Okay so I've been banging my head against the trading wall for about three or four years now. I used to trade equities without any real success to speak of. Looking back it was actually very wild trading. I am astonished that I used to have a 40k Centerpoint account and was trading with the size that I did knowing what I know now and more accurately what I did not know then. Also I am Canadian so 40k US is roughly a million kajillion Canadian dollars.
In 2015 I had a particularly stressful month trading with a 15k draw-down that ended up breaking even. I told myself "You know what? I'm going to do that trip to Thailand I've always wanted to do". I'll try not to make this too long and just say that while it was a great trip I did end up hospitalized for a near fatal motorbike accident. Aside from eight broken ribs, punctured lungs and a fractured neck I was in a coma for a week. Interestingly enough a person can kind of see that story unfolding in my twitter account where I was trading wild, went to Thailand, had one post of a trade there and then no posts. MakesTrades
So the rest of 2015 was essentially a write-off for me, there was a lot of physical and mental recovery that needed to happen. To be honest trading didn't even occur to me and I was more leaning towards University or something in that vein. I was catching up with a trading friend I had on twitter and he told me how he had switched to trading futures from equities and it sparked my interest. There is actually a lot about futures that I prefer to equities in trading, mostly getting to know one or two instruments and not having to daily scan 1000's of potential runners that morning to trade a stock I've never traded before. Understanding there is randomness in all of trading the latter just seems infinitely more so.
I have tried a few combine attempts last year, trading NQ and ES and CL. Again this was still my trading as it always has been, thinking one thing doesn't work and jumping from that to the next and so on. I have purchased the Jigsaw tools and I've decided to trade only the CL for the time being. I think it makes more sense to focus on one thing and try to develop a method and approach rather than bouncing around as I always have. I do like trading Crude however my consternation is that I think I like it because of how quick and volatile it is. Whether my inherent attraction to that is good or bad I don't know but I am going to pursue the one that interests me the most anyways.
My method of trading it is largely discretionary, probably too discretionary if I'm being honest. I like to look for trends forming and get involved then move my stop up to reduce my risk. I've certainly struggled with taking profits too early and increasing stops in my last Combine attempts so I am hoping some transparency in this journal helps me exercise against the trading defects I have. I use a 133 tick chart with a few EMA's along with a 5min chart and the Jigsaw DOM / Heatmap to try and develop a picture for direction. I will post screenshots of this and my trades with my thoughts and reasoning.
Even in writing this I realize I don't have a clear method as I'm still unsure what my max size will be in a trade. I do think that 3 lots is appropriate and to have a daily mental max loss of -400 is the most I should allow. I do have to work most weekdays although it's as an independent contractor so my start time varies but generally 8am-4pm. I live on the west coast so I am PST and find that crude tends to become trade-able around 4am. My HOPE is that I'm waking up at 4:45am every weekday looking for an hour or two to trade before work. I should probably have more of a method and plan in starting this combine but I am hoping that the process of documenting my thoughts in a journal will help me refine a method that actually works for me.
A favorite follow of mine is FT71 and just listening to Ep: 103 on futuresradioshow as I write this I heard how a …