I need to fan and it should be all good... Nope, perhaps this is turning into a down channel =(

There may or may not have been a way to avoid this, but alas it kept getting the best of me. But take a look at those yellow arrows on my chart. Almost always, you give back at least half, sometimes all of your profits before you ride it out to the FTT. Unless you are trading the tapes, I dont see a way to avoid this. Of course this is more pronounced on choppy days like today, but you get the idea. I think cherry picking a traverse here and there to trade is a suckers game, and only works well in hindsight. Thoughts?

 

[Haroki]

Quote from Jander:

Thanks for your input, but Im not sure what you mean by ' a different path ' . Like you mentioned in an earlier post, drawing in the optimal turns on your res. level and comparing with your own action points seems the best way to improve. There has been no mention of trading here really so I am all ears if you have another way to do it.

I think 33 points is quite a high goal if thats what you are referring to, but considering the volatility of today and the yellow lines are taking into effect waiting until after a clear cut ftt bar has closed, I dont see it as unreasonable. I was on pace until the afternoon tripped me up a bit, and is where I gave back alot of the gains....Sure looked clear in hindsight

On another note, hopefully this will spark some discussion. I think the most important (and controversial) key to this type of trading is to be in the market all the time. I used to try just trading the easy pt3s, and got frustrated as hell. I would hop in at the RTL, ride it up for a couple pts, then exit when it looked like it had peaked.. So far so good. Then you get a retrace and when it's done, you re-enter... but wait, that retrace wasnt near finished yet! Eh, looks like I need to fan and it should be all good... Nope, perhaps this is turning into a down channel =(

There may or may not have been a way to avoid this, but alas it kept getting the best of me. But take a look at those yellow arrows on my chart. Almost always, you give back at least half, sometimes all of your profits before you ride it out to the FTT. Unless you are trading the tapes, I dont see a way to avoid this. Of course this is more pronounced on choppy days like today, but you get the idea. I think cherry picking a traverse here and there to trade is a suckers game, and only works well in hindsight. Thoughts?

Cherry picking works out ok when you (me) realize that the MADA skills aren't up to snuff yet.

Right now, I've been trading pt3's of a forest channel ( like to see 5+ pts wide) to the LTL or FTT. My preference is >10k/bar and <30k to cut down on volatility. I believe the next level will be to reverse on the same forest channel. A wide channel gives you plenty of time to see the FTT and still remain profitable. As the MADA skills get better at recognizing "change", your reverses will get tighter and hopefully ho-hum.

Then you start doing the same with a tree channel. Then down to a tape level.

 

[Bearbelly]

Being always in, catching all the turns or even catch a healthy portion of the daily range is the domain of the elite, top of the food chain, monja mojo badass traders. I cant even think in those terms. Some day in the distant future perhaps but right now I am focused on, hopefully, catching a piece of the daily range each day. Days like today are tough. On the other hand yesterday you could have made enough to sit out a dozen days like today.

 

[cnms2]

Sorry... My comment was not meant as a critique, or from the position that I know better. I just wanted to say that what you've drawn looks to me too difficult to try to emulate at this point, and that I personally have more tangible goals.

As an example, let's take your first trade and first reversal. What determined (or could've determined) you to open short at that point? Then what was the reason to reverse long there at the next point?

Applying the same set of criteria, would you have taken all the next trades you've penciled in, and none others?

Several people mentioned yesterday's very trendy chart. To take in all that long morning run, without any other good or bad trades, seems impossible to me. To do so you should've traded on a very slow fractal, on which all those retraces and RTL fan-outs would've been integrated. To trade at that resolution you'd have to accept very large "washes", which I'm sure it's nobody's case ...

<img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1644116>

Quote from Jander:

Thanks for your input, but Im not sure what you mean by ' a different path ' . ... Thoughts?

 

[cnms2]

Jander, this is a possible scenario for your first two trades, but accepting both of them to be 1 tick worse than you've drawn them. I'm sure that if you further apply the same criteria, you'll end up with more trades, and different trade points than your goal chart shows...

As a side note, you could try to do these trades manually, or set stop limit and stop orders.

(small correction: the last gaussian falling edge is green)

<img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1644165>

 

[ericta]

Quote from Haroki:

What a mess.

1 trade today, short at 10:10. Everything else was too choppy for me.

Great control, I was trading the whole day, and ended up with 1pt profit should have stopped earlier.

How do you know it's a choppy day?

 

[Jander]

Quote from cnms2:

As an example, let's take your first trade and first reversal. What determined (or could've determined) you to open short at that point? Then what was the reason to reverse long there at the next point?

I always look to the 1m ES to enter at the beginning of the day. As far as I know, this has nothing to do with the method laid out here, it just helps me get a better gaussian feel before the first 5min bar finishes. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. Today I saw a flat bottom pennant on the 1m ES (or what looked like one) on the first couple of bars. I entered short and got confirmation as price plummeted. We can ignore this entry because this is just something I do and not prescribed in this thread.

As for the reversal, the 9:50 bar seemed pretty clear cut as an ftt of the brown channel...confirmation on the tick chart.

Applying the same set of criteria, would you have taken all the next trades you've penciled in, and none others?

To be clear, yes I would(should) have taken all the next trades as marked. I am not stating that is what I actually did....

Several people mentioned yesterday's very trendy chart. To take in all that long morning run, without any other good or bad trades, seems impossible to me. To do so you should've traded on a very slow fractal, on which all those retraces and RTL fan-outs would've been integrated. To trade at that resolution you'd have to accept very large "washes", which I'm sure it's nobody's case ...

I think this depends entirely on your ability to ascertain what type of day (trending vs. choppy) it is going to be early in the session. I wasnt able to watch the market yesterday, but from the looks of it, what told you to get long at any time before noon?

Jander, this is a possible scenario for your first two trades, but accepting both of them to be 1 tick worse than you've drawn them. I'm sure that if you further apply the same criteria, you'll end up with more trades, and different trade points than your goal chart shows...

Those are just areas, I have not attempted to pinpoint to the tick where to reverse. I would give myself a couple of ticks leeway in each scenario. Thanks for the discussion cnms2

 

[cnms2]

Congratulations! If you nailed those two trades you made about 2.5 points. Not bad at all!

Quote from Jander:

I always look to the 1m ES to enter at the beginning of the day. ...

As for the reversal, the 9:50 bar seemed pretty clear cut as an ftt of the brown channel...confirmation on the tick chart. ...

 

[Haroki]

Quote from ericta:

Great control, I was trading the whole day, and ended up with 1pt profit should have stopped earlier.

How do you know it's a choppy day?

I'm dazed and confused..