As a follow up to my Feb 2019 trading journal challenge, I have since become Elite and now am starting from March my trading journal. I plan to keep populating this journal for the foreseeable future until I am consistently profitable and perhaps on an ongoing basis. I welcome question, comments, etc.
My target is be become consistently profitable on SIM & go live in May or June. If necessary I will stay on SIM longer. 1st goal is to improve week over week, from about -$500/wk to zero (Net: including commissions). My next goal is to achieve 0-$500 / week (incl commissions) trading 1 contract, and then up from there for a target of $1000/wk with 1 contract.
Summarized Trading Plan :
- Trading mostly ES & CL in Globex session somewhere between 7 - 10 pm EST. Other markets such as NQ, YM, 6Y etc on standby in case ES & CL chart is sideways or choppy.
- Started in Feb in Sim with 10k acct, trading 1 contract for no more than ~1% risk at any given time. Daily target is $200 on average, daily max loss is $200, target is to have 75% winning days. Max & ave winner to be greater than max & ave looser. Take a break after 2 consecutive losses, either shut down for the day or wait for a new trend.
- Method is mostly trend trading the ema bounces with usual targets of about 4-6 ticks, increased target to 6-8 ticks on bigger retracements, pivot magnets or bounces, etc.
- Ema's 8, 34, 89, & 200. Trades are coded as 34B (34ema bounces), 2B (bigger retracement on 89 or 200ema bounce on 2 time-frames), T2 (slingshot, when LT scholastics is over-bought/over-sold & Short tern Scholastic %K of hooks in trend direction), and 1/2 D (counter-trend divergence trades, with divergence on multiple time-frames), especially is pivot bounces.
- Platform Ninja Trader 8, Broker is GFF.
- Trade approx. 5-10 trades / day.
- Trade using Renko charts, tick charts used as a reference sometimes. Using mostly 2 timeframes (1 third on another screen). Mostly price action using Ema's to help determine overall trend direction and trading retracement retracement bounces on reversal momentum candles (or bricks). I use a sensitive MACD to indicate divergence, and ST/LT scholastic to help with cycles or time entries.
Journal :
- My journal will start with a summary of market, times, any red flags etc.
- My journal will then list each trade including their specifics.
- My journal will include short daily report card, such as the good-the bad-the ugly.
- I will attach marked up charts that refer back and correspond to each trade.
- Weekly, I will look at weekly stats vs targets.
- Monthly, I will look at week to week performance, and monthly stats.