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Debated with myself a lot whether I should start a journal or not since there are quite a few combine journals here. But one of the biggest +'s is that you guys will hold me accountable and I can't hide. Frankly thats been my biggest hurdle in trading-make a mistake and try to justify or promise not to repeat it and then 3 months or 6 months down the line it happens again. I will also post some inspirational quotes that have had a big impact on my trading over the years.
I consider myself an average to above average trader. I am a big proponent of technical analysis (I use only moving avg,s candlesticks and volume profiling)and price action. I am learning as we go along.
Today was first day of combine. Did not start well. I personally dont like the T4 platform-one of the biggest problems with trading CL is T4 doesnt let you fix the dom and then scroll it--its locked for some reason. When its moving you cant click prices above or below the 10 tics its showing and darn thing moves so much slippage is crazy. On top of that I practised it a couple of days to get familiar with it and then like a noob added the trading window(the one for one click on side) and price hit my level and I kept clicking the price ladded and nothing happened (turns out you cant click the price ladded when that window is active). Started off with 2 mistakes and the pressure was on. No excuse for the mistakes--I thought I knew the limitations of their trading platform.
I wanted to build a cushion and never even go near the $1k daily limit they set-try to always stay on positive side. Not the start I wanted but my plan saved me as I started trading only 1 lot at the beginning. Once I got in flow of things it was pretty easy. I tried to shake off things from morning and was up about $150 in morning (from down 110). I dont have a daily goal $$ only trading well and not paying attention to $$. I thought of quitting at the moment while I was ahead but I decided to just take setups. A few more came up and except for morning 2 losers (another was a scratch for -1 tic, couldve closed for winner but more on this later) I had a winning streak of 8 or 9 before I quit for the day. Need to get to $3500. Up 580 for day.
My take from first day
Some parameters like the 1 tic loser that I could have closed as a 1 tic winner are just plain wrong. I knew the trade was going to fall apart ( and it did CL dropped 30 tics) , so all it does is promote someone to hold onto a loser and make a bigger loser. But I guess they dont have a better option for this. I kept on thinking about this one for a long time today LOL
No need to put undue pressure on yourself-you are only going to make mistakes. Its kinda like getting in drivers seat after vacation for 4 weeks on beach and you havent driven in meantime. Once you get behind the wheel and let intuitions take over its smooth sailing. More you think and second guess worse it becomes.
No need to put pressure with a fixed daily $ limit. CL didnt make any good more early on(the time generally when it does-even after the #) Being patient pays off.
Start small, get a feel, build a cushion and never ever go near the $1000 DLL. Its easy to hit in CL and GC. Trading max 5 lot you only need to have 2 losers with 10 tics to hit it. I am going to stick to 2-3 lots. If I have a cushion I ll go for it.
The profit target is fair imho. If you trade well you should acheive it without a problem.
Its only day 1, hope I can keep a straight head next week. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
Hey thanks for the journal/post. I am prepping to do the same thing here soon. Problem is I've never used T4. Surely there has to be a way to freeze the DOM?? Can you zoom it out or make it longer? Any T4 experts or CL traders that use T4 please speak up!
Second one is centered-see how the arrows are greyed out and you cant scroll.
Either you have the dom going crazy and you have to keep recentering it-you can use auto recenter-then the two up and down arrows go grey and you cant scroll the dom up or down and click a price. Weird thing is you can click the price when it allows you to scroll but then it keeps going back to the price, so you got to be really fast. I am using OCO orders to just go around this-thank god its a SIM only. Imagine a rip in your direction and all you can do is just cancel your order rather than just putting it 10-15 tics higher each time like you can do in OEC. I ve tried to find an answer to this-cant find it in their videos. Might try their room chat on monday.
You can sign up for 2 week trial for free at topsteptrader to get practise.
Wow, that just doesn't make sense. Pls let me know what you find out. I only enter using limit orders so being able to click on my entry price is a big deal. I wouldn't be able to deal with it flipping around past my entry price.
Brian Murphy, the Director of Business Development at CTS, will be monitoring this thread so that he may answer any questions that you post here relating to CTS products and services.
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You can check more on their webinar. I am fine if they don't have strategy orders like OEC but this basic scrolling part I don't get. Its fine for slow moving instruments like es etc but with CL I keep my mouse on the big X at all times. X and hit market that's all I was doing. Ridiculous hold times lol.
One thing I found out was the button you left click for centering price ladder if you right click it you can enter the price to go to on the Dom. Slooooow if u ask me. Shooting a musket
Actually you can fix the DOM, you can't scroll it with the wheel, but you can right click above or below center price and get it scrolled a screen up or down. It should be in autocenter mode. Smooth scrolling is not the one to use for trading. Just for observation. There is a lot of configurations and features there, take a time to learn them.
PS if you use buy/sell buttons they wont engage your OCO orders should you setup one. And TST will fail you if you don't use stops. You can use limits to enter at market with OCO.