The Evolution of an E-mini Trader

[aphexcoil]

Huios,

Sorry about your bad day. I really respect you for sticking to your guns and following your system, though. You are exactly the kind of trader I want to become when I deal with real money -- using the right mental attitudes that you use.

What is very frustrating about looking at your graph is the funny fact that, at some point during the day, every entry point you picked could have been profitable at some point. In fact, a few of your positions were profitable at points.

Do you use trailing stops? If you were up +8 points, perhaps setting a stop at +5 points profit would have let you ride further without risking it going back into negative terrority?

I've seen a lot of your charts -- actually all of them. Your entries aren't bad at all, but I think you need to concentrate more on trade management.

Best of luck to you tomorrow!

aphie

 

[Huios]

aphexcoil
You are exactly the kind of trader I want to become

LOL

Aphie... Right now, I stink as a trader, but the good thing is I know I stink, and identifing that is a beginning.

H

 

[qwiktrade]

Originally posted by hardcash


i like those bands also. i use the settings 13,2, they show a nice pattern on reversals. i add a MACD with 3,10,15 to it. the MACD marks the momentum high/low (and as the saying goes, price high/low follow momentum high/low) and divergences. the 15 ema is useful in seeing the "trend"; as long as it runs over zero, you can prefer trades from the longside an vive versa.

trading

cool.. im using macd primarily for the histogram, although im not using it in my trading decisions right now.. mostly i just use the fast stochastic for divergences..

-qwik

 

[qwiktrade]

Originally posted by AAAintheBeltway
qwik,

I'm not a big fan of indicators like stochastics, but your chart shows a nice way of using them. Do you require the BB to be broken or just come close to them?

AAA, i know what you mean.. i never used them much until recently.. several months ago Chris Terry did a seminar in Tampa on using divergences in the Tick indicator to find reversals and that got me thinking.. then i ran into this guy who uses the stochastic the same way, so i decided to watch it and sure enough, its quite useful.. on the bbands.. i take the bband trades as they touch the band.. the key is not to trade against the trend.. and not to ever take a band touch long on a band that is pointed up or a short on a band that is pointed down.. and, it helps if the touch occurs on multiple time frames..

-qwik

 

[qwiktrade]

Originally posted by aphexcoil
What is very frustrating about looking at your graph is the funny fact that, at some point during the day, every entry point you picked could have been profitable at some point. In fact, a few of your positions were profitable at points.

funny fact? this is the kind of destructive thinking that leads to blown stops..

Originally posted by aphexcoil
I've seen a lot of your charts -- actually all of them. Your entries aren't bad at all, but I think you need to concentrate more on trade management.

aphie.. if someone who was only demo trading said this to me after a couple of losing days, id probably become violent..

-qwik

 

[aphexcoil]

qwiktrade,

From this message forward, I am done giving advice on this board. Don't worry about that.

aphie

 

[Magna]

Originally posted by Huios
Another frustrating day, but I learned something .... Let's see if I can put it in practice tomorrow.

H,

In the same way that it's very useful to have a clearly written trading plan, I suggest you carefully write down exactly what you learned today. Keeps it from just swimming around in the ole noggin.

 

[Pabst]

Sorry but I had to say it.

"Me and Huios down by the schoolyard"

Nice journal!!

Don't dispair!
But do tweak, grow. learn and change. At least you're doing it!

 

[macal425]

Originally posted by qwiktrade


well.. there are alot of different approaches i suppose.. one way that i like is using bollinger bands.. a guy in a chatroom showed me how he was using them and so far its been working well for me.. one thing about BB's i dont think you can just look at one 5 min or 2 min chart every single day and use BB's effectively.. since they measure volotility, you sort of have to look at different times until you see that the bands are measuring properly..


-qwik

By this do you mean that you wait to see how the market is developing during the opening (say 30mins) and then pick a timeframe where the BB's seem to be working and trade that timeframe for the day?
Thanks

 

[qwiktrade]

Macal,

i think for the most part once you find a good fit you can leave the chart settings alone.. for the ES im using 210, 343, and 55 tick charts.. but a one min and a three min should work ok.. and the nq im using 77 and 133 tick charts.. the bb settings on the chart i posted are 1.8 dev 8 period..

-qwik