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Only 2 trades today, one is momentum long, this flopped on a larger that 10 ticks pullback, and a fade highs which had an excellent entry. I took it off early again, to offset the loss earlier and end the day positive, as I did not want to trade more on end of month/quarter day even on demo.
First trade -10 ticks x2
Second trade +14 ticks x2
End result +112.5 eur less 20 bucks in commissions.
5 trades in crude today. Which is encouraging - I am improving. Actually only 3 setups, two setups took two trades to get into it.
Anyway, all was done ok, I just missed a huge runner from the second trade, but with market gapped down that kept running down it was hard to expect. I expected a huge runner from the last trade but after seeing it unable to fall from highs and still gravitated to the trend line, I cut it. This time it was a right idea and market jumped almost instantly, but still I would be better off if I kept my second trade runner to the good target and let the runner of last trade to flop at BE or a small gain. Still I made profit today and so far it is the biggest gain in combine. Last trade made almost a grand and took me out of misery into the profit.
All said I feel like I am certainly improving on both taking less trades but sticking to more decisive ones and on holding trades longer. I held one for 21 minutes today, it's unthinkable for xelaar 6 months ago
Talking about individual trades, I have doubts about first trade - market spent some time out of LOD and came back, I should have waited for a break of LOD instead of being satisfied with a quick test short of matching the LOD. Same with 4th trade - new high in a proper trade location was established but I wasn't able to enter right away, and as market came back there only after some time, I should have waited for high to be broken by few ticks to satisfy early stop runners. I was too hasty to enter. This is something I also need to improve. My plan outlining this entering principle in a great detail.
Did not trade Dax today. On the Crude frontier, started off with a loser for 10 ticks, decided momentum down was good so I put up a momentum trade, only to have it reversed right to the tick to its stop at -10. So a bad start with 6 cars, -630 right in a hole. Tried to catch a bottom, first failed, lost sixticker. Second attempt worked fine. But the best trade of the day could be a swing high I captured. However I was worried about the worrisome state of daily P/L and closed it out fully. It could be a monster 70-tick runner should I held. This becoming a trend - I make few losses and miss out runners. So I will now keep my first scale out at 20 ticks and let the runner run when trading with trend.
Overall +420 net on the day. Paid 210 in commissions. Slowly but surely I improve.
I have moved my test platform to Ninja today. Some of you may know I have my reservations against Ninja, but there is no love with OEC as a potential platform to go live with. Mostly due to uncompetitive margin requirements from OEC (and therefore from S5 etc). So I was setting up (demo from Mirus/ZenFire) and testing. Also ECB was today and it did not help later trading. Initial hours were ok. I plan to only trade Dax from 9 to 10 AM.
Crude wise. I made many consequtive losers trying to catch on a pullback reversal and jump on trend. I need to focus on entry criterias. However said, I slowly get to the stage where one winner offsets 3 losers so it's weirdly ok. I just need to get these big runners run, because being break even after commissions or slightly positive is not a business I want to be in. I need to rack up massive profits!
My best trade today was +32 ticks on a runner, 6:1 reward to risk. It was my worst trade too - 1 minute later it started to go to the moon, it could be 100 ticks runner. But I closed my first target at around +28 so it wasn't bad all in all.
I missed my second runner too, but I just wanted to be done for the day, so I took it off. This is the problem with racking up losses - when there is a chance to get back to black you can hardly resist it. I did resist today so I came out from loss to +840 net in one last trade. Halleluwah!
Here are the considerations I will be applying to trading from tomorrow based on my current discoveries:
1. Look for a trading zone as per original plan
2. A small range or double top/double bottom has formed
3. Wait till it is broken by 1-2 ticks with no continuation, fade the breakout
4. Target 20-25 ticks on first target and 40-80 on second target, 6 ticks stop, no break even
5. Stop trading for the day after getting one runner under the belt, keep trading until getting one runner in, don't take small winners at all
The reason is there will always be a winner if you take all setups consistently, and one winner will take you back above and beyond. Currently I keep cutting runners short (even though I have improved a lot) and take more trades, more losers in, and then get a runner that I don't exploit fully. Ideally I will be looking to get onto the freight train that will take me far. That would allow to overcome possible bad day when I might get out of ammo before hitting a jack pot. But this plan should allow me to trade less and exploit good trades at best.