Working on Consistent Profitability

Quote from ~~~:



~ don't be too hard on yourself ... you started trading fulltime only about 3-mth ago ..when i'm really mad at "something" ... i throw myself into the swimming pool to cool myself or i'll take a cold shower ... but if i am in the office ... i will wash my face in the restroom (Thanks god ... i'm not into heavy makeup type of lady... so it's easy for me to wash my face LOL) ..whenever you are mad ... try spraying some evian water sprays to your face ... to remind yourself to calm/cool down ... it's a great beauty product to guy/gal too :)

hmmm...about compounding errors huh??? may i suggest some crazy & silly ideas ...tlow ... just spray some evian water mist to your face when you make your first error in a trading day ... if error happens again ... wash your face ... if error happens again ... stop take a shower ( i'm assuming you're trading at home) ... after shower... then you decide ... still wanna trade or wait for the next day? :) if you feel good= trade ... if you still feel lousy= stop trading for the day... sometimes we might missed a few good trades but it really doesn't matter coz the market is always there & good opportunity is always there too :)
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~~~,

I like your ideas. Something different I think is good. Maybe I will give that a try. Taking a shower also gives me time to chill out and re access everything so I like that.

RedNeck,

Keep the food for thought coming...need to think about this stuff :)

Bigsnack,
Now that Ive slept on it, the first part of the day does feel like a small victory in that I did "some"things better. Just wish it was "all" things better...my learning curve with trading has been very interesting thus far. Totally not what I expected.
 
Man it is unbelievable how this thing just keeps going up. Any time even the small push down comes a bunch of bulls come in and pop the thing right back up. Interesting to watch.
 
Quote from tlow:

Man it is unbelievable how this thing just keeps going up. Any time even the small push down comes a bunch of bulls come in and pop the thing right back up. Interesting to watch.
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Markets are irrational and prices can be pushed far beyond what they probably should be. Fear and greed, combined with hearding mentality create some powerful trends.
 
Quote from bigsnack:

How long have you been trading?
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Ive been trading options for over 10 years...nothing to serious, just swing/momentum trades with big movers, set my stops and targets and walk away for the most part until something happens. Off and On day trading for the past year and half...seriously day trading about 3-4 months.

Picked a bad time to switch over to try day trading...my options stuff would be up huge! oh well...im in for the long haul.

I decided to drop everything else with trading while I focus on learning how to day trade. My options strategies dont make money on consistent monthly basis...its more of a supplement to my yearly income. Thats why I wanted to give day trading a go, wanted more of a consistent income if Im ever going to do it full time.
 
Quote from tlow:

~~~,

I like your ideas. Something different I think is good. Maybe I will give that a try. Taking a shower also gives me time to chill out and re access everything so I like that.
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Another trick... tlow... maybe in conjunction with washing your face or taking a shower. Sometimes in the heat of the battles, we tend to lose orientations. "We can't see the forest for the trees..."

Looks like you watch a chart on ES that is tick based and is similar to a 1min interval (or smaller).

Stand up. Look at the charts at a farther distance. They will give you a different feel. Come back... switch the ES charts to a higher time-frame. Start with daily, then drill down to 60-min, then to 10-min, then to 5-min, etc... Re-orient yourself with the higher order. That might explain why things were not going right for you.

Whenever you don't see clarity, switch the chart to a higher time-frame. That is a trick which served me well.
 
Quote from Bolimomo:
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Yes! I do this as well. I take a quick peek at the 4 hour chart in the morning to get my bearings of the overall trend. Also, when I find that I am searching for entries, I actually get up from the computer and look at the 512 tick chart from about 8 feet away. It totally helps me regain my bearings and make sure I am not fighting what the market wants to do. This is a great recommendation!
 
So a rather unexciting day for me today...which I guess is a good thing since I think there has been WAY too much excitement lately :) I was a little cautious going into the morning b/c, again, I didn't want to make any mistakes or at the very least keep the mistakes small. Further, I was hesistant on taking any long trades b/c of the gap below but by 8:00ish it didn't look like it was heading down anytime soon. But still, for me, the breakouts weren't that strong and even if I looked to go long off the long uptrend line..at that point the uptrend was a little long in the tooth and had already bounced off the trendline like 7 times going back to yesterday so I didn't want to get caught. It kept grinding up every so slowly...kinda interesting how many times it bounced off that trendline...that line goes back to yesterday after the FOMC mintues.

I had a "kinda" missed trade around noon to go short at 1177.25...I say kinda, b/c I had it all set-up ready to go and almost sent a stop sell order...but I really wasn't into the the trade b/c it involved going short...there was pretty good confirmation on the trade, but I still chose to sit it out. Im okay with that. Im also ok with how I handled it moving down a bit. Just waited for the next set-up to come, which was my only trade of the day.

Trade 1:
12:30- Short 1175.25 Stop 1177.50 Target 1171.75
12:56- Move stop to B/E
1:07- Stopped out Buy to Cover at B/E

+0.00 pts

I originally had the trade set-up to go short at around 12:15...it came within a tick and then bounced back up about 3 points, after it started coming back down, I felt the trade still had some validity but at this point I was much less confident with the trade. I am wondering if I made the correct decision by entering at the 1175.25 level...Im wondering if I wouldve been better entering at the 1177.00 level since it blew right through there. Obviously, in hindsight, it would've been better, but watching it live I wasn't sure if this was just turing into a pullback and we were going to continue higher.

Anyway, the trade didn't do much. I just hung in there and hoped for another leg down which never came.

Overall, not a bad day. I think I made good choices by staying out of the market when I was unsure and not chasing trades when I realized I was probably picking an ok/correct entry. Again, rather unexciting...but I think I may like this feeling a bit better. It feels much less stressful and I still have the whole day to do whatever...instead of criticising myself the rest of the day for being foolish :)

Total Trades: 1
Winners: 0
Losers: 0
B/E: 1
Total Points: 0.00
Avg. Win: $0
Avg. Loss: $0
Total Win Rate: 0%
Total Profits: $0

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Tlow,

It's always best to stay out when you aren't sure of things. Here are some charts to chew on, let me know if they help.

Daily:
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4 Hour:
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512 Tick:
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Another cool thing that I noticed by looking at your charts Tlow is that by watching how many ticks are created per 15 minute time frame, you can get a pretty terrific idea of where the high volume price points are and whether the high volume is coming in on moves up or moves down. I had long ago removed the grid from my chart, but now that I see it can actually have a useful application, I may dabble with turning it on and seeing if it furthers my edge. You learn something new every day, thanks!
 
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