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Showing posts with label futures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label futures. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Results for Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Overtraded, -2.5pts
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My system keeps giving out good signals, but I was not focused today, and was too late for the first 2 signals. My lack of focus also led me to miss out on the gap fill setup (long 1086.5 at 635am PST). Frustrated, I decided to take some trades outside of my system's signals, and lost.

I took my system's 4th (and 2nd to last) signal, and made back some of my losses.
Small consolation.

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Friday, July 09, 2010

Results for Friday Jul 9

3W, +2.5pts.
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My system gave 4 signals, and I found 2 discretionary setups.
Trade1(discretionary):
L1064.5, stop1062.5, T1=1066.5
I exited 1065.5

Trade2:
S1070.25, stop1072.25, T1=1068.25
Did not take this trade, although the correct entry was to wait for the spike right into 1071 reistance, and short there.

Trade3(discretionary):
S1068, stop1070, T1=1066
This one was a setup for a reversal of the pullback and trying to catch more downside.
As it turns out, there was no more downside, especially since right after I entered short, I got a long signal from my system, so it the correct decision to exit 1067.25


Trade4:
L1067.5, stop1065.5, T1=1069.5
passed on this trade, as it was hard to adjust to the long bias right after I had exited my short.
It actually never quite made it to its target, so probably would have gotten 1.5pts if I had actually taken it.


Trade5:
L1069.5, stop1067.5, t1=1073
This was a valid signal from my system, so I faithfully executed this according to plan. I was 1pt into the money when some ambush selling came out of nowhere, which scared me out breakeven. Had I had the courage to hold on (the pullback did not break the bullish structure of higher lows), I would have reached my target.


Trade6:
S1073.25, stop1075.25, t1=1071.25
I took this trade, as it was a fade of the tick extreme after 3pushes up. Exited too soon at 1072.5.


I traded like a timid small player today, but the most important thing was that I did not make any mistakes in execution. Trade management as always, could use more improvement. But the incremental improvement is encouraging.

Monday will be important, as I need to keep the momentum going of avoiding any mistakes, and staying out of trouble.

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Thursday, July 08, 2010

Organizing my system

Just a note on how I will be organizing my system.
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I think the best way to organize my system is to post my signals onto Twitter, and the daily update and discussion/analysis of results onto this blog.

I have created a new account, @pTradeSystem to facilitate posting of my signals.
I can't guarantee that I will post every signal, but the ones I do post will be as close to real time as possible.

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Results for Thursday, July 8, 2010

1W 1L, +1.25pts
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My system generated 5 signals today (1 was discretionary, outside of the system), but I only took 2 trades:


Trade1:
S1064.5 stop1066.4 T1=1062.5

I passed on this trade, as it was right near the open

Trade2:
S1067 stop1069 T1=1065
I front ran my signal, and entered short too soon at 1066, and got stopped out 1067.5

lost -1.5pts

Trade3:
S1063.25 stop1065.25, T1=1061
I executed and managed this trade much better, exited 1060.5
+2.75 pts.

At this point, I stopped taking any more signals from my system and was done for the day as I had other things to attend to.

Trade4:
L1057.75 stop1055.75, T1=1059.75

Trade5:
L1055.75, stop 1053.75, T1=1057.75

Trade6:
L1055.5, stop 1053.5, T1=1058

Still need to work on following my system better, and not try to out guess or front run the signals. But overall, an improvement over yesterday, as I was patient enough not to take any boredom trades while I waited for a signal from my system.

Key is to be patient, as it always was the key, and always will be the key.

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Wednesday, July 07, 2010

results for July 7, 2010

2W, 2L, -2.5pts

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Trade1: L1028, stop1027, T1=1031
exited (too soon) at 1028.75

Trade2: S1035, stop 1037, T1=1033
passed, did not take trade

Trade3: S1039.5, stop1041.5, T1=1037.5
stopped out
This trade would have worked and target was realistic (above the 1036 support), but I needed a bigger stop because it was counter trend.

Trade4: L1038.75, stop 1036.75, T1=1041.75
did not take trade

Trade5(discretionary): L1040, stop 1038, T1=1042
exited 1041

Trade6: S1044.75, stop 1046.75, T1=1043.5
did not take trade

Trade7: S1050, stop 1052, T1=1049
did not take trade

disappointing today.
After getting stopped out, I stopped following my system. Eventually, I tried to fade the trend day, and wound up losing 2pts overall on the day.

Today's lesson is simple:
Follow the system!

Had I followed the system, I would not have lost 2pts.

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Tuesday, July 06, 2010

daily summary: Mon. Jul 6, 2010

5W, 1L, +4 pts on the day.



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My new system gave me 8 signals (but I only traded 5 of them), I found 1 setup on my own, for a total of 6 trades as follows:

Trade 1:
L1029, Stop 1027, T1=1031
actually exited 1030, +1pt

Trade 2:
S1033, Stop 1035, initial T1=1031
exited 1032, +1pt
This was right on the money, but I screwed up the trade management and exited too soon (was impatient).

Trade 3:
S1036.5, Stop 1038.5, T1034.5
scratched.
I was trying to front run my short signal here, and paid for it dearly with a scratch trade. It was counter-trend again, so definitely needed to wait for the confirmation.
The signal was to short 1038, which turns out this was the HoD.

Trade 4:
L1033.5, Stop 1031.5, T1= 1035.5
stopped out 1032
lost -1.5pts
This was my own discretionary setup. Again, I entered too soon and should have been more patient in waiting first for confirmation of the reversal.

Trade 5:
L1025.5, Stop 1023.5, T1=1027.5
+1.0pt, +1.25 pts on 2nd contract
Much better waiting for the confirmation, a bit better on the trade mgmt.

Trade 6:
L1019.25, Stop 1017.25, T1=1021.25
+1.75pts, +0.25pts on 2nd contract
Good execution, good trade mgmt.


At that point, i was done for the day. My system gave me 3 more signals (L1019, S1020, L1015), but i did not take them.

So, the signals are golden. It was mainly lack of patience (entering too soon), and poor trade mgmt skills (exiting too soon) which prevented me from banking major coin today.
This is encouraging for me, I know what i need to do to improve, will try again tomorrow.

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Friday, July 02, 2010

Trying out New System

trying a new approach.....
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To help address the issues in the previous post, i will be trying out a new mechanical indicator to help with my discretionary trading.
The mechanical indicator will work to supplement the discretionary trading of key Support/Resistance levels.
The purpose is to provide more discrete and rule based decision making so that I won't get frustrated at not taking valid signals.

I will post signals from this indicator for the next week into this blog, and also record the results of that signal. Then after 1 or 2 weeks, assess the result, make whatever tweaks are necessary, and then go live with this indicator.


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Friday, June 04, 2010

Frustration

Hanging out at MyPivots.com these days...
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For the second day in a row, I made the right call on the direction of the markets, but was unable to capitalize.
On Thursday, I called for a probe of 1105-1106 prior to the gap fill attempt (ie. drop down to 1097). The market action transpired exactly as I had expected: Rally to 1105.25, then dropped down to 1097.25 (before it retraced and then dropped further down to 1091).
Unfortunately, I went short 1101.75, and exited too early at 1099.75

On Friday, on the break of 1079-1078, I called for a drop down to 1070. However, I was unable (or maybe I was too scared?) to find an appropriate low risk entry point to ride the drop down.

If these were one-off problems, I would not be so self-critical. But I have noticed that they are starting to become a common pattern now. Both of these missed opportunities can be traced to the same problem of a fear of losing money. But is there a deeper root cause? Am I not confident enough in my ability to perform? These are questions that I will contemplate as I reread Mark Douglas's "Trading In the Zone" and Dr. Brett's "Enhancing Trader Performance" in search of an answer that makes sense.

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Thursday, April 08, 2010

Market Notes for April 9, 2010

Summary

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Bears have something to work with now, as we've had 3 consecutive lower highs. Buyers are still buying dips. I think volatility will increase tomorrow, we could see a 16-20pt day.
For ES, the afternoon session needs to stay in 1183 area, or we could get some profit taking sequences.
Euro: yesterday's trade idea wasn't touched. Let's try again:
Short from 1.3410'ish area, target 1.3350

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Market Notes for April 7, 2010

Summary

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The market has made a good run in the past 3 or 4 days, so I will on the lookout for some profit taking sequences tomorrow. This week's weekly pivot 1170.75 hasn't been tagged either, though I'm not sure if it will be done tomorrow.

Euro: short 1.3440, target 1.3310

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