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What is Horst going to tell me that he already hasn't?
Most of the time, it is so obvious and clear to an outside person. You think, well, the technicals say this and then you enter etc.. Or they don't say this and then you DON'T enter...
It isn't so much the technicals. Those I know and have. It is following them... haha... And, knowing when to hold-em, knowing when to fold-em...
Horst will probably read this. (wink wink)
So, I believe Horst has a lot more time doing this and he has removed his cobwebs. Some are more quick to remove those cobwebs than others and some self sabotage themselves.
Now, I have a question to the posters on this journal. Does anyone commenting pull 3K+ per day out of the markets, CONSISTENTLY? (not meant to be challenging)
Then why not? What is stopping you? Technicals, mental, choice, etc...?
There is never an easy answer and we all suffer from differing stupidities. I believe there is a mutation that occurs slowly that allows consistency.
I could go back to my old days of +5 points, -5 points.... Wow, sounds like fun... My goal is CONSISTENT, no big losing days and capital preservation with a slow ramp up on equity that never stops.
Others goals might be 300.00 and happy and done for the day.
Ok, now I am defensive and rambling... hahaha...
That is it, this week I will be up 15 points! (haha, nothing like saying that to 'challenge' myself even more)
I will continue to evolve at whatever pace I need to as what I feel is right. If I still have this journal in 3 years (year 5 for me) and I am still breakeven, then I may fold my cards for good.
To be able to pull out 3K a day everyday in TF you would need to trade a lot of contracts and get a good range day.
I would ask you a question instead, what is your goal ?
You might wonder why I am asking you this but you see we all have different goal I daytrade mostly just as a challenge as I don't need to make 3K a day and depending of how I see TF I might trade 1 to 3 lots, most I traded was 6 and to be honest I don't need to trade more then that as I am retired and have other incomes beside my daytrading so I prefer enjoying life, that is why when my daily goal is achived I usually stop daytrading.
Honestly, my goal is to produce 10MM+ per month. That is my BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and I realize that won't come from intraday trading the TF.
I have a non-profit that I started a few years back. In remembrance of my sister who was kidnapped when I was a kid and never returned. Most of my profits from some good sized real estate projects were going to dump into that life long goal. To fight pedophilia and sex slavery.
Now, I could easily go out and get grants and create the ends by another means, but I like to be 'in control' and enjoy making money. I am one of the few people who actually enjoys just building wealth! Not for drugs, sex, to lay on a beach, to feed my ego, or do other nefarious things. (I guess I could choose not to judge those who do...)
My goal is to leave a legacy, that will last more than one lifetime.
Ok...hmmm. Back to trading.
My short term goal is to create a sizable income to put me full-time trading. Now, I could downsize my life and probably retire if I moved to a cheaper location in a year or two, but I retired once already for about 1.5 years and I about killed myself. (No Joke...I couldn't keep my mind stimulated I guess!)
So, I would say I NEED a minimum of 6K per month to feel even remotely comfortable. I figure that is 13 trading days (being safe) so that means I must make 4.6 points per day trading 1 contract. Or, .46 trading 10.....
Now, goals are not about 'survival' but about prospering in my opinion so my real mid-term goal is probably 2K-4K per day consistently (which means 80% of the time) or an average greater than 2.5 points per month per day with at least 10 contracts... shwooooooooooo
I believe I can do that..... I believe as I grow I will pick up different things, learn new tricks, change my style a bit and trade more to...well, what the Universe (god if you are Chris-chin) has for me...
My challenge is that I have certain skills in my industry to where I can easily make a few hundred thousand a year if I dedicated myself to it and I could easily make a few million over the course of a couple years after a project or two. Even in this market we are choosing to stagnate in...
Does this answer your question...? I think I confused myself in the process but let the readers know a bit more about my-self....
I know we're just "talking", but your trading style will have to accommodate your trade size. Scalping here and there using NinjaTrader isn't going to work when your trading 1k lots.
I feel that there are the HFT (true HFT, not amateur) on one side of the scale, and then multi-day position trades on the other side of the scale, with the middle being more or less "noise".
Since I can't trade HFT, personally I am trying to move to the longer term trades. I don't mean to step on your journal, just an observation that you can't simply throw contracts at the problem (I think we agree). There is always a price to be paid when achieving alpha -- risk.
Today like today is a perfect example. Whereby I believe I had some bad 'luck' and bad trading habits that cost me. Days like today you lose a lot at full contracts and the MFE was very small to give me back any chance.
I realize that this is an intermediary step, but I do have a long term plan that includes multiple forms of income but yes, this again is just a stepping stone. If I can do intraday with 1K or 10K, then I can swingtrade and intraday to greater returns (hopefully)...
We will see, I see this as a 20 year journey just like any profession, not a year and I will be RICHIE RICH and get massages all day long. haha... Sounds kind of good actually after today...
The more lots you wanna trade implies you need to buy when market is declining and approaching or at possible reversal area as it is always easier to get filled with big quantities and that's exactly what big hands are doing.
To be able to do that you need to be able to see these possible area and of course have some kind off risk reward ratio considering the amounts of contracts you will put in the market you have to consider that if you go long that is because you expect it to go at least 3 or 4 points up minimum. Considering this is not always easy and involving big losses you have the option to buy the retest of that low, again this needs to be done in a certain way as you can never know for sure at how many ticks they may reverse from the previous low that was printed so you need to divide your lot size in 2 or 3 blocks at different price keeping the last block 2 or 3 ticks from that low.
I will once again give you an advice, you can disregard it if you want, but from my point of view the system you are using will not help you achieve the goal you have. You need to put all this from a big perspective and understand that basically the way markets are driven on a daily basis are still same patterns as 50 or 100 years ago and they had no PC's. Of course intraday swings are a different story specially with the internet as everything is almost instantaneous.
I don't know if you are following as for me it is easy to say that but I understand that from your point of view you might think this might be all chinese to you or other foreign language or you might even think this is all bullshit and I would tell you that it is ok to think that way. It would be very easy to show you charts with all explanations as to why I bought or sold at certain areas but unfortunately I would be revealing too much stuff that took me a few years to discover and then fine tune.
To conclude I am just trying to open your eyes at a new way to look at markets.
Wow, what a day. What started off as a typical day turned into a storm.
I figured long. So, I stuck with it and I didn't prosper due to my poor trading execution and management.
Trades 1-5, Wow, still can't believe I got so chopped up. Seemed long to me, but I will have to review my vid.
Trade 6, PERFECT TRADE! Wow, good job. Too bad I set it to break even so soon! I guess I was thinking it was going to go down to my area... It never did... Had I held my stop I would have probably been knocked out for a 2.2 point gain which would have probably been the end of my day.
Trade 7, Well, again, shooting for the area...
Trade 8, Thinking short again to my area... Pick up a few points, but not the best entry/area.
Trade 9-11, Ouch, chopped up again.
Trade 10, Nice trade, but a little late. The market seemed 'thin' and jumpy so I was not able to hit my entries in the best area, but I held this for a nice +2 points and the it came down and knocked me out on the tick. OUCH... Again, had I held my stop, I would have been good.
Now, some observations.
1. I do not wish to take back any of this trading. This is me, this is what I did and I accept it.
2. I will continue to do better. I will spend more time focusing on setups and actually following them!
3. I didn't follow setups today at all. My brain was kind of all over....
4. The market was confusing to me and yet I was still clicking....
5. I had some bad luck with long bars, that is the way it goes some days. Move on and focus on good entries, longer runs.
6. I need to reevaluate the value of moving my stops. Today it cost me about 5 points total. That would have left me at breakeven and most likely I would have stopped trading earlier with slight loss.
7. Let go of today and trade what I see. I must laugh at today for it will do me no good to criticize myself, the system, other traders, the market or anything else.