Summary
Read Full Post.....
Yesterday I had a pretty good read on the evening session. For example, I didn't get worried when JPY futures dropped below my entry point, as I could tell from the structure of the chart that it was just the Asian traders taking profits and closing out their positions. My CAD short was spot on. EUR short also worked out well.
In fact I was feeling on top of the world with a 100% win rate.
Then came the North American session. I made one trade in ES and it turned against me for a 1pt loss. I made that back with a EUR long. However, I started getting tired, and decided to take a small nap before waking up again to head out for work. I woke up from my nap to find that I was short the EUR @1.3583, and EUR was currently 1.3627 !! What the heck happened? Then i remembered that I left a open order to short EUR before I took my nap. Talk about your dumb mistakes. Then it got worse when I tried to make up for that lost mistake by shorting EUR @1.3628. It almost worked, but I wasn't patient enough to hold that short all the way back down to 1.3583. It wasn't the lost profits that I was frustrated with, it was more just the one momentary lapse in concentration which screwed up my performance.
Trade Mgmt was decent, and could have been better with more patience.
Entries were good.
Focus & Alertness: was pretty good until that one moment of sloppiness in my part
Patience: could have salvaged my loss if i had waited longer with my EUR short @1.3628
Discipline: stuck to my plan for most of the session
Staying Out of Trouble: was pretty good until that one moment of sloppiness.
Monday, May 11, 2009
It's The Mistake
Friday, February 06, 2009
The New Same Old Same Old
Traded S&P500 EMini Futures and DO breakout today.....
Read Full Post.....
1st Trade: It was near the end of the pre-market run-up, but I just hadn't realized it. Stopped out for a 2pt loss.
2nd Trade: Not being content to take a loss, I tried to play a double top reversal without waiting for confirmation. Took a 1.75pt loss.
At this point, I felt dejected, and needed a way to recover. I was watching
Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (NYSE:DO) this whole time, so I decided to play the breakout @65 with half of the position that I wanted.
Once ES started running up, it was hard to enter any position, long or short. So, I waited for ES to finish its run.
3rd Trade was based on purely watching the tape - it was cycling between micro-resistance and micro-support levels, so I hit the ask @micro resistance, and got out before it hit micro-support
4th Trade of ES was a play of the 7am reversal. Price had been drifting upwards according to the white trendline that I drew. Keltner channel started to roll over, I could tell it wanted to test the trendline again. Shorted on the imminent drop to trendline, and covered when it looked like 856.25 was going to hold up as micro-support.
Today's screw-up was not being able to wipe out the 2pt loss from the first ES trade out of my head. Things went a little bad from there, until I recovered some confidence with the DO breakout trade.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Don't Be a Hero
Tried to trade the S&P500 EMini (ES).... or maybe I was just farting around .....
Read Full Post.....
Took 1 trade of the S&P500 EMini Futures (ES):
Shorted @821, initial stop@823.
It was a nice and classical Box Play Pattern that developed, and the bias was to the downside as evidenced by declining VWAP, and the struggle to fill the gap down.
When price fell down to 817, my greed led me to decide against following the rules of the Box Play Pattern. In the past few sessions, I mentioned that I always tended to take profits at the end of the buying/selling wave. This time, greed drove me to go against my natural tendencies. I decided to wait around for a second wave of selling. It never came. Lost 4pts of potential profit. That hurt. Luckily I had the sense to move my stops to breakeven to minimize the pain.
UPDATE: Never underestimate the power of the 7am reversal !!!
Monday, February 02, 2009
Fortune Favours the Prepared
Read Full Post.....
While I was scalping 1pt in ES, 
I missed out on a great breakout by CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) .
Couple of things that I can do different:
1) review the 10d, 15min. chart of stocks that i am stalking
2) put all stocks into QuoteTracker.
3) remove non-essential real-time charts from my display
4) remember to keep using volume charts for stocks !!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Trade Update on Ultra QQQ ProShares (AMEX:QLD)
Summary
Read Full Post.....
As mentioned previously, I bought Ultra QQQ ProShares (ETF) (AMEX:QLD) back on Wednesday @68.
On Friday, I sold it when it broke below 73 the second time in the afternoon session. I could have, and should have sold it when it was trading at 78 in the morning, but I didn't pull the trigger.
The main problem was that I did not have an exit strategy. I think I've got a handle on picking the right time to get into the trade, but I don't put as much time and focus into figuring when to exit the trade.
Wait the for the pop from the FOMC meeting? Fade the gap? Move stop to breakeven and let the profits fall where they may? Look for a break of trend? All of the above thoughts were floating in my head and as a result I was unable to make a decision.
Obviously for the next trade, I will have to work out an exit strategy.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Burned by the Beans
Summary
Read Full Post.....
The Soybean futures market behaves totally different from the stock index futures, and behaves very differently even from the other grains (corn and wheat). Now I have the rest of the day to stew over what I did wrong. Probably the first one is to ask myself why I jumped into trading this market so impetuously without first studying it some more to develop an understanding of its characteristics.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Silver Futures Trade
Read Full Post.....
I made 39 ticks on the Silver Futures (ZIK7) early in the morning, but gave most of it back on some stupid scalp trades that wasn't worth the risk.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Post Mortem: First Solar, Inc.
Gotta burn this one into the memory banks....
Read Full Post.....
I was too steamed to realize it at the time, but now in retrospect, the execution of the entry was poor, since there was no volume to support the move to break above 33.6. Once I was in the trade though, I screwed up the placement of the stop. If you had somehow bought FSLR @33.61 and it's now just after 2pm EST on Feb 13/07, where would you have placed your stop?
Knowing what I know now about how First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) swings wildly, I think I should have set a more looser stop. It was real frustrating to have this happen to me twice in one day (the other one was ESRX). After that loss (at least psychologically it felt like one), I couldn't bring myself to buy the subsequently sweet, and orderly breakout above 33.6.
Nothing like a spanking like this to teach me what to do right for next time.....but I sure wish there was a less painful way....
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Wednesday's Trading Results
Yesterday's Options mistakes showed up today.....
Read Full Post.....
Closed out GS Mar07 230 Calls @1.40
Closed out MA Mar07 120 Calls @2.60
The problems with both options trades was in not selling yesterday in order to cut down my losses. I should have sold both as soon as the chart told me that the trade wasn't going to work out. I was indecisive as to how to play it once I had bought it, and that indecision cost me.
Today I had 6 or 7 alerts go off, and wasn't able handle so many different charts at the same time. I passed on a few of them, but made three daytrades today (HMIN, FSLR, PCLN), and promptly sold them as soon as the chart told me that the trade wasn't working out. In retrospect, none of them had valid setups since volume did not show up, so I shouldn't have taken them in the first place. I will start investigating how to add volume into my alert criteria.
Long EXEL @10.27 this morning, holding for swing.
Wasn't at my desk and missed out on MIND @14.6, and didn't have an alert slapped onto AAPL, so I missed that one, Oh well.
Canadian Uranium trades:
Long UMN.to@4.93 (Yes, the entry sucked, and I was too late for the 4.76 entry in the early morning, but decided to take a chance anyways since there was good buy volume coming in).
Long DML.to@11.55
Sold PDN.to @8.69
Still holding UUU.v
Today I think I may have been getting away from my style, which is to hold for the swing. I have not (intentionally) daytraded US Equities ever, so what I have been looking for in the past few months was for the kind of setup that would have high probability of follow thru buying the next day. Typically it is decent buy volume, a tape which I've gotten to know a little, and a chart that I am familiar with. Today's losing daytrades had none of those qualities.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Options Trade: Nymex Holdings, Inc. (NMX)
Read Full Post.....
1. Why did I take this trade?
It was going up, and I was itching for an options trade. I bought Nymex Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: NMX) Mar07 140 Calls when I saw some big blocks come in at the bid. Probably not the best reasons, in retrospect.
2. What was the initial stop?
The initial stop was 128. It was briefly hit soon after I bought, but soon went back up.
3. Why did you exit where you did?
This morning, ICE was looking pretty bullish, and I felt that NMX would ride on ICE's coattails. I wanted to sell into strength, and no longer cared if I left additional profits on the table, as I was more focused on not making any more mistakes on this trade. I put in a limit sell of 2.30, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that someone took my offer about 15min. later.
4. Is there anything you would do differently?
Yes.
The entry was poorly executed and could have costed me a lot. I basically bought at the ask. The bid/ask at the time was 1.50/2.00. I screwed myself on the entry by buying at the ask. From now on, I will walk up the bid in order to get a better entry or look for options with smaller spread. By that I mean I will start at some discretionary price higher than the best bid, and start incrementing my bid until it gets taken out. I did this before with GROW and got a good entry.
In any other set of circumstances, I would not consider this a screwUp. But, in light of my new set of circumstances, I need to consider this a screwup so that I will push myself to improve and cut down on my mental errors.
ScrewUps are more memorable than victories anyways.
NetVibes Me!
BlogLine This!
