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I don't know whether I'd be slightly nervous of keeping a trading journal on a "site like that" (no disparaging tone intended!) though, because you don't own and control it yourself, and the survival of your trading journal there depends ultimately on the sustainability and continuity of their business?
It might feel, somehow, a little bit like the trading equivalent of a blogger posting his blog on one of those hosted blogging sites rather than on his own domain and hosting: if the whole site suddenly disappears in the night, one has no real recourse or remedy? (The same could be said of a forum, arguably, I suppose. The answer to this is probably just to keep a copy yourself, too?).
I post this in large part to help the thread author.
It used to be EXCEL based. The new version has moved to its own software.
It is very customizable.
Lessons learned, behavior tracking, screenshots of trades, etc.
They are legitimate. Even that loud twitter Ledge wanker Dante reports he likes it.
There are a lot of videos online.
They have a 12week or so journaling product that goes through journaling with you.
They have a tiltmeter which I find very kewl and a few other features.
There is a simulation that can give you a projection for 500 trades to understand ones performance.
I have Edgewonk and recently upgraded to the new version. I never use it though because I have a really hard time manually entering in all my trades. Maybe I'll give it another try.
Unfortunately today didn't go so well. It took a really long time for them to get me setup and by the time they did I was not in a very good mindset at all. I had some small profits early and then found myself forming the wrong bias for the last hour of the day and not recognizing that I was wrong. I wasn't able to get my account hooked up to Multicharts like I planned so instead traded straight from R/trader which I wasn't used to.
It's a bit frustrating to start off this way but I know I can do better and make up for it. The thing about Top Step trader is the first 10 days of the funded account are very important because after 10 days your account is whatever your balance is and max loss is 0. So it's important to try and build up some cushion in the first 10 days.
So starting off -315. The rest of the week is going to be very crucial to do well.
I think the way that I am going to format this journal is by first posting the chart with my levels and entries that would have been ideal had I traded the strategy perfectly then I will post the same chart with the areas I actually took.
What I do is wait for the opening 5minute range to form then depending on the way price is moving I draw a custom Fibonacci draw up or down. I find this gives me very accurate levels to trade from. It works on all futures and stocks but for now I am only focused on trading the NQ.
White circles are long spots, red are short spots.
Today while I was watching the market before my account was setup I mentally traded long from that first long spot and then short from the -100% fib up above. My account wasn't setup until just after 10 I think. Since I don't have Ninja or Multicharts to easily see my entries I'm just going to post my general entry areas.
As you can see I started off by shorting the fib resistance areas. According to my strategy typically the -200% area becomes good support and can often times be the bottom of the day. For whatever reason I remained very short biased and after it came down and held the -100% (a major long signal for me) I still remained short thinking we could head down towards 40. Above 4860 I should not have been looking to short. For whatever reason I was so so short biased and ignored the levels holding and making higher lows. If I had traded my strategy correctly I would have done well but instead ignored it and tried to impose my own hopes onto the market.
These are just my general entries, it was too sloppy and I'm too tired to go through and mark exact entries. In the future I will try and mark the charts more precise.
What I am going to Improve on going forward:
1. Don't get biased and ignore what the chart is telling you, watch the levels and make a plan. Recognize when things have changed.
I'm sure this post is sloppy and confusing but Im exhausted and a bit frustrated with myself. I'll probably try to edit it later but I just wanted to get something up for now.
Full disclosure I actually considered lying and saying I didn't start yet today to avoid having to write this post but quickly realized If I did that what's the point of having the journal in the first place. I will post every day the good and the bad.
Lately rather than trading until a goal or time I'm trying to continue trading as long as there is a setup to take but only risking 1/2-1/3 of my days profits. This way when things are going well I can continue to press and take advantage but not worry about trading away all my profits. Today i was up +130ish at my peak but I didnt consider this big enough p/l to start only risking 1/2. That probably kicks in around +200 for me right now.
Also I tried to respond to your PM but don't have high enough post count yet. The answer is no though.
Considering all the things you had going on, the post is not bad at all. You put in what you needed to.
You know there'll be both winning and losing days, so this one day isn't that significant.
You're doing a good job in getting everything out there. Stay with it and keep your head straight. You've shown that you can trade well, it's now just a matter of doing it.
My one suggestion would be not to trade until you have everything set up the way you want and need it, in terms of your trading platform and anything else. If you can't be set properly and in a confident mood before your preferred time to start trading, why not just take the time to get it all together, and then start the next day? The first 10 days are 10 days that you trade, right? There's no rush, and no need to be off-balance because something isn't yet working right.
Good luck, and don't let how the day went throw you.
Ryan. You can do it man. Stick with what got you here. It wasn't an accident. Stick to your method and process. Stay the course. Do your work. Stay disciplined to your method. Good luck man. I'm cheering for your future success and to do your work.
Thanks, you're absolutely right about not trading until I was all set up. I found my self so anxious this morning to get started and mad that I missed some trading opportunities due to account not being setup that I was in such a bad frame of mind when I finally started.
Not going to let a small losing day set me back. I will continue to trade my process and plan and build this account up.
Just wanted to post this for myself to remember, this is where I went wrong today. Not recognizing the "reclaim" once it breaks down and then comes back up and reclaims.