Huios,
I really respect you for laying your trades out in the open for people to see.
I myself will be starting a journal shortly and venturing into ES day-trading on a part-time basic (a few days a week). I will be starting with $5,000 real money and trading one contract.
I have noticed that daytrading is a much different beast than my normal method of swing-trading or the investing I did in the past.
Currently, I am using a simulated account with a broker and making paper-trades off real-time market data. I have noticed that sometimes I have the tendency to stray from my system, which will definately be my undoing in the long-run.
Honestly, when I look at the charts (and I mean a lot of them), it is very easy to come up with a simple system that generally provides consistent profits. However, my problem is that, during the course of a normal trading day, the movement of the ticks will really play mind-games with me. I thought I had total control over my emotions but I really do not. This is something I will need to work on -- because this is the only thing that will prevent me from being a stellar trader.
The only advice I can offer you is that I will be doing what you are doing shortly, and placing my trades up for everyone to see. I will only trade my signals, but I am going to begin my trading with a very strict discipline. At my desk, I will have 5 trading coupons. In order to prevent me from over-trading, I will redeem a coupon for each trade I make. Since I only have 5 coupons at the start of the day, I will force myself to make that trade count -- using the rules of my system. On the back of each coupon, after I make the trade, I will record the price, short/long and my emotional state of mind at the time I made the trade. When I cover the trade, I will write down my profit or loss for that particular trade on the coupon.
At the end of the trading day, I will review each coupon, the notes I made on them and compare them with the chart. If the system I have backtested is consistently profitable, then there should be no problem. However, if I find that I am actually losing from real trading, then I will review each trade in a lot of detail.
There will be three causes for a bad trade:
1) I made the trade against my rules and system and therefore the trade can be considered random by my methods.
2) I made the trade using my rules and system but it was just one of the occasional trades that didn't work out.
3) I made a trade using my rules and system, but it could have been profitable had a small parameter been changed.
My objective is to elimate 1 completely. I will collect all "3's" and, over time, ask myself if a permanent change to my system is in order. As the market progresses and sentiments change, any successful trading system will need to adapt. Some will need very little work to adapt and others will require a complete overhaul.
In the beginning, I expect to lose money in the futures market. I will consider each losing trade a "purchased lesson." If I am paying the market to learn, I am definately going to take the time to review that trade and ask myself what the reason was for it becoming a losing trade.
**** If you are trading real money and you are losing money, you are not really losing money -- because if you believe you will eventually become an "elite trader," then you will realize that those losing trades were just money spent on valuable lessons -- so make sure you review each day in full. *****
I would expect to spend 1-2 hours setting up for the day and reviewing long term trends and narrowing down to shorter term trends, and then another 1-2 hours after trading to analyze my mistakes and errors. All in all, I'll be spending 12 hours a day trying to learn how to break-even consistently -- but I'm doing this because I believe that I will be rewarded at some point with a good standard of living.
aphie
