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My name is Brian ... and I am pretty new to futures.io (formerly BMT). hoping that this is in the right place.
A recent challenge by a fellow trader went something like this:
"If you can go 21 days of green or profitable trades in a row, you should be pretty sure that any bad habits have been broken and you are on your way to being a great trader."
So here we are .... BC's 21 Day Green Trades Challenge. This is basically a journal for me to see if I can do this challenge and become a better trader. Along the way I will be dropping little nuggets about how I got into trading and what I have been doing successfully and not so successfully, as well as bits and pieces about me. Hopefully will not be too boring for ya'll
The rules ... as I was told .. are as follows:
You can trade as much or as little as you want ( Zero trade days do not count as either red or green tho) and then tally up your PnL at the end of each trading day. If you are in the Red .. Start over .. if you are green ..... check another day off as you are one day closer to 21 Green Days.
For me my clock or day will start at 5 PM PST or basically when markets open back up for trading. I will be trading the TF, ES, YM, NQ, and 6E.
If this interests you .... by all means join me in this challenge. Feel free to post your trades or charts and any ideas and please, if you have any suggestions or comments ..... I would love to hear them.
I will start today 11-21-11 and start posting trades and pics each day along with my progress.
So today i get to start fresh .. and I do mean fresh ... as I was down $ 41.80 for the day. I made a total of 7 trades, all on the YM, scattered throughout the day. I was trading mainly off of a 4 range chart looking for shooting Stars and Hammers that formed in either Support or Resistance areas .. or Supply and Demand zones, whatever you want to call them. I would also take them if up against a MA where prior support or resistance was.
I was kind of uncertain as to "when" price might turn as it seems a bit oversold for most of the morning so kept a tight stop on these trades. As price went in my favor I would move stop to b/e +1 or 2 depending on strength of move away from entry area. As it turned out . I got stopped by a tick quite a few times .. only to see price go where I thought it was going all along. Sooo .. I tried not moving stop a few times ... in an attempt to stay in the trade .... and yep ... price ended up taking me out on those too.
I made a Jing video of all the trades (after the fact) . but it has been finalizing now for about 30 mins .... not sure if that is normal .. so I might just edit and post that vid tomorrow.
Today I had 2 trades. First trade was a big ol loser .. 2nd trade i got stopped at b/e after moving stop to b/e +1.
I have been trading a strategy where I will take the Globex Hi/Lo and usually get to lock in a few points. Today .... apparently falls into that % of times it does not work. I normally trade 2 contracts with this .. but this week I had decided to only do 1. I usually will go into this trade with a 1.5 stop or a total Risk of $300.
(once I get 5 posts down I will be able to post pics of these trades)
Once I got into this trade, it wasn't too long before the heat started getting uncomfortable ... and upon further analysis, i noticed the .D Floor Trader Pivots were just a tad lower than my 1.5 stop. Typically it seems that price will split the difference between GH/GL and a FTP when they are within a point or two. So when entering, I thought I would be okay with the 1.5 stop. Well, I sorta broke one of my rules and moved stop to a few ticks below the FTP S1 line. Thinking, "still within my normal Risk tolerance amount and could keep me in this trade. (Yesterday, got stopped to the tick too many times only to see price run where thinking it would). So .. that is what I did .. ended up getting stopped out with a -19 ticks. Ouch. By the way .. my target would have been over 40 ticks .. so a 2:1 Ratio woks for me, would rather see 3 or 4 or 5:1 .. but hey .. I will take what I can get. Today .. I was the one getting taken
The 2nd trade ... was later in the day .... I got stopped out at b/e .... and that turned out to be a good thing. Won't bore you with the details.
Thanks for checking in, if you have any comments . please do so.
Good luck with the 21 day challenge! I will try and join you next week (on paper anyways).
Good stuff with the journal, the only question I have so far is how do you determine when you want to exit a position? I read you have a 2:1 risk:reward ratio but I also read two trades where you were adjusting the stops @ breakeven as well?
Thanks for thinking about joining me in this .. I figure the worst thing that can happen is that we become better traders
To answer your question regarding stops or when do I exit, this is what is in my "plan." Of course I am still trying to get a grip on emotions and really .. I mean really sticking to my plan. Much easier said than done .. especially when Live for me. I just hate giving up those ticks. All those hard years of working hard and fighting for every penny has apparently helped me keep a tight grip on money. So, I am working on that and embracing the costs of doing business and "trying" to not move stops before my plan says I can.
Okay, so depending on which market .... I will usually allow myself to move stop to b/e +1 when price has gone in my favor at least 8 ticks. (8 for the ES, 6E and 10 for TF, NQ and YM). I will then trail stop price with a technical stop where I look at candle shapes/patterns along with Moving Averages and Support and Resistance areas.
I am trying to keep my targets open and use the stops to be proven wrong and let the runners run. I am still figuring this out as right now it sure seems like I leave more on the table than I would like to. But then .. I have also seen the times where I exit and take profit only to see price really really run. If I could just master this aspect ... I will be one happy camper.
I wil go into a trade if the Risk to Reward is minimum 2:1, and really look for bigger moves. I try to grab the extremes which usualy allows those better ratios. Since I am all about preserving my capital, I will move stops to protect it once price has gone in my favor. That is where you are seeing my adjust the stops to b/e+1. For me so far I see about 50/50% on getting taken out and it being a good thing vs ... being taken out and then missing the run in original direction. I try to determine if it is a retest of area where I entered vs is it the actual turning point Will also be trying to keep an eye on any sort of divergence that might help me see "if" the retest is going to be stronger or weaker. If there even is a retest. Again, still trying to figure this all out so if you have any comments or suggestions please let me know.
That is the basic strategy on my stops. Might go more into detail in a future post.
So today was a green day for me not by much, but hey I will take it.
I did 3 trades today, 2 in the TF and 1 on the ES and ended up with $110.
First trade on TF, I made a total rookie mistake and screwed up on the Matrix and was lucky or unlucky to get out with +1 tick. I had gone in with 2 contracts and once filled . I went to split the targets up so that I could scale T1 out fairly quickly and cover the Risk I had on this one. When I went to split it ... price was into me for like 3 or 4 ticks of heat (had a 1 point stop) and apparently when I clicked on the split the targets up .. I hit the wrong price and it put the target just about where price was at that time .... about -1 tick so was negative $10 right off the bat ..... I was like WTH? and kinda freaked out .... and ended up forgetting the bigger picture of where I thought price was going to and just moved my stop up into +2 as soon as price was in my favor by like 5 ticks v(thinking to make up and cover the screw up - stoooopid move n my part) and of course, I got stopped out at +2 (thank goodness no slippage today) and then got to watch price go in direction I thought it would. It would not have hit my T2 .. but with Tech Trailing Stop .. I would have done much better than the +1 tick overall profit. "Oh well ... forget about it .. next trade .. focus and double check what you are doing" were the voices I was hearing in my head. ;-)
2nd Trade was in the ES with 1 contract, where I got stopped out with +1 tick after price moved in my favor like 4 ticks. I got nervous on this one and moved stop as all of a sudden the picture I was seeing with candle patterns was changing rapidly. I really did not like that trade about 1 minute into it and looking back I never should have gotten in it. (Emotions of wanting to trade so badly .... like that mosquito bite .. you just want to keep scratching it ughh) It turns out that was a good call to move to +1 as price did go against me and would have taken me out at original stop.
Third Trade was in the TF. I went short with 1 contract as price formed a shooting star off of a 6 Range chart penetrating a Moving Average and a resistance Zone. I ended up getting stopped out with +10 ticks on this one. Had a couple of chances to bank $170 .... but I was really wanting to let this one little contract run. It didn't. That is where trading multiple contracts seems to be soo helpful, being able to scale out .. bank some profits and still let it run. (I have more thoughts on this . and will post those thoughts in a future post).
So there we are for today .... gonna stop early and not give any back, especially as it is a Wednesday before Thanksgiving .... volume should really drop off as we are now into the East Coast lunch hour ... peeps should be bailing out for the Holiday as well, me included :-)
I should be able to start posting pics after this post according to the futures.io (formerly BMT) rules of having to have minimum 5 posts before posting any pics. Yay!
I will most likely not trade on Friday, will wait tile Monday for Day TWO .. woo hoo!
Thanks for reading ..... Have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend!
The challenge was to see if I could go 21 "Green" days of trading. I am doing this with a "Live" account.
The theory or concept behind it was that if I could go 21 days in a row of being profitable, I should have or will have broken any bad habits that might be keeping me from doing that now. Technical Analysis or Emotional/Psychological stuff .... either way, after 21 days in a row .. should be good or better than when started..
If anything ... by recording and keeping a journal such as this ... will definitely help me become more aware of my trades .. how I enter, how I exit, and how my head is affecting my decision process. worst case scenario .... "when" I hit 21 days in a row ... I should be a better trader than I am or was when I started this.
