Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Thanks snax! It can be a frustrating process. If the index micros are tradable, it might be the perfect instrument to work past these kind of issues. Cheers amigo!
So I decided to paper trade the evening session to work on my issues and learn. I'm done trading for the night though. I took two trades on ES, 2 winners, +24t.
Trade 1: Entered long as the market looked to be getting bought up off the day session low. I held this trade through a wedge top at 1750 (oops!) and a sell-off. Was fully healed on a bull surprise bar at 1900. +1t.
Trade 2: Entered long again on a bull reversal (2910.75) off of a double bottom. Caught a lucky bull surprise bar up. Exited at 2916.5, +23t.
Lessons learned:
1. I've been reviewing my trades and learned: A. Sometimes I am weak handed and let go early. Sometimes this costs money but sometimes this saves me money. B. Sometimes I hold on too long, blow through a sell signal. When I hold too long I am often able to get back to break-even or +1t. I am surprised at how often I am able to do this. But sometimes I get trapped and those losses are on the larger side. Exiting has been my biggest issue lately.
2. I rarely hold to a profit target. Sometimes I miscalculate a target. Sometimes I misread context and this leads to an ill-timed exit.
3. On the positive side...I have done a good job of reducing impulsive entries. I generally know what I'm looking for to get into a trade. This has been my biggest area of improvement recently. I attribute it to constant study--it's all I've been doing on my free time. (Although I did play golf Sunday ).
4. I don't think this evening session trading was very productive.
One thing about practicing after-hours: you're not in the same market then. The players are very different, volume is different, participation is different and the pace of change is definitely different. It is still a market, so the basics of trading can be expected to work, but it's a different market. Lessons learned may not transfer over to the busier times during the regular trading day.
If you're interested in paper-trading during your own slower time (evenings), you might think about replay. Go back a couple of weeks so you won't recognize the price action (pick it arbitrarily and without looking at a chart first), and just do replay sim for the regular session. You have a near-unlimited supply of old data, and it's the session you want. Just don't go too far back, because the market does tend to change what it is doing over time, and you'll want to be somewhat near current conditions.
@GruttePier is doing this exclusively in his journal lately, because his work requirements temporarily don't let him trade during the US day session. It's working well for him. The only thing is, you need to take it seriously, which can be hard to do. But it's an idea you may want to look at.
Thanks BW! I'm going to try REPLAY next time I get the itch to trade after work. I've been using much of my free time studying the markets in the abstract by reading about them. Soon though, I need to ramp up practice! I'll be a REPLAY hermit. It'll be great !
1 trade on CL, 1 winner +2t. 4 trades on ES, 4 winners, +21t.
ES
ES sold off from the open. These selloff's have been my best trade. Generally I jump right on. Sometimes I get big winners with these and my losers are generally small. I watched bear bar number 4 go by, then the 5th and 6th consecutive bear bars go. But I didn't hit the sell button. At some point during the selloff I concluded that I would sell a pull back and catch the next leg down. I'll try not to make a habit of this.
Trade 1: I sold a pullback test of the 20 EMA (2910.25). I got three small pushes down. I exited (2906.75) +14t.
Trade 2: I sold the close (2903) on a breakout below the previous low betting on the next leg down. Nope! The bears completely abandoned me and the market vacuumed up. Not cool. I realized that the market was most likely channeling after the spike down. This realization stopped me from chucking my monitor through the window of my office. I adjusted my stop to 2912.25. After the market had moved up to the top of the channel trend line, it vacuumed lower and I was able to exit at 2902.5. +2t.
Trade 3: There was a wedge reversal near the top of the channel so I sold the close after 2 straight bear bars (2904.75). I sold prematurely here (2904.50). I think my nerves were fried from the previous trade. This bear leg got three pushes down and tested 2900 near the bottom of the channel. Damn! +1t.
Trade 4: I couldn't resist taking this short near the top of the channel (2905.25). It didn't really pan out. The next handful of bars were tiny and listless. Maybe coiling...this price action was a terrible grind on my nerves. I wasn't going to trade anymore today because of fatigue and bad nerves but I got in anyway. Exited (2904.25) +4t.
CL
Trade 1: Jumped on the selloff late and exited when reversing. +2.
CL seems good to trade, but I have a hard time following two markets. Probably shouldn't.
It's a little embarrassing having to report these tiny trades. Sometimes they are necessary, sometimes they are stupid. This behavior has become an interesting puzzle in itself to solve. I probably won't trade much tomorrow due to work.
I had to get out the door well before the open this morning and could not trade it. But I was able to trade the afternoon session a little...I started ~1000 PST. I made 3 trades on ES, 3 losers, -31t.
Trade 1: I thought this setup looked like a second leg trap with a nested bull trap at the top AND a double top. So I shorted 1 tick below a nice looking bear bar (2906.75). The bears ghosted, leaving me all alone in a Pain Trade. There were a few attempts to break below the EMA but it couldn't get through this support. Flattened (2908.50). -7t.
Trade 2: I took a long (2909.75) near the EMA and bull channel trend line, which had been holding support. The market broke channel support and I was anticipating a move back into the lower part of the channel (at least) where I would be fully healed. I fully anticipated being able to get out of this BE. I had my stop positioned 2 ticks below the start of the channel and it got hit to the exact tick (2905.75), and then reversed up! Damn! One less tick and I'm out unscathed...but here I am all scathed up. -16t.
Trade 3: I was pretty mad. Revenge traded kill bill style. I've never done a revenge trade before and it has been a while since I made such an impulsive decision. I'll take this as a mindfulness check . -8t.
Lessons learned:
1. My ability to stay cool has its limits. Don't forget that.
2. The afternoon trade has been a killer for me. After ~1030 PST, my results are terrible. I had assumed this was because of fatigue, loss of sharpness, diminished nerve. But today makes me question this. I came to the screen fresh at ~1000 and still performed like junk, so I question this assumption. I'll need to reflect on this and research. I may need to SIM trade the later part of the session until I get it figured out. I don't know yet.
On a positive note...Despite the bad day I manage to net profit $111 USD this week for my second green week in a row. AND it's been a real blast figuring this all out with all y'all on FIO!
I know this is probably silly advice, so disregard if not relevant, but if you are feeling the impulse to revenge-trade, you can resolve to yourself that moving forward you will quit after first losing trade. It isn't sexy, and its not a tom sosnoff "win or lose get back in there" but i'm not tom sosnoff and i have finite funds so I need to protect myself from, well, myself. just random thoughts, I think you are doing well, keep pushing
It's good advice! It makes sense: Don't put yourself in a position to make bad choices. If revenge trading becomes a habit, I'll probably need to do something like that. But revenge trading isn't itself the problem. I was super steamed after getting that stop hit...that's the real problem right there. You can't get mad.
An interesting read from Dr. Brett. I got a nice chuckle as well... I remember reading something along the same lines from @Tap In* in his journal. Good stuff. Happy Easter!