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Joined a few weeks ago, would of started this sooner, but ended up doing some building work for my parents. This forum seems pretty friendly with some good discussion, so here we go.
Planning a few things, so this thread will be an amalgamation of lots of things, programming, systems trading, discretionary trading and general ramblings.
For now though (while I learn ninjascript, and finish off a few other things), going to be trading the ES, pretty much starting from scratch. Planning on attempting PulsarCap sim phase. Essentially that means averaging $120/day on a single contract for 5 weeks. Going to sim it while I get used to the platform, if I can average $200/day then I'll probably be happy to give it a go.
Will post some charts, trades, ideas & thoughts tomorrow.
Rough day. Had a bunch of things to do today, and didn't get any of them done. Didn't really have a overall plan for today, just winging it really.
Got cheesed this morning, had a short bias, but got chopped about, (3 losses, totaling 16 ticks). Ended up being short on the open move down, but didn't get out as I was busy, and took a 9 tick loss (was an emergency stop really, wasn't about to change on the move down). Got the long up, target 2 ticks below the recent high, and coincidentally hit the $200 mark. Should of been a reverse if I was about/on my game, but oh well.
On another note, turns out can trade multiple instruments for Pulsar (only 1 open at a time though). This combined with ES looking a bit rubbish off a morning, think I'll maybe look to trade 6E of a morning, and leave the ES to the afternoon.
I really like range/renko/tick bars, but I haven't got a good look at them yet. Also would like to try scalping a couple of ticks at a time, but have completely no clue about that. For now, going to look at 15m bars, for longs, low<previous low, close > previous low. See how that goes.
Really want to post a few things, but haven't had the time, sorry.
Long 1358.25 to 1357
-$66.52
Short 1356.5 to 1358
-$79.02
Short 1356.25 to 1357.5
-$66.52
Short 1356 to 1358.25
-$116.52
Long 1358.25 to 1369
$533.48
Trading a long position can (IMHO) be summed up as the following:
"Will I be able to exit at a higher price than currently before I can get long at a lower price than currently?"
(Ok, it becomes a paragraph if you include scaling etc, but that's not as elegant)
This is a bit different to what many ask themselves "Is the market going to go any higher?" The difference is slight, but important. That's all there is to it really, of course, it's not really possible to answer, but I think my trading has improved by viewing it from this perspective.
I've finished trading for the day, I have things to do. Will still watch the chart though.
3 trades today. Going to take a while to build up a sample size!
I started off by not sticking to rules and putting a trade on early in the day. MAE was only a tick, but the market wasn't really going anywhere, and as frustrated with breaking the rules, I got out for 2 ticks. I could of got the other 3 I had originally targeted (MFE was 4 ticks). Honestly though, I'm not sure I would of got out, because I was rather bullish.
I was distracted and missed Goods Orders, indeed I had completely forgotten about news releases (bit rusty, ha!). Hell, I had to double check it wasn't NFP! Jumped in @69.25. After retracing to 1367 from the low of 1366.25 I was in the situation I eluded to in the previous post. I thought the market was going to go up, and then make fresh lows, but I didn't think I'd be able to get in at a higher price, and just held. (Obviously price bounced off 1368.25 which would of been everyone's best bet).
I was then called away (we seem to have a theme), and so put my stop above the recent high, got stopped, got back in a tick lower and ran down to target.
2 days with good moves, where a reversal at target would of been nice. Probably still going to take a while to get the confidence to go against the trend in a new market.
2 Days in, 8 trades, nothing statistically significant, getting more comfortable though.
Long 1371.75 to 1372.25
$20.98
Short 1369.25 to 1368.5
$33.48
Short 1368.25 to 1365
$158.4
So, yesterday I mentioned the 15m bar setup. I can't completely remember which chart I was trading on (I switch around), but you can see from the chart posted today, the first and last trade followed the setup. The middle one was a news trade, and so doesn't really count.
Now my trades don't always follow this. I've never really written down a methodology as I have mechanical systems, but I will attempt to explain.
I guess you'd say I trade price action, but nobody's ever given me the exact definition of it.
Bars news trades, everything for me depends on highs and lows. If price turned at a certain level, that's where it's more likely to turn again. I'm not going to BS you with some theory, or claim I've done the maths, I haven't, it's just an observation from watching the market, maybe I'll get to maths later.
The most important* highs are daily highs and lows (today & yesterday). If the daily high breaks, I generally want to be bullish. This isn't because:
The market is likely to go up further.
I'm a trend trader.
I know this gives me an edge.
This is discretionary trading, I want to be bullish when we break new highs because it's easier on my mental state. When those 2*ATR days come along, if I haven't made a good profit it really gets to me. This is the simple way of (hopefully) avoiding it.
The same reason goes for putting stops above previous highs. It's easy. Now I know that everyone has their stops there, and that they may get hunted, and that that'll make me sad, but (you guessed it), this is discretionary trading. If I had the figures to back up that putting stops 2 ticks higher than highs instead of 1, than I'd probably have a complete system.
...I've had this tab open for hours, I'm not expressing this very well at all so I will continue at a later point, night all.
We've have a bit of movement pre market. Formed a pseudo head & shoulders. I've put some lines on the chart to show what I'm looking at. I don't normally have many lines drawn, in my experience they're not needed, either you can see it, or it's not there. Don't go chasing (waterfalls).
Fair bit of news today to decide the market. Bearish (for today) on this price action, but really news dependent. We'll see.
So I posted some pre market thoughts, bearish sentiment won out in the end (although I'll admit I got chopped a bit).
Ninjatrader crashed on me, when I finally got back, target had been hit but the order wasn't filled. I'm guessing this is because orders are stored on the machine as opposed to being sent? Could also be that I'm simming on zen fire. Nothing to worry about really, just didn't get to trade. Can't be sure I would of held, etc etc.
The screencap will explain what I mean if I haven't articulated it. So screw it, I'm saying I hit the target.
Long 1374.25 to 1373
-$66.52
Short 1373 to 1375.5
-$141.5
Long 1373 to 1375.75
-$79.02
Short 1374 to 1364
$495.98
Total: $208.94
Think I've gone 1 tick, 2 ticks, 4 ticks off the high/low of the day, getting exponentially worse! Sorry for the short write up, but a bit exasperated. Will maybe write more later.
P.S. Anybody got any questions?
EDIT: guess it helps if I post the screencap.
EDIT2: RAGE! Can't even get flat.
So ninjatrader continued to play up, I've just deleted everything and opened a new sim account, redownloaded and installed. Oh well, on the bright side I didn't have charts I'd spent hours on or anything.