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I'm still a little mad at NT and Phillips, this was my first 1/2 month with them and they have messed up my account now twice. I will be calling there 24/7 trade desk, as they keep screwing my positions up. I have not positions, yet the past two days have shown that I have open positions. I'm not sure what's going on...
frustrating.. I came to NT and Phillips for stability and speed of data, execution, etc.. and this is happening...
well after a few days of screwups by Phillips, I'm back in the saddle. I was on the phone with 24/7 service last night and sent my trade logs to them. One nice thing about having a trade journal on this site, is record keeping.
Today I traded 2 trades:
1) The market looked range bound off of key volumes that I look for. The blue lines are drawn by me when a I see a certain volume hit. I went short initially thinking it would drop, which it did. A mistake that I did was hit close and the price action jumped up 1 full point on me. So that was a very small trade.
I saw the market selling off with decent size volumes, so I was leaning short. But, then my real job needed my attention. I was able to watch the sell off but not participate. But I was able to land trade 2.
2) Trade 2 is my favorite setup of all setups in the market. I was able to get take a decent trade when I saw the POC hold.
Hind site, of course I should have held longer, would have could have, etc... But I walked away with over 2 points today.
I’m having some issues trading futures. Mainly, I find that I’m always looking at them and avoiding other things in my life. I’ve been placing way to many trades and I’m no longer enjoying it. With that, I decided to go back to stocks, where I’m more willing to hold for longer for a swing trade.
With futures, I was always wanting to get in and out, rapidly thinking that it would work, but I quickly found out it does not workout the way I thought it would.
So I’m now using NT8 with TD Ameritrust for stocks.
Well I’m back to trading futures in Ninja Trader 8. Lots of things happened in life: Promotion at work, longer hours. Had a decent run with 5,000 of AUY, so I put that money back into futures.
Let’s see first week back, I provided WS almost $500 due to my own stupidity. Let’s just say trading stocks is different than trading futures for me, I was using the hourly chart and building a position in AUY over a month…. Let’s just say that didn’t go over very well with Futures :-)
Note to self, I should have looked at my log here first!
Ah the psychology of trading. I’m now journaling here to keep my thoughts on paper and to write out what I’m observing in both myself and the market.
1. I’m back into the sim. Not because I need to learn NT8, but because I have to break stock trading from my mind.
2. I’m setting up rules, so that I can break them, then come here and write about how I broke them. So that I can keep you all entertained!
General guidelines that I want to trade by:
1. 1 micro at a time, scalable up to 5.
2. Stop with the 6 tick stops…. You have no idea how many lunches I bought people this week, just because of that!
3. Chart 1: 15 min Volumetric chart, with Alligator and volume profile indicators only. This is my trading chart
For data points, I like Trades, Volume, Buy vol, sell vol, delta (bar), and Cum Delta.
I also like the POC highlighted per 15 min bar, I’m looking for looking for certain sizes as I don’t see them often,
4. Chart 2: 15 min regular candle chart with Alligator for a longer view of the market (well longer view is subjective)
5. Dom: I’m looking for high volume zones and marking them on my chart. 10K for the MES, 15K for the ES
In stocks, what really worked well for me was building a position below the 200 day, then riding it out…. In futures this is the quickest way to the poor house.
Futures are really trade the trend, stop bucking the trend, as you will be left behind.
1. Work (which pays the bills) was absolutely insane, Lots and lots of work! The good news is, my work is / was so important to my company, next year I get a double bonus.
2. I took all my money out of NT, as I was not able to trade at all and didn’t want a $25 month no activity fee.
3. My buddy got into trading FX, so I put $1500 in an account to see how that would go. After dabbling in it for a little bit (when I had time) and I realized that I like futures more.
4. I tried to put money in TD Ameritrade and swing trade during this time, but that still didn’t scratch the itch!
So that was my year in trading.
Fast forward to 4/30 when my major work initiative completed. This week, I funded my NT account with $5,000 to start trading again. Yesterday, I got everything up and running and did some sim trades.
I’m only trading MES, and I’m not sure how many contracts I want to trade. I think up to 10 for starters. That gives me 5 buys of 2 contracts.
I did change some things up. I’m using a couple different indicators now, the TTM squeeze indicator, the 21 EMA and 3 regression channels, A. 80 length 1 SD B. 80 length 2 SD, C. 80 length 3 SD.
Well day one of trading futures (again). I feel like I'm starting all over :-)
Time to dial it in! All the indicators I spoke about above, drove me nuts today!!! So did trying to change the charts timeframes. At one point, I was only looking at the DOM, as my chart was so ugly.
Setups:
1. Yesterdays under the 21 was a prime setup, but I was only using sim; to get NT set back up. Lots to remember!
2. I Missed the buy in, as I was leaning bearish, thinking a retrace to 3930 was in order.
3. I start building the short position at 4015 ish, as that was the Point of control (most volume / transactions) on Monday and Wednesday.
a. I got to 20 contracts and got scared… sold it for the $290 loss
b. Went short a couple more times above the POC – made back $100
4. Due to me walking away as I needed to think – so I mowed my lawn 😊 I did not take the 3rd Red Circle – missed short
a. This is the better setup, as it is under the 21 EMA and below the POC
5. The pullback to the lower Point of control on Tuesday was a definite buy.
a. Two buys: 1 contract each
Overall, down $180 for the day. I probably could have made back my money if I stayed with the large position sizes, but I think sub 10 is good. I'm leaning towards 8 contract, with 4 buys of 2.
Feel free to trouble shoot and help me tighten up my trading.
Trade 1: I screwed up and went long (when I meant to short). That was straight user error.
Trade 1 continuation: Instead of taking a loss, I decided to average into the play, as the support channel was in my favor, as was / is the day. Aka, I expect the market to go up.
Trade 1 resolved: I was able to scale out for a whopping $9 profit.
Trade 2: I wanted the market to push to my green zone, and find support off the hidden small channel, which it did.
Trade 2: I put a buy / stop / profit target in the system, as I was not fully able to watch it, as work is a thing :-)
Trade 2 resolved: It hit so fast I was like DARN...
I then decided to watch the play, unfold in front of me, and focused on my real job.
Observations:
1. I'm not good at shorting the market!
2. stopping at 4 contracts was healthy for me. This was not stressful at all for me
a. I was down over $200 at one point, and really thought about adding more contracts, especially on the bounce up. but didn't. I'm happy with my decision.
3. when I see the bottom, I need to lean into it.
a. I had 4 contracts in the chop zone, but only 1 contract at the bottom where I wanted the market to hit.