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I didn't have much time to trade this morning because I had some things to do. Fortunately the market was really moving and I was able to pick up 3 quick scalps. Huge range today! I traded a little more when I got back home and picked up a few more winning scalps but I'm not including those trades in my results for today. Anyway, here are my results:
7/7/2015 +$139.44, 3 wins
-bbdsan
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I'm pretty happy with my trading today. There was one point where I got a little thrown off by the PA. Actually, it's more accurate to say I wasn't reading the PA well. Anyway, at that point I already had 4 winning trades but then I took 2 max losses (8 ticks) back to back. That was rough. I find it difficult to recover from that, going from a nice winning day to a few dollars in the hole. So, what I'm especially pleased about is that I was able to come back from that today and put together several winning trades. Not only was I able to get back in the game, but I ended up with one of my best days in a while. I stopped trading about 45 minutes before FOMC and didn't trade after. Although it was super tempting on one particular short setup - it was such an obvious pattern and it turned out to be a great trade. But I skipped it. A) I already had a good day and didn't want to ruin it, and B) the PA after FOMC is just too volatile. So I just passed on it, no regrets.
Really struggled today. I got wedded to the idea that prices were going to move up the whole time that they were moving down. That never works out well and I took quite a few losses. I recovered a little late in the session but still, almost gave back all of my profits from yesterday.
I'm trying to reach a goal of $3000 profit in my demo account trading only a single contract. Once I reach that goal, I'll have another go at real trading.
Yesterday, I experimented with larger profit targets and stops. Mack ( Learn How To Day Trade Using Pure [AUTOLINK]Price Action[/AUTOLINK] - [AUTOLINK]Price Action[/AUTOLINK] Trading) posted a short article suggesting this because of the increased volatility and larger bars lately. So I tried trading with a 5-tick target and 10-tick stop. I started off with two wins but then I took a really big double size loss which is explained on my chart in more detail. With the two 5-tick wins under my belt and my strong conviction that prices were moving higher I guess I thought it was okay to have an even bigger stop than 10 ticks. No, that really wasn't okay but in the moment I told myself that it was.
So anyway, after that big loss I spent the rest of the session trying to climb out of that hole. I was able to get most of my money back but my trading after that big loss was still a bit sketchy. A couple of my entries were questionable. The interesting thing with all of that is the idea that mistakes can compound. My first mistake was the stop that was too big, and that led to some impatient entries. So I just have to be really careful with that and just try not to make any mistakes to begin with (execution mistakes like stops that are too big or doubling down on a loser). I'll always make mistakes with the PA. I'll misread the PA from time to time as I'm learning how to do this. That's okay. But there's no excuse for execution mistakes. Those will kill me in the end.
Even though I lost money yesterday and Thursday too, taking me further from my goal, I'm really okay with it. It's worth it for the things I've learned. And bonus, since I'm doing all of this in a demo account it doesn't cost me a dime. The only cost is the time I'm spending on all of this. But I feel that is well worth it, too. In the end I want to do this for a living and enjoy all of the freedom that comes with being a professional day trader, even if it takes me a couple years to get there.
My losing streak continues. Today was really bad! I took another big loss on a double-up position. After that I made a couple revenge trades and lost some more. The only thing that saved me was a double-size 3 point winner into the end of the session. The only positive thing I can say about today is that the broad market was up again and my long term investments are doing well.
7/13/2015 -$22.70, 7 wins, 3 losses
7/14/2015 -$99.11, 8 wins, 6 losses
I'm going to try to spend some time on replay tonight. I obviously need more practice. A lot more.
I traded on Ninja Trader with replay data from last year (7/16/2014). While it's not completely realistic in the sense that the timing is different from real trading (assuming you speed up the replay, and I do), I still think it has a lot of value as a way to practice reading PA. I have no idea where prices are going ahead of time so I have to draw in my trend lines and pay attention to the 21 EMA like always. I have to decide on good places to enter and which direction to trade. So it's valid practice that really just allows me to shorten my overall learning curve. Based on all of this, I have decided to start including replay results (win or lose) in my progress towards my $3000 goal.
Here's the first day that I have counted:
7/16/2014 +$180.82, 6 wins, 3 losses (Fully legit = no restarts / do-overs like I have done in the past)
The expression that fits my trading today is, "The ends justifies the means." I realize that what I did today was risky and it will probably work out less frequently than not. But for today at least, it worked.
What happened was I got short. The market went against me and I got short some more (2nd contract). The market continued going against me and I moved my stop. It went against me some more and I moved my stop again. Finally, I had my stop as high as I could stomach and the market finally reversed and allowed me to get out with a small profit.
You're probably saying to yourself, "Dude! Don't make a habit out of that or you'll go broke for sure." And, I'd agree with you. But let me just state a few things which, combined, helped me feel confident that there would be a reversal and it would work out.
Prices had swung on both sides of the 21 EMA during the overnight session, so odds were good that it was going to be a "range day".
Prices had broken below the green trend channel working up, so odds were good that prices would make a leg or two up to a new high and then reverse.
Given that it was shaping up to be a range day, odds were good that the overnight high would hold as resistance, at least for a 50% retracement or so.
I did have a hard stop 4 ticks above the overnight high and was prepared to take a big loss if prices went that high. Fortunately my stop survived by 3 ticks and I got the retracement I was looking for.
On the way back down there were a couple good short setups so I got a couple extra scalps out of the move back down. Again, I don't want to make a habit out of doubling up or trading more than 1 contract when I get back to real trading. But I will fund my account with enough money to be able to do that if necessary. I'll need to have some flexibility.
I'm guessing I'll get some criticism from some of my readers, and that's okay. I can take it. Just bear in mind that I'm doing all of this with play money and I'm still learning. It's not like I'm out there trying to trade 10 contracts with real money, so go easy on me, okay?