The E-mini Adventures of Brutus

B

Brutus

I've enjoyed reading the journals of Bronks and others here trading the eminis. So I've decided to create a journal of my emini trading life as well. Feel free to offer advice, tell me how stupid a trade was etc. Hopefully I'll grow a as emini trader from creating this journal and hopefully others can learn a thing or two as well. It will probably be a thing or to on what now to do however :)

The history ...
Started trading the emini NQ at the beginning of July and had a profitable July month. My account started at $4,750.00 and ended the month at around $5,250. August so far has been a curse for me. My account has dropped over $1,000 from the start of this month. I seem to be in a death spiral.

I'll post today's trades with some commentary after I go back and review my trades.

Brutus
 
Bad bad day trading the NQ today ...

-11.5 pts / 5 Round Trips / 4 losers / 1 winner

Account now at $4,131.69

Time in central time ...

Trade 1: -4 pts
08:48:07 Sold @ 926.50
08:51.13 Buy @ 930.50, stopped out

Dropped from 931 to 927 without much of a bounce back. Traded in a range for a few minutes. Got in short looking for some downward follow through. The futures changed course however and was stopped out at my standard 4 point stop loss.

Trade 2: -4 pts
08:56:33 Buy @ 930.50
09:12:39 Sold @ 926.50

Hit new morning high for the day at 933. Bought the pullback from the high looking for further upwards movement. Target exit set at 935. Bounced up to 933 again but then moved down again to stop me out at 926.50 for a 4 pt loss. Maybe I should use a trailing stop of some sort instead of a fixed 4 pt stop.

Trade 3: +4.5 pts
09:13:44 Sell @ 929.50
09:45:10 Buy @ 925

NQ dropped from 933 to 926.5. Sold the retracement back at 929.50. Target profit was set at 925, stop one tick above the high for the day at 933.50. Almost got stopped out of this one at 933 but the NQ reversed course after that and my limit order was hit at 925. This trade was very close to being a loser.


Trade 4: -4.5 pts
11:30:54 Buy @ 933.50
13:14:29 Sold @ 929

This was a dumb trade. I didn't realize I had outstanding buy stop order at 933.50. I was away from my computer when it was triggered and didn't realize I had a position until and hour later. After realizing I was in the trade. I decided to keep the position because the NQ was in a range around 934 for a while after the up move without any retractment. I was looking to get out at 938. The NQ moved down however and was trading in the 930 range. Normally my stop was 4 pts away at 929.50 but I convinced myself that the NQ was going to move up and moved my stop to 925.50 near the days low. The NQ then preceded to trade in a range around 930 for a while. After seeming the NQ trade in the range for a while I decided it was going not go back up and that I shouldn't have moved my stop in the first place. I exited the trade 929. Dumb trade, I shouldn't have moved my stop. The ironic thing is that I was right about the direction. If I would have stayed in the trade longer my 938 target would have been hit. But to add to that misery I executed trade 5.

Trade 5: -3.5 pts
13:16:38 Sold @ 931
13:31:02 Bought @ 934.50

After exiting trade 4 I figured that there was good chance that the market would move lower. A trading range after move usually means there will be a continuation of that move. I sold @ 931 but the market moved against me and I was stopped out of this trade.

Well ... losing trades 1,2 & 5 were valid entries for my discretionary trading they just didn't work out. On trade 4 I moved my stop which I shouldn't have done but had I stayed in the trade longer moving my stop would have paid off.
 
Brutus are you using arbitrary targets on your gains??? If so what type of R/R are looking for with your trades???

PEACE and good trading,
Publias
 
Originally posted by Publias
Brutus are you using arbitrary targets on your gains??? If so what type of R/R are looking for with your trades???

PEACE and good trading,
Publias
More...

Yeah, I guess they are arbitrary. I always aim for 4.5 points on my wins and always have a 4 point stop loss. This way if I have a win rate of greater than 50%, I'll be posting profits.

I don't use a trailing stop of any sort. I am considering doing this however. Once or twice it happend to me that I've missed my profit target of 4.5 points by a half a point and then been stopped out for a 4 point loss. Thats not a good feeling ...

Brutus
 
Originally posted by Brutus


Yeah, I guess they are arbitrary. I always aim for 4.5 points on my wins and always have a 4 point stop loss. This way if I have a win rate of greater than 50%, I'll be posting profits.

I don't use a trailing stop of any sort. I am considering doing this however. Once or twice it happend to me that I've missed my profit target of 4.5 points by a half a point and then been stopped out for a 4 point loss. Thats not a good feeling ...

Brutus
More...

Brutus,

Thankyou for the reply :) Just an observation from experience BUT if you are only aiming at a 1to1 R/R it is going to be very difficult task to attain profits in the futures markets...

PEACE and good trading,
Publias
 
Originally posted by Brutus
..without much of a bounce back. Traded in a range for a few minutes. Got in short looking for some downward follow through.. Bought the pullback from the high looking for further upwards movement.. Sold the retracement back at 929.50. Target profit was set at 925, stop one tick above the high for the day at 933.50.. This was a dumb trade.. I was away from my computer when it was triggered and didn't realize I had a position until and hour later. After realizing I was in the trade. I decided to keep the position.. but I convinced myself that the NQ was going to move up and moved my stop to 925.50 near the days low.. I decided it was going not go back up and that I shouldn't have moved my stop in the first place. I exited the trade.. I was right about the direction. If I would have stayed in the trade longer my 938 target would have been hit.. I figured that there was good chance.. A trading range after move usually means there will be a continuation of that move..
More...

Brutus, ill just point out a couple of things..

first, the market is under no obligation to trend.. you lost your first two trades this morning and your last trade in the afternoon because you decided the market would trend today even though the market was clearly just chopping around..

your third trade was lucky to have been a winner since you based it off an incorrect use of retracements.. but heck, roll the dice baby.. but you should know that a tick above/below day highs/lows are bad places to put stops.. youre asking to get picked off.. sometimes the market can even jump 5 or more pts at those leves when enough people place their stops there..

trade #4 wasnt dumb until you decided to stay in it.. why are you trying to convince yourself that you have the magic trading touch? that every time you touch your mouse the markets ATM machine begins spitting 20$s and 50$s at you.. its good for you that the trade stopped you out.. if it had worked, you would be tempted to act foolish again in the future.. this is exactly the type of trading that makes a trader cross the line from speculator to gambler..

trade #5.. i dont know what you are talking about.. move? there wasnt any move.. its a range..

i dont want to come across like a complete jerk but thats what i see.. ive made ALL of these mistakes myself and paid the price as well so im not being judgemental.. but if you want to survive you gotta change what youre doing or youll become a statistic.. go back to your books and read about the differences between trending markets and range bound markets.. and the different strategies for trading them.. that would be a good starting place for you.. good luck..

-qwik
 
From my observation of these boards qwik knows what he is talking about. You would probably being doing yourself a favor by hearing what he has to say.
 
I too always read QUICKTRADE posts 2-3 times. i agree that he is a trader who spills out pearls of wosdom about trading. Please do yourself a favor and have an open mind to his advice. this is actually better advice than anything i could tell you personally
 
hello brutus,

acc $5000

stop/risk 4-5 points = $100 = 2%

what timeframe do you trade on ? cant be higher than 1min ?

too much risk IMO to start. or do you have another $5000 on the sideline :)


:) trading
 
Made a weak profit today ...

+ 2 pts / 3 round trips (2 Winners / 1 Loser)

Trade 1:
I jumped the gun on my first trade this morning. I was looking for a reversal based the time of the morning. The market tends to reverse course 15 to 20 minutes after the open. Probably should have waited to enter near the resistance at the previous days high of 946.

Trade 2:
Since the NQ didn't really have a sharp pullback within the first 30 minutes of trading, it looked to me that we were going to have a "trend morning." Entered at 943 and sold at my 4.5 profit target. I should have probably gone for more points on this one since the morning had so much upward strength. Need to work on a method to allow me to do that.

Trade 3:
Went short a couple points above the high of August 9th (955.5) looking for a reversal. I wasn't quite comfortable with the position after I got into it so I decided to get out.
 

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