Tuesday, January 11, 2011
1/11/11... wow the symmetry of that number.....
Today was a great day. No mistakes at all. perfect trading and profits to boot... although profits are a byproduct and not the main objective. Three trades and all perfect execution.
Now yesterday was a different story. I had 2 trades before the announcement that were perfect. Announcement was OK to. Problem came after the announcement around 930 I think. I had been trading for 3 hours or so and was getting tired. I went to take a break. Just after I leave the market breaks out and I wasn't there to take the trade. It was a nice trade. I came back and waited for next trade as I should. Of course after a big move we hit congestion again and I was stopped out taking away my earlier profits. I got mad at the market and entered 2 trades off a different chart to try to make it back quickly. 2 mistakes and a further loss of profits. Now if I had just stayed with my main chart I would have had just one stop and more profitable trades ahead. But I got antsy started taking signal from a "faster" chart. Now... I had been trading the faster chart that would have been OK and profitable as well. But the two mixed together are not a good plan. The efforts to improve entry and exits by using two different time frames just causes more chop in a choppy market. It DOES NOT improve results!
I stopped and re-evaluated. I took the next 2 trades as per plan on my main chart and made back the losses as the system does make money if I just leave it alone and follow it! I climbed back to break even for the day and also hit my stop trading time.
I should have been up few ticks but ended up just breakeven.
After evaluating the day, I turned off the other chart with the other time frame.
Last week I traded 4 days and 2 were perfect (no mistakes, and profitable to boot) and 2 I made mistakes. This week I am batting 1 and 1. I would like to end at 4 perfect and one bad. If I can do that then I will start looking at another market as well as increasing size. I am only trading about 1 trade an hour. When the battle heats up I can always shut down the other market. I'm looking at the bonds, or grains. I hope to backtest this week so I can start looking at the charts in real time before trading.
Trader X
PS.... I can't tell you how much better it is to finally, after 6 years, make consistant profits. Much better than being on the other side of things!
Now yesterday was a different story. I had 2 trades before the announcement that were perfect. Announcement was OK to. Problem came after the announcement around 930 I think. I had been trading for 3 hours or so and was getting tired. I went to take a break. Just after I leave the market breaks out and I wasn't there to take the trade. It was a nice trade. I came back and waited for next trade as I should. Of course after a big move we hit congestion again and I was stopped out taking away my earlier profits. I got mad at the market and entered 2 trades off a different chart to try to make it back quickly. 2 mistakes and a further loss of profits. Now if I had just stayed with my main chart I would have had just one stop and more profitable trades ahead. But I got antsy started taking signal from a "faster" chart. Now... I had been trading the faster chart that would have been OK and profitable as well. But the two mixed together are not a good plan. The efforts to improve entry and exits by using two different time frames just causes more chop in a choppy market. It DOES NOT improve results!
I stopped and re-evaluated. I took the next 2 trades as per plan on my main chart and made back the losses as the system does make money if I just leave it alone and follow it! I climbed back to break even for the day and also hit my stop trading time.
I should have been up few ticks but ended up just breakeven.
After evaluating the day, I turned off the other chart with the other time frame.
Last week I traded 4 days and 2 were perfect (no mistakes, and profitable to boot) and 2 I made mistakes. This week I am batting 1 and 1. I would like to end at 4 perfect and one bad. If I can do that then I will start looking at another market as well as increasing size. I am only trading about 1 trade an hour. When the battle heats up I can always shut down the other market. I'm looking at the bonds, or grains. I hope to backtest this week so I can start looking at the charts in real time before trading.
Trader X
PS.... I can't tell you how much better it is to finally, after 6 years, make consistant profits. Much better than being on the other side of things!
