The Evolution of an E-mini Trader

One other thing,

What chris suggests in that "text" about keeping some $ on the line "ie: 50 shares" is all well and fine, but I think Huios is trading one contract ES.

Be kinda hard to scale that down.

plumlazy
 
I don't see anything wrong with Huios doing some papertrading when he's having issues. In many ways trading is like playing a sport. A competitive athlete does not solely compete. He trains, he reviews his performance in competition, he does drills to sharpen his skills. This is exactly what Huios is doing.
 
Can you recommend any good books/webpages for ETF/futures trading to someone that has a solid grasp of TA and equity trading ?
 
traderkay
It seems that every time you start losing you go back to papertrading... Some people would say that's the right thing to do. But going back to papertrading assumes that your method is flawed, right? But what if the method is good and it is SUPPOSED to have drawdowns? Then perhaps you see this in a different light..
More...

Traderkay,

I agree with you that every system will have it's drawdowns. As you probably know, my system is trendfollowing. While I was finding my niche, i was going from the 1, to the 3, and now am at the 5 minute chart. These progressions were due to me trading the noise, and not the real move. Everytime i changed charts, i papertraded for awhile. I am now set on the 5 for trading, with the 13 for general direction, an other s/r area.

When I moved to the 5, setups i was using on the 3, were not working as effectively. I papertraded for a few days, tweaked some stuff and tried it again. I still was not satisfied with what I was seeing at the end of the day. After talking to several ET'ers, i made some more adjustments and papertraded again. This week was the last week of papertrading.

So, here we are at the end of the week. I had a good week except for Wed, in which i overtraded, and instead of waiting for the trend to reveal herself, i tried to trade in the direction from which i thought the trend was gonna emerge. Jumping the gun. And by the time the real trend showed hereself, i was out of trades and patience, and watched that beatiful rally, and the eod selloff, instead of trading it.

So, the long answer to your question. I papertrade when I tweak my system. This week, most of my entries were right on, exits got better as the week progressed, as did my management.

One problem I saw this week is that I am trying to hit the homerun every trade, and it coming back to b/e, or even worse, a loss. Next week, I am going to put a limit order in for my profit, and a stop in for my loss. I have one condition, when I will cancel my target stop, and let it run. That one condition is what I hope will give me my homerun, maybe once a week or so.

H
 
AAAintheBeltway
... when he's having issues.
More...

Me!! Issues!!! :eek:

Is it that obvious?

:eek:

ps. I still owe you a pm. It's in the mail, as soon as I get some of these darn issues worked out. :D :D :D
 
9 trades, 3 wins, 3 losses, 3 b/e for +3.75 pts

Total for the week is 24.75 pts, adding in commissions is just over 20 pts net profit.

Next week I trade real $$$ again. Using hard stops, and hard target limit orders.

Have a great weekend.

H
 

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Good luck Huios,

Seems like you are making progress.

Just be an ice man when you throw that real money out there.
(and that advice from the original John McEnroe of trading) :D
 
Dear Friends,

I have made a decision to shut down “The Evolution of an E-mini Trader” until further notice. In a nutshell, AAA hit the nail right on the head referring to my "issues", and easy said something several weeks ago that still sticks in my craw about trading with scared money. And, something I knew along time ago, I have a discipline problem.

My plan is to deal with these issues, and then make a return to trading sometime in the future.

My current account now stands with a loss of 22%. I did not take any real trades today, and had one paper trade late in the day for a b/e of +.25 of a point.

I want to thank everybody that contributed to this journal. I have learned a lot these last 4 months trading, reading, and responding to your posts, and hope others have as well.

The market is a good teacher, if one is willing to listen to what she is telling you. It is time for me to do what she has been telling me all along.

My name, Huios, means a mature son in Greek. Mature enough to know that there is always much to learn. And now, I go forward to a new beginning in my trading career. I call it Trading 201.

God Bless,

Huios


:D
 
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