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Hey none of that! Seriously, if you are making a bunch of mistakes make a list of them then pick two or three, make a post it note, stick it on your monitor, and just focus on those for a couple days. Just move down the list once or twice a week.
Just kidding. I'm actually feeling pretty good about this. The mistakes I made yesterday were non-fatal, and my sim trading the past 2 months has been profitable overall. The Trades-Not-Taken log has been great, further boosting my confidence. I'm going to sim all next week, study my butt off, then go live the first of the year.
The last 2 weeks have been spent looking back over the year and thinking about the way forward.
I started dabbling in futures trading in the summer of 2009, mostly part time, and completely 'seat of the pants'. By the end of that year, even though I had lost about $4k, I decided to do this full time and really give it a shot in 2010. Here's the cliff notes version.
Last year I traded 468 contracts and had a net profit of $650 after commissions.
I read 17 books, some twice, as well as an unknown number of online articles, trader journals, and discussion threads from several web sites. Last summer I printed the 5 min chart for CL from the beginning of the year, and each day after printed the current one. Can't even guess how many hours I've spent reviewing and annotating those charts. I have a spiral notebook that I use to jot down interesting ideas, or sketch patterns for later review.
I switched indicators and strategies multiple times. Traded the Woodies CCI for a few months, then Pearson's PPS for a few more, then stochastic, MACD, stochastic and MACD, until finally dropping them. The trouble/allure of indicators is sometimes they work like magic, but often give false signals. Knowing when to ignore them is difficult.
Last summer I began trading what I think is price action. The trouble with starting this for me was, so NOW what am I looking for? My chart reviews and reading had hinted at some patterns, but how to get the confidence to trade them? I started programming some simple pattern recognition and gathering stats by hand, and this is an ongoing process, and potentially a black hole. I could study and test this stuff forever. To date I have a small number of setups that I have some confidence in and will begin trading them live tomorrow.
My biggest obstacle right now is trade management. What I'm going to initially do is preserve capital first by moving my stop to BE after 8 ticks. I know this will result in numerous scratched trades, some of which will then go in my favor. I plan on using the Shadow Strategy to document how the trade would have turned out without moving the stop. I'll revisit this after 1 month.
The things I didn't do very well last year was to take time out to study my past journals and trades. Partly this was because I wasn't marking up my charts very well with the trades I took, but mostly I think it's because I didn't put a high enough value on it. When I would change strategies, it seemed that looking back over trades that I took for reasons I wouldn't use again seemed pointless.
So here it is. It's game time. Good luck to everyone.
Things moved a little fast for me today. There were several signals on CL that I took but wasn't filled on. At 06:40 I had signals on both CL and 6E. I chose to trade only 1 market and picked CL. My order wasn't filled, but the 6E trade would have been very nice. I'm quite happy about that. Don't care about missing a trade - I'm happy the signal was a winner. Someday when my attention span increases, I'll trade 2 markets simultaneously.
My Passed Trade log is turning out to be worth it's weight in gold. If I would have taken every single trade signal, I would have been way ahead. I'll keep doing what I'm doing for the rest of the month, then review the evidence.
I started re-reading the Trading Coach book and one item mentioned for change was there needed to be some pain involved, that just thinking about making a change is not sustainable. I'm planting the mental seed now of being a 1 tick scalper instead of a successful trader. Mentally, I'm watching my account grow a tick at a time while my trades leave me in the dust (not too far from the truth). Feeling a little uncomfortable about it.
Trade #1
After a enormous drop, CL started to calm down and formed a double bottom at 08:10. Went long on the next bar break of that spinner. I was only looking to target 15 ticks since this was counter trend. After 7 ticks (couldn't even wait for 8 ticks - I'm such a pussy) I moved my stop to BE+1 and was stopped out before I got the move I was expecting. +1
Not happy at all with how I traded today. When I look at my 2 CL trades it looks downright embarrassing. My second trade in CL was a clear violation of a rule. I read these things over every morning before trading. What I usually do (and didn't today) is read the setup rules again as I see it forming. Didn't do that and paid for it. I wonder how many times I'm going to violate my rules before it ends.
If there is a bright side today, it's my Passed Trades log was smoking, and I'm starting to feel real discomfort at not taking every trade.
Trade #1
Basically, I was in disbelief that CL could continue up. Higher time frame charts looked like price was stalling and starting to roll. What was really happening was price was forming a bull flag before the next push up. The only thing I did right on this trade was to hold it until the entry candle closed, then move my stop to the top of the candle. Got slipped a tick. -8 ticks.
Price was definitely slowing down, and all HTF charts were looking red. The 10:45 bar was a failed hammer, and the next bar was a strong red candle, closing under the EMA.
Trade #2
I waited for confirmation of the trend down, and here's were I screwed up. I ignored that 10:55 bar telling me this wasn't a strong move. I meant to enter at 90.14 (price was at 90.12), but CL jumped right as I clicked the order and submitted a market order instead of a limit order. Got 1 tick better, for what it's worth (nothing). -11 ticks.
I had 2 6E trades. The first one I was slipped a tick for a BE entry. Got 1 tick on the next one.
Going out of town tomorrow, so I probably won't trade unless something happens early.