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Just want to preface that I'm not an expert, don't claim to be, and hope I don't come across as one. As a fellow humbled day trader I wanted to share a bit of what I've learned and hope it is in line with the direction that you are going(style of trading). I have always had a tendency to focus on small time frames cause I'm impatient and love the action. Other traders have encouraged people like me to focus on larger time frames because there is less noise. That is maybe good advice but its not my style and I can't afford the large stops needed so I look at the bigger picture for trends that can help me on the small time frame. This is not a breakthrough idea but sometimes we get caught up in too small a time frame and miss the bigger picture that can help us in the short term by giving direction or keeping our targets within reason or help us hold on for the extra ticks. One thing I've experienced is that when I'm patient and disciplined my trading(sim) is quite profitable when looking to these trends and channels for entries or exits. I am enjoying reading your posts and seeing your trades thanks for keeping it up. I truly believe you can reach your goals with persistence and discipline and the willingness to learn, I plan to.
@ridgcap I like that idea of zooming out and looking for broader trends/slopes
Well I closed out my IB account and I'm strictly trading SIM for now. Still learning a ton and like Mack says, the best idea is to review your chart and trades at the end of the day. Also I switched back to scalp only. I'm not going for any runners because it's too hard to recover from a couple losing trades. Plus on the SIM it's just about improving my win/loss ratio right now. I can worry about runners later after I'm consistently profitable with just the 4-tick scalps. I've noticed even Mack does a lot of 10-contract scalps with no runners.
Anyway, on to the charts for today. It was a profitable day with more winners than losers. I netted 7 ticks.
Really good day today. I was 7 for 7 on my trades even though I got spooked a couple times and took less than my normal 4-tick scalp target. But still, I felt really good about my reads today.
What a comeback today! I started the day horribly: 2 loses, 1 win, then 2 more losses. But I kept at it and was able to accumulate 8 more wins before the day was done.
The second 2 losses were an example of some really poor trading. I misread the market completely. Looking back it is totally obvious to me now that we had a channel working down, a break, then 2 legs down to a new low. This is textbook price action and I don't understand why I was trying to get long there. Even the winner I had there was wrong. I just got lucky on that one. I should have been anticipating the move to a new low after the down-channel broke. I should have been looking to get short or at least just standing aside and watching it play out.
But I'm proud of the fact that I was able to get back in the game and turn a really bad losing day into a profitable one. Also, I don't think I mentioned it here but lately I am trading 5 contracts, scalping out on 4 and holding the 5th for a runner. This is on the simulator, of course.
13 trades
9 wins
4 loses
+$216.80 (including commissions, which were considerable today)
Kind of nutty today. I was a little scattered, made some mistakes, made one trade completely by accident (which actually worked out), and like Friday I turned a losing day into a profitable one.
Uhg, crappy day. What upsets me the most is that I doubled down on a trade today. I'm not supposed to do that. If I misread the market and a trade goes against me I'm supposed to just take the loss and look for the next trade. Of course the double-size trade didn't work out and I got stopped out with my maximum 2 point loss. So I'm feeling pretty discouraged about that. On the plus side I was able to get my act back together enough to end the day with two big winners. You'll notice on my last chart that I added on. Under my trading plan, adding on is okay. As long as I'm adding on to a winner because I'm reading strength in the market's movement with my original trade. The doubling down on a loser, not okay. So I better let that be the last time.
10 trades
6 wins
4 losses
-$626.50 net including commissions
+$1292.20 net including commissions 2/18 - 2/24
1) It's a damn good thing I'm trading on a simulator, and not with real money.
2) It is clear that I need to continue trading strictly on a simulator for quite a while.
I am going to refocus and start fresh tomorrow with the following goals:
1) Trade on the simulator as I would want to trade my real money - i.e. don't break the rules, no doubling down, no counter trend trades, no "it looks so far from the EMA here so I'll just make a "value" trade right here, stick to the PA rules I've learned from Mack at PATs.
2) Improve my PA reading skills - target is an 80% or better win/loss ratio.
So yeah, that's where I am after today. The nice thing about trading SIM is that you can "reset" any time you want and start fresh.
Well the fresh start didn't go so well today. I'm really struggling to read the price action correctly. Also, after watching Mack's chart lesson for the day I realize I'm trading too often. I need to be more patient and wait on the clear setups.
I figured out how to use Market Replay on NT. So I'll be trading days from last year about this time. Might as well, since it's just play money and the Market Replay is perfectly realistic and I can make trades just like I can in live trading. A nice thing about this plan is that I can pause, rewind & fast forward whenever I want. I can trade on my own schedule and catch up on some sleep. I'm on the west coast so trading live means waking up between 5:30 & 6:30. I have the perfect "day job", working from home from 2 pm to 10:30 pm so it's always fit well with day trading 6:30 am to 1 pm. But it's still better for me to get a full 8 hours of sleep. If I ever get good at this PA stuff then I'll have to figure something out. Trading while sleep deprived is not a great idea.
Anyway, enough of that. Here are my charts for the day...
I've really enjoyed being able to trade replay data on my own schedule. I've been able to get more sleep and greatly increase my screen time and practice at the same time. When I'm waiting for an entry I can speed it up until I see a signal starting to form. Once I enter a trade I can again speed it up to see the result faster. So all of that has been awesome. What hasn't been so great is my ability to read the price action. I traded 5 days on replay, 3/3/2014 - 3/7/2014. I took 74 trades, 43 winners, 31 losers.
I'm using a stop of 8 ticks (sometimes 6 or 7 depending on the entry) and a scalper's target of 4 ticks. With that risk/reward ratio my win/loss ratio needs to be 70% or better. I'm glad I was able to produce more wins than losses but unfortunately it's not good enough.
All I can do is keep working on it. The main goal is to eliminate mistakes such as trying to get in on a first entry instead of waiting for a second entry, or counter-trend trading before a new trend has been established.
It's also interesting for me to observe my emotions while trading the simulator. I still get upset when I take a loss, even though it's just play money. And worse yet, I start trading more impatiently after a string of losses. It's really tough to refocus after a loss and patiently wait for the next solid setup.
I'll trade another week of replay data and report back here.
Well, it's been 3 weeks since my last post. I'm still trading strictly on the simulator, no real money. I've been working my way through March and now April of 2014. I'm using the replay feature on Ninja Trader.
I'm happy to report that my results are improving. Psychologically I've been able to feel more calm and patient while trading. I just watch the price action and I've been more accepting of it. I'm able to wait for the best setups. I used to have about 20 trades in a day but lately it's more like 7 to 10. My best trades are usually in the morning between 5 am and 9:30 am Pacific.
My plan for when I start trading live again is to have a daily goal of 2-3 winning trades, then switch to the simulator. I feel really confident about this plan. For the last several days of simulator trading I almost always find myself up 3 to 6 winners and 0 to 1 losses early in the session. It's a simulator and I'm trying to get more experience, so I keep trading, but I feel some reluctance. I used to feel worried about trading live and not wanting to switch to the simulator after reaching my daily goal. Now however, I can imagine myself feeling a sense of relief after hitting my goal and gladly switching to the simulator or even just calling it a day!
I had some issues with the replay data from Ninja Trader based on the contract rollover from March to June, so there is a gap between the last results I posted and these results:
So that's my update. I'm feeling good. I'm sticking with the simulator for now, at least until I have demonstrated 90% winning days. I also want to see a stretch of 20 or so days without a blowup like 3/24. But I'm feeling close to being ready for live trading (just single contracts) pretty soon.
