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Looks like it was Rates day across Europe, or the equivalent of FOMC day in US. Have been told not to play on these days as the people I want to be playing with are steering clear. Not sure if this is correct or not but it certainly seemed like bots were ticking the Bund and Bobl too and fro. In a couple hours watching it I didn't notice any iceburgs / size holding the market so much in any particular place. I could see a few steps that could be leaned on in the Bund but the market didn't do anything exciting around these points to trigger me to do anything - just turned around and slowly ticked the other way... mostly.
I did however pull up the Eurostoxx and noted a high inverse correlation between it and the Bund. Is this normal? I had noticed it on previous days but it was pretty pronounced today.
I switched over to practicing fading some big iceburgs using market replay of the T-Bonds from a while back. Normal speed, 2X, 4X 8X got interesting. Seemed to notice I was more efficient at entering using keyboard hotkeys than the mouse. Hopefully next session some big size sticks out for me to practice this on.
My couple of unsuccessful trades in chart below. I am a bit concerned I might be getting too used to losing at this game! Behavioral psychology suggests I need to inflict more pain for losing scalps. Maybe have a candle next to the computer and if I mess up 10 seconds in the flame... nah just being silly My Amp account opened today so that could do the job but I don't want to go live if I can't make ticks on sim. That just seems stupid.
The first thing I bought for trading was Van Tharps - Peak Performance Course. So I was practicing 1980's NLP techniques to get me in the zone to trade 1910 Gann style haha. Now I can see where I may have got off track
I do like Mark Douglas' work but his core lesson makes sense - practice trading and you'll get the right mindset to be a trader. i.e. His trading exercise at the end of Trading In The Zone
I can also relate to Dr Steenbarger in Enhancing Trader Performance - which is all about building skills to trade like a performer in any sport would.
But if I had spent all the time practicing trading that I spent reading these books and many others on trading mindset... I would be miles ahead of where I am now. So until you've got the skills and proven them I think there is no point trying to get your head straight... might be trying to fix something that's not broke.
In parallel to my trading I am learning to surf and it is crazy the parallels to my trading which I might write about here soon. But out on the board today I was thinking how fitting it'd be if I paddled up to another random surfer and asked him if he knew of any good surfing psychologists to get me up and carving haha. Got buried by a wave luckily before I could pat myself on the back for that one
Today seemed much more readable, or perhaps it was just the trading drills paying dividends. The Bund seemed clearer to me today. There really was one main move in the timeframe I was watching between 8am and 11am that I could have improved on, but at least was playing the right profile levels it seems.
I didn't record my live session but these are the market replays re-enacted. Though my actual entries would have been slightly different as my NT only listed the minute I took the trade. I tried to play it the same for these recordings and then went back and played them as I best could given the right triggers. Basically looking for size and steps in the profile.
I was leaning on the step in the profile created at the lows here, with 142.30 holding an iceberg where the bid held about a 1000 trading into it. I was shaken out when it played back down to my entry and I scratched - of course it then moved 4 ticks in my favour where I could easily have exited at the next step up at 142.34.
Note the Schatz strong bids and profile step indicates a level. So does Bobl. Keeps finding support at the profile step at 142.40 so if broken I thought could get a pop down. Not sure why I wasn't thinking the opposite. ie Play the support.
Buying power above the profile step at 142.40 really wasn't accomplishing much. Some size started to hit the bids, also in the Bund, so I took another crack below the profile step at
'40. Desperate to lock in a profit I took 2 ticks for no real reason, when it could have been 4 or 5 ticks a couple seconds later.
Trade 4 - 3 Tick winner (hit the bid at 33... panicked cause I was actually right!)
Scalp below step in profile on Bobl for a quick two ticks. Did no look like it was going anywhere and didn't but at least grabbed 2 ticks out of it.
The replay does not much justice to the actual sim only trades that took place. I was pretty dam focused, taking into account the bids / asks in all of the schatz, bobl, bund as well as the inside market in relation to significant profile steps in each of these markets implying where support resistance are.
From the break below 142.40 in trade three to the closing of Trade 5 there was a good opportunity to sell again below 142.30 as momentum play and cover at the size at the bottoms. Not sure if I could have faded the lows as it was a couple of ticks range being being played. Kinda could have gone like this from left arrow to right:
Was an excellent exercise replaying each scenario and perfecting them anyway. I have a couple of other times noted that I missed pops out of steps in the profile. Was a really good day to hone my skills on in NT replay.
Came out on top in the end with potential to have made 10+ ticks in the session. My initial goal will be something along the lines of making 20+ ticks consistently a week.
Felt like a little bit of competence showing to end the week but time will tell
Lots of trades that would have been killed by commissions but certainly getting the hang of it.
I managed +7 Ticks with ordinary trading. If I didn't bail out of two trades early it would have been >14 ticks. My goal for this week is to end with more than 20 ticks profit. If I can do that then for 2 weeks in a row I think I might have some competence in this particular niche. I set the simulator to 400ms comms delay to be realistic as it is about 300ms ping to Chicago and Europe.
Important lesson today was when my adsl internet went down, luckily I was not in a position. I was considering going live this week but think I will iron out a few more of these issues that I probably don't know about yet. I will look into a VPS connection in Sydney close to the CQG server for ASX which should add some stability and possibly save a 100ms. With a remote connection I can dial in over ADSL and have a standby over the mobile network.
Will review notes and show the setup I missed tomorrow and type up my written journal entries describing the DOM at certain junctures.
In the meantime I thought I would turn the DOM into an instrument so perhaps one of these days I can sit back and listen for the perfect entry. Check it out:
I gathered from my review that I need to be more aggressive - ie attack more on my hunches. A lot of times I called the market out I didn't take action and would have made some ticks.
At some good levels I need to sense to hold on longer as I missed some fast moves immediately after exiting for a small scalp profit.
I set my simulation delay to 400ms and am happy now that this delay won't effect me so much.
I added a auto failover 3G modem to my adsl router for continuous internet connection which is the next thing out of the way.
I then nailed +11 ticks in 2 hours of intense order flow reading. Should have been +14 if not for a mad goof up around 10:07 AM.
Amazing how much you can get a sense of whats about to happen, what levels are important, and when to hold on. Though I could still just be kidding myself. 3 profitable days in a row, and believe me when these 3 days would easily represent 3 months of my old style of trading in trades, and 3 years in intensity! And I am only in SIM mode!! I like having to fight for each tick - it must suit me in some way.
Best scalp was 9:05 @ '94 - held through back ticks for burst to '97 @ 9:11. Then kicked in the momentum play I had practiced for an hour today at all sorts of replay speeds. Got back in '99, out at '03 and top of move. Next trade failed and I could work on reversing position in these scenarios in the future.
Will try get to the end of the week profitable each day then next week trade one contract.
I managed to grind my way back to a few ticks profit after 3 ticks down in the first hour. I don't like days like today but found I can make money still if I am patient enough. The levels still hold enough importance to give a few ticks break out though do not expect any follow through on days like today. 2-3 ticks profit targets seemed the most realistic.
Lost my NT trade data somehow but not much to report for this day other than I am finding myself hooked on this game.
It was enough to nearly bring me to tears because the selling just would not stop. I was very proud of my weeks paper profits with 4 profitable days in a row but that got completely destroyed in the morning sessions selling. The only positive for the day is that I got to experience this sought of self destruction on the SIM. I would probably be giving up trading for a good time if it was my real account.
Many factors that could have contributed to me being an absolute amateur including a full day of playing in the sun and 2 hours trading practice leading into the open, but in all, during the timeframe that I have got used to successful trading the last few 8 trading days, a whole different game was being played of which my skillset was not going to get a chance.
Right now as I have called it quits I hope that the market remains consistently in this behavior for the next few hours so I can at least categorize today easily as a type of trading day to either not participate in, or to play the Schatz extremely cautiously only. The volume of 150k+ in the second hour versus 50k,48k,28k the previous few days could be a signal to be cautious.
I have to add a rule to get out at a maximum drawdown for the day and not trade. My emotions were running wild at 6 ticks down and this was just the start. Perhaps that is the line in the sand - Negative SIX = no more trading.
I will have to go over the replay and see what signs there were that the usual breakouts of profile steps were not going to work out. I had a strong urge to pull up a chart to explain the happenings - of which a daily chart shows the down trend we are in but the market behavior really felt like there was bigger and longer term players selling.
Maybe this is what is talked about as 'not a day trader day'. But my lack of skills is the more likely factor here.
Don't add up the ticks. I held on to way too many losers to call myself a trader