I traded on Friday and Monday. Something like 30 trades. Finished even, including commissions (which are higher on the MES, sucks.)

I also traded this morning. Three straight losing trades left me limit down. Out for the day.

Two of my trades were in noticeably poor position relative to the VWAP. I also forgot to look at the $TICK index even once. Not good, since I have been using that to dial in trade entries. I also forgot to turn on the screen recorder. ALSO: I knew there was an economic report at 10:00 but I completely forgot once I started trading.

Now that I am writing this I realize that I did a very poor job paying attention to the resources I have decided to use.

Edit: I took a close look at these three trades. They were made within 8 minutes of each other. I got run over twice in 5 minutes trying to go long. Then I tried a short and got run over. Impatient and not skillful.

I think it's time to start writing down some trading rules to go along with my risk management. I am repeating the same mistakes and this might help.

Today was a work day but I managed to take 1 trade. Shorted MES at 2917.50 and covered for 8 tick winner. This trade felt pretty good. I was patient and watched things develop. This trade could have been a 30 tick winner if I had held it longer. I hope I am able to start trading 2 contracts soon and utilize a strategy that lets me take advantage of runners.

I am now using a SMA line on my $TICK. I like it as I think it smooths out the $TICK, which really whips around.

Snatched defeat from the jaws of victory today. I had a good entry for a short at 0900. Averaged up to add a contract and had a positive excursion to 70 ticks. Similar second trade but I got stopped out for zero on both trades when the price came back to me.

I then proceeded to get run over three times. Poor trade position in 2 of those trades in addition to being flat wrong about the direction of the market. I need to be smarter about setting stops, also. With good entries I shouldn't put my stops so far away.

Just flat out bad trading. I seem to be very hardheaded expecting the market to move a certain way. I also need to stop trying to trade every swing.

Two out of three days I am limit down. Silver lining is my risk management is working...when I'm done I turn the screen off.

I am now three months into my life as a trader. In my opinion my technical trading ability is more developed than my psychology. Need to balance this out.

Before I talk trading I want to recognize a man I'm thinking about today. On this day 26 years ago, F1 racing driver Ayrton Senna lost his life in a racing accident in Italy. He is the driver pictured in my avatar. Words can't really describe the kind of racing driver or person he was. RIP

I would encourage everyone to watch the excellent documentary about his life, "Senna".


Good day today. I stuck to fundamentals with good discipline. Limit up after 6 trades and then I turned the screen off.

I traded the microrange and let the price come to good entry locations. I still can improve my discipline on exits...I exited earlier than planned a couple of times. I set my stoplosses pretty tight and I think that helped me overall.

I took a screenshot of my setup, and I've written a very basic summary of the Jigsaw + Ninjatrader setup I use. I have used the Jigsaw DOM and other tools since I first started trading. I heavily lean on the "split volume profile" to give me my edge. I wrote the summary for anyone who doesn't have a working knowledge of Jigsaw. Summary was written for my Uncle. He doesn't trade so it's a little basic...


1.This is the order profit/loss column. I can place trades there also. In the screenshot I have bought one contract at 2842.50 and am currently in $1.25 profit. I have a sell stop set below and a limit sell placed above.
2. Volume profile -- represents how many contracts have traded at every price since the session started. 3. Current price. 4. Bid column -- the numbers below the market price are the "standing bids". These can either be added to, or removed at any time. Lots of games played here. 5 & 6 Inside bid/offer prints -- this is the heart of the market. These are buy and sell market orders (as opposed to limit orders). Aggression in these two columns combined with a lack of liquidity is what makes the market move up and down. 7. Ask column (same function of bid column).

8 &9 is the "Split volume profile". Blue side is buy market prints, red is sell market prints. This is where I focus most of my attention. I refresh this column every 5-10 minutes and it shows me a lot about the microranges that play out during the day, where the liquidity (or lack thereof) and absorption are etc. I try to always either buy or sell at the extreme end of these microranges as the price often bounces off the extremes and puts me in the money right away.

11. Time and sales. It's a digital ticker tape. Easy to watch out of the corner of my eye to see when buyers or sellers roll in. I have this set to only show trades of 20 contracts or more. This time and sales window is showing the E Mini as I think the volume on that contract is important.

The chart on the right is a 1 minute "S & P Emini" futures contract chart with the "Swing indicator". The red/blue bands are the "Volume weighted average price" VWAP deviations. This chart shows price is 1.1 standard deviations below from the VWAP. I also have a smaller "tick chart" on the right. It's a 10 second chart and the red line is a SMA, 8 candle period. This is a VERY helpful chart. It's more of an indicator to me. I'm watching it like a hawk before I'm in a trade and while I'm in the trade.

The panel below the chart is the cumulative delta. I am still trying to make this one work for me but hasn't been too helpful yet.


[img]https://i.postimg.cc/d0k6qtYr/Trading-setup.png[/img]

How much is limit up and limit down for you?

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40 ticks up. 40 ticks down. I am trying to strike a balance between preserving capital and giving myself enough breathing room to trade.

I like your idea of setting a limit up.

I need to implement one myself. Today I was up 33 ticks over 5 trades and decided to press my luck with one last trade. I ended the day +13 ticks.

Also how tight of a stop do you keep? I've been experimenting with 8 tick stops but this volaltalility has been wiping me out of positions. I may double it to 16 next week. These are on mes contracts by the way

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This weekend I will be giving some thought to changing limit down/up to 25 or 30 ticks. I want to cut down the number of trades I make and be realistic in my goals.

My targets and stops are always discretionary. I use steps in the volume profile to determine where they are set. using my "screenshot trade" as an example, my limit sell order is where I would usually put it, but my stoploss order would ordinarily be higher, like 2841.25. Yeah, the range has to hold to the tick to keep me in the trade but if it breaks lower than that I am already wrong. And if I keep my bias I can reenter at a lower price. That being said I am trying to get away from that kind of trade because it seems emotional and why be married to one swing? There will always be other opportunities.

As an aside, the trade on my sceenshot was on my sim account and was a loser. I don't sim trade anymore...trade was for testing purposes only.

Took about 20 trades and ended limit down for the day. Even though I waited a full hour to trade, I ended up overtrading. I'm seriously considering creating a daily trade limit...somewhere in the 5-10 range. If anything it'll keep my commissions down . MES commissions are eating me alive ffs.

Got wiggled out of a few because my stop was set too tight. Cut a few winners too early. My "big" mistake was getting run over in the big move at the end of the day. i will chalk this up to failing to understand context. That was such a long, strong move...why did I repeatedly get in front of it?

I'm not going to get frustrated about any of this. The other things I've worked on went well. Risk management, discipline. I didn't get flustered...just stood in the pocket and worked. But there was more guessing than conviction. If that isn't a sign that I'm overtrading then I don't know what is.

I was feeling stressed about poor performance so I slept in today and started late. As soon as I turned on the screen FOMO bit hard and I got run over trying to go long as a reflection off the +1SD VWAP line. At lunchtime. There wasn't really anything else to confirm this entry.Poor discipline.

I used 2 contracts with a huge stop. Got ran over and am limit down for the day and out. Within minutes. I am limit down 3 out of 4 days and the day that went right just might have been lucky.

I need to turn this around. Waiting for good entries, looking for the proper confirmation and not overtrading is now at the top of my priorities. If I can't make solid improvement this week I might stop trading next week and just watch the screen.

I want to show solid progress and I'm willing to do the work. The profits should follow.