Twenty-twelve [P&L]

Day traded today and yesterday.

Yesterday, I did a good job of staying out of trouble. No trades yesterday. I shut down before the 1 solid trend appeared (after 11am). I have mainly been watching RLM. But given today and yesterday, I'm pretty sure I'm going to dump it completely from my trading...

Trading either ES, NQ, or YM yesterday and today would have been far better than taking any trade in RLM. Right now, the patterns and trends in the ES, NQ and YM are much more distinguishable for some reason (higher tick/volume counts?). There were several early signals in these markets that would have net a solid amount.

It seems like there is always going to be something I won't expect that will get in the way of making this easy as it should be. I have a plan, I've been following my rules, I've done my testing. It's down to random bullshit now.

-$119.80 on 2 RLM trades. Both met criteria and I bailed early on both as I saw myself becoming trapped. Had I held longer, I would have exited with more loss.
 

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+$182.6

Took the first trade that met criteria. I added the finishing touches to my system yesterday. The blue lines are stop/profit targets. The guy from e-mini watch explained why 'cute' methods for exit don't work that well (such as trailing stops - you have to exit on a retrace). I decided to use a 1:1 - R:R ratio because you can make money with a high probability trade. Right now I have it set to 4 ES points which seems fair as the ES has an 20 day intra-day range of about 10 points.

When I get more comfortable day trading, I might take more trades. But to cut my bleeding I just do 1 or 2 a day right now. Of the 5 signals I could have taken today, 3/5 would have been full winners, the other 2 would have been partial 1-3 point losses. Some of the mid day trades could have been skipped though as frequently range trading occurs around noon, and price action held to that today.

Trading is extremely boring and should be easy if you have a plan and your system defined 100%. I read recently if there is one component to your system that is subjective then you are gambling. I think I've haven't taken responsibility for this until now.
 

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Tremendously boring day. If I had taken a trade today, it would have been a short around 830. Nearly every trade signal after that was in the same location as the previous one (market is not moving anywhere).

Days like this in ES remind me that it mite be wise to have at least 2 other instruments to watch that aren't 100% correlated.
 
I figured out the answer to a question I posted on here about alerts:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3707854#post3707854

If you create a strategy in OEC and include the "Playsound" function, it works when you run that strategy simulation on the chart. Not even the guys at OEC know that... This will be useful for when trading multiple markets, for anyone that cares.

So I was messing with that this morning as well as thinking about revising my strategy. I'm thinking about scraping the extra EMAs altogether. Considering the strategy I'm using currently incorporates 4 MAs, I can cut it down to 2. I prefer minimalism and I think the more complex a system is the easier it will 'break.' I am thinking of using previous price action in order to filter entry instead of E/MAs.

I wanted to take 2 trades today but did not. I didn't take the trade at 0832 for one main reason: My 'trend line' wasn't in long mode. However, it turned out to be the best trade. Therefore, this trade wasn't planned. A disciplined trader doesn't take unplanned trades. The 4 point target would have been hit shortly after entering this trade.

The market consolidated afterwards. After breaking upwards, another trapping pattern occurred @ 1427. I did not wish to take this trade (yes when I was watching it) because the market had risen ~13 pts already from top to bottom. Probabilities of success fall off the longer a trend lasts. However, if you took this trade, a reversal pattern occurred 1.5 pts below the 1427 entry. This is exactly what I was thinking of looking for when I didn't take the unplanned trade at 0832; 2 sets of traders are trapped, the ones that took longs at 1427 at 0918 and around 0930. The market has already risen more than it's 20 period average volatility value as well (10.67 pts). At this point, my signals were going off as my "trend line" was in short mode. However, each of the signals I had were 1 bar signals. I've been on the fence about taking those setups for a while. Of course sometimes they work beautifully. This trade would have hit it's 4 point target as well.

So really there were several reasons for not trading. Unplanned best trades and consideration of plan modification. I do have in my plan if the best trade has occurred and I missed it, then I don't trade.

On a good note, this week was positive for the 3 days I could trade but of course I can't support myself on $182.6 a week. One winner Wed, no trades today or yesterday.
 

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A better trader would have made at least 3 times what I did today.

I'm happy with my 4 pts. Plan execution 100%

The larger time frames might have helped me stay in this trade.
 

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End of year equity curve. Somehow the final dollar # is off but I'll fix it for 2013. The main point is the slope of the curve.

Mods, feel free to retire (close) the old me (thread).

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