Pattern Seeker: my journal

February 27th, 2012, 08:42 PM

Thanks Mike.

Well we made it to DisneyLand but I did get a chance to take a few trades before we left. I was a little distracted with the things going on with getting ready and such but I still wanted to watch the market and take trades as they set up.

Trade 1 - I went short just after the open as the price action looked to be breaking out of a consolidation. It was a late entry because my chart trading was set to 5 car and the price moved about 7 ticks as I scrambled to set it up. I watched profit evaporate and the trade go negative. I realized (a little late) this wasnt a pull back but rather a reversal and reversed the position for a loss of 33 ticks.
The why - break out of consolidation but should have set a target from my entry of about 15 ticks.
What I learned- Have more patience and dont take the opening move.

Trade 2 - The reversal. This was an intuitive decision to reverse the position instead of just closing the previous trade for a loss and looking for the next set up. I have watched a lot of opening moves reverse in the first 20 mins and thought this was going to be the case. Price consolidated pretty quickly in the trade and I held on and watched it break out and consolidate again and break out of consolidation again. I set a target and it was hit but I noticed that I had put an OCO buy above and below instead of an OCO sell .

This smart move added a contract instead of closing the position as I intended. I scrambled to close the trade for +71 ticks. It would have been 75 if I wasnt such an idiot with the target order.

Why- Saw a change in trend and wanted to ride it.
What I learned- Be more conscious of the platform and place exits (targets and stops) with more care.

Trade 3- I saw a nice broadening formation forming in the NQ and watched as a candle pierced the lower trend line It did not close below the trend line and turned up. I went long and exited as it bounced off of the upper trend line for +30 ticks. I felt this was a very low risk trade becasue I would know if I was wrong right away if the price broke the lower trend line and I would reverse and take that side instead. The move up to test the upper trend line was very slow and I knew it didnt have the momentum to break out so I felt the exit at the trend line was a good call.

What I learned- I am learning and I can trade without emotions controlling me.

All in all a pretty good day. with a big loser and 2 big winners.

March 14th, 2012, 02:04 AM

Well it has been a while since Ive posted. I realized that just finding patterns without any understanding of why they are forming and what part of the structure they are in just doesnt make any sense. It wasnt a clear plan that I could believe in. Just like I cant believe in MA crossovers. 2 lines crossing each other doesnt make a trading plan.

Gone are my range bar charts. Replaced with 60 min and 5 min charts with volume on one screen and daily charts on the other.

Lately I have been studying. pretty hard too.

Recently I was told that if I could learn to trade that I would be funded with a 50k account. That blew me away. It also let me know that someone believes in me. That felt good. It also scared me.

Well I reset my sim account to 55k and resolved to start trading. I still didnt know what the heck my plan was so I started watching the webinars here. Thank you Big Mike for all the educational opportunities here!
I really liked the Volume profile webinar and would love to learn it but I would have to change platforms, get a new broker and data feed so that was put on hold.
I then watched Dr. Gary Dayton's webinars on the Wyckoff method. Now I really got into that and could really relate to what Dr. Gary was saying. I've since started my journey into Wyckoff. The original materials from Wyckoff are a little hard to translate into futures trading for me. I hope to take the Chart Mastery from Dr Gary so maybe that will enlighten me a bit.
Figure charts are an important part of the Wyckoff method. I made the figure chart for the ES using a 10pnt x 1 reversal with a min of 2 boxes per column. My software doesnt do this configuration so I did it by hand. An upward breakout from the horizontal formation on the figure chart forcasted a rise to 1400. I resolved to exit at 1390.
2 very nice springs today highlighted on the 60 min chart. My trades are on the 5 min chart. I entered with 5 contracts and added 5 more before the second spring. I was trying to wait for the second spring but jumped the gun just a little.

March 14th, 2012, 02:19 AM

Yikes, I see a mistake on the figure chart. oops it doesnt change the formation though.

Pattern Seeker: my journal

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Pattern Seeker: my journal