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Weekly Summary 5/11/15 to 5/15/15
Live Trades: 4, 2 winners, 2 losers
Week’s P/L: $103.78
Starting balance for the week: $2772.30
Withdrawals for the week: $0
Deposits for the week: $0
Ending balance for the week: $2876.08
Beginning account balance from first live trade on 3/10/15: $3000.00
Total Withdrawals: $0
Total Deposits: $0
Total Gains/losses from 3/10/15: -$123.92
Marker activity was good for the week:
14 winners at a minimum of 2R
11 losers at -1R
6 that got to 1R and came back to BE.
Takeaways from the week:
-It is possible, but not ideal, to trade 6 instruments on one laptop. Required some simplification of platform
-Continue to be mindful of TL BO failures and fading them. These are often the best trades because they have trapped traders
-On GC be mindful of congestion that continues to make lower highs or higher lows. These are often followed by swift moves. The trick is the timing.
-I am finding that I need to let NQ have a retracement after a TL break because these retracements will often be more than my 15 tick comfort zone.
-Continue to be mindful of NQ opening traps. Good trade opportunities.
-I was 1 tick from having a good week (GC long trade on Monday). I just need a couple of these to get some wiggle room.
-There are so many really good trade opportunities every day. There is no need to press anything or “look” for trades. Let trades present themselves with all the pomp and circumstance that a good trade should.
Unfortunately all stats are stored locally on Sierra Charts so I have attached two stat sheets, one from the laptop activity and one from the desktop activity.
Attached is a simple spreadsheet I use to track the quality of my judgement in picking trade areas.
During the trading day I will either take a live trade or place a marker in real time where I believe a viable set up has formed. The markers are used in lieu of sim so the platform does not have to be switched back and forth. It is not perfect but it works well enough.
I will place markers when a set up occurs in which I have a strong feeling, but am not 100% committed to risking money. Rather than just let the trade go with little to show for it, a marker is placed in real time as if the trade were taken. The markers are the thin red and blue arrows posted on the charts every day. The thick arrows are placed in hindsight and are not included in this exercise.
I will then track price’s progress from that marker for the remainder of the day. The results of the reasonable movement of price from both the markers and actual trades are logged in the spreadsheet at the end of the day. I can then look back over time to gauge the quality of my judgement and what “might have been” had I taken, and stayed with, all the set ups.
The term Total Reasonable Movement (TRM) describes price’s movement from the entry point, for and against. This is different from MFE or MAE in that movement is tracked for the remainder of the day whether or not I am in the trade. TRM is how far price travels before encountering an extreme pull back relative to the movement preceding it. Admittedly, there is a bit of judgement in determining reasonable movement. I like to track how far price moves against me also, in order to gauge whether I was looking at the market from the correct side.
As of this writing I have taken or marked 71 trade areas since starting this spreadsheet on 5/4/15:
25 reached at least +2R (often much further)
25 hit -1R
21 got to +1R and returned back to entry for BE.
This is all part of the process of building confidence in one's methodology, while remaining flexible to take advantage of those special moments when the market screams for a live trade
No trades, thank goodness. Slow moving day, not much ground covered. My read of the market was off. CL data was down for most of the day.
Marked three areas, all would have been losers. There were other opportunities, but the three marked were attempts at reversals. Not bad areas, but with the trend was the way to go today. The lack of energy in the markets threw me off.
5/22/15 Friday
Live Trades: 1 winner
Day’s P/L: +$75.12
One trade. Another good day of set ups and identifying set ups. The future me, as a confident trader, would have made $1000 by 6:00am today. As it is I can only dream of what might have been.
Marker and trade results:
3 winners
1 BE
More annotations on the charts today. I am going to try and do more of this to better detail my thought processes.
Weekly Summary 5/18/15 to 5/22/15
Live Trades: 2, 1 winner, 1 loser
Week’s P/L: $70.53
Starting balance for the week: $2876.08
Withdrawals for the week: $0
Deposits for the week: $0
Ending balance for the week: $2946.61
Beginning account balance from first live trade on 3/10/15: $3000.00
Total Withdrawals: $0
Total Deposits: $0
Total Gains/losses from 3/10/15: -$53.39
Summary of marker and trade activity:
23 marked or traded set ups
7 areas that reached 2R or more
8 areas that hit the stop at -1R
8 areas that got to 1R then came back to entry for B.E.
Marker and trade activity wasn’t as good as I would like but still shows an edge, with 15 of 23 trades getting to 1R before -1R and 7 of those getting to at least 2R and beyond.
Still not taking enough trades. I need a day or two of decent production to get some breathing room. The edge is there but I can’t fully take advantage of it since it often involves 4 or 5 losses in a row before the wins kick in.
Being picky and waiting for the best is definitely putting the odds in my favor. Over the past 20 live trades, price has gotten to +1R before -1R 85% of the time, and +2R 60% of the time. Unfortunately, I have not held many of these long enough to get full benefit, and the opportunities that feel really good are few and far between. Taking more trades would build my account faster but would be accompanied by a lower win rate and more losses. It is a balancing act I have to deal with until I get a larger account. First though, I have to take full advantage of the few trades I do choose every week.
My method relies heavily on judgement in the moment. The decision to mark, trade or pass is a set-up by set-up affair. I pass on many trades that meet all criteria. Sometimes they fail, supporting my decision, and sometimes they work beautifully, causing regret. I would like to be able to trade without having to make these gut feel decisions but I am not sure I can get my rules specific enough to do so. Over the next period I am going to fully test my rules by marking a lot more trades areas. I will still use the blue and red arrows to signify areas that I have more confidence in. I will use black arrows to mark areas that meet my criteria but that I am ambivalent about.
No trades. Marked more areas with black arrows in real time (thin). Black arrows simply mean that the set-up meets my criteria but I am not committed to either trade it or mark it with colored arrows for stats purposes. Interestingly, the black marked areas did quite well with 6 winners, 3 losers, 3 BE.
Colored marker results for stats:
2 BE
Pleased that the method continues to show promise
No chart for NG today as it was down for some reason.
