johnnycakes78704

Ended this week with 230 ticks. Funding arrived in account today. Still stayed in sim to ensure everything was the same. Pulled 6.9 points on two trades. Going live next week.

On previous post, ended that week with a 144 ticks profit. Ended last week with 196 ticks profit while trading 1 contract, 3 trades per day. Didn't trade on Tuesday last week. Avg trade profit was 15 ticks. One losing trade in those 4 days. The main difference is that I've been learning Price Action and applying that to my trading. Besides a volume pattern indicator, to tell me when big money is coming in or amateurs are playing around, that's all I'm utilizing. Today was stopped out twice. Came back with a long that covered my losses and put me 12 ticks in the black.

PnL for today. Very happy with the results and looking forward to tomorrow.

Not trading live yet. Had a chat with another trader and he suggested I look at the TF. Started with that last week and, well, am doing ALOT better with that than the ES. I wasn't going to go live until absolutely certain of my platform. Thursday netter me 4.4 points, Friday was 2.2 points (couldn't get into office due to snow until the afternoon hours) and TODAY (!) I made 8.6 points. I did cut back the trades I take to 2-4 a day, depending on long or short set ups. Doing great with this and we shall see how I do with this. Almost done funding the acct, so once I finish that to proper levels, I'll be going live. The image is a trade I made on the TF and YM. My stop was tight and a quick reversal closed out my trade. Reviewed it and everything seemed great so I took the trade with some great results but as you can see, I stayed in it for too long, at least on the TF.

Haven't disappeared, still working on it. Gained 2.25 points today on ES. Am averaging that per day. taking the profit and getting out of the market after the gain. Here is one of my trades for today.

Am limiting my trading to 2 trades a day in an effort to be more sure of my trades, 1 long and 1 short. Today was first day of implementation, gained 2.5 points today.

Got stopped out on reversals today. Was able to get 3.75 points out today, almost covering losses. Ended the week positive. I should have closed out my final trade at 2.75 points though instead of waiting to see if it'll go to 3 points...it regressed to a 2 point gain.

Done ALOT of reading, backtesting, and review of methods and have defined my rules. Traded a bit over the holidays and came up ok.....just ok...not bad, not great. Due to circumstances out of my control (wife totaled the vehicles over the holidays) and schedule changes, my trading hours have been adjusted out of my control until at least 1 vehicle gets replaced, which should be by this weekend. Started with my trading on the defined premises on Tuesday when we came back from the holiday. 1/4: Profit= .75 points 1/5: Profit= 1.75 points 1/6: Profit= 4 points. All of my profit taking was on 1 point or smaller moves. No trying to break the bank. Also, there were trade losses each day.

Applied some earlier techniques using info from Bathrobe along with Support/Resistance and a trending indicator, resulting in better trades. Found video libraries on setting trailing stops in simulator to help out with P&L and will review them tonight.

Kiwi, thank you for the input. I am using a live sim, but not trading any account. I am still defining my methods. We shall see what this week of testing and application gives.

I am using the Keltner channel and candlesticks. Today I added the Chaikin Money Flow indicator as well. Not sure how well that is working. I know I'm making too many trades given the live feed. I slowed it down to instead of 1 minute to 5 minute. Don't see a tick chart anywhere.... Attempts are at .75-1.25 points long and short side. Looking at this weeks performance, the shortside trade is my biggest detractor, and being unfamiliar with the software. For example, I accidentally pressed "Sell market" on a short position instead of buying and was caught up in a 2 contract reversal instead of a 1 contract reversal, doubling the loss upon closure. Point wise, this week I did better as the week progressed. Monday had a 1.25 point gain Tuesday had a 2 point gain Wednesday had a 3.25 point gain Thursday had a 5 point gain Friday had a 4 point gain. Average gain is 3.1 points per day, exactly what Why? said it would be, roundabouts The losses for the week were more significant due to ill timing, poor conditions, and being hardheaded thinking the market MUST go back up...Monday resulted in over half of the week's losses. I'm now going over the data and the indicators to see where and how I won and where/how I lost to further refine my understanding. I'll be reviewing what worked and what didn't for a better week next week, at least for a few days.

I found some indicators I liked yesterday spending then and last night reading up on them. Today, using them I pulled 5 points but was too busy to really watch it so I lost all those points plus 2 more. I am not frustrated as I realize P&L are because the indicators are showing the movement and when I am available I am capitalizing on them. I need to be more diligent and ensure my positions are closed out when I am not at the screen. Does your charting s/w show afterhours movement?

Broke even the past two days. Early day gains are 2-2.5 points. This was my first post FOMC trades for futures and for a quick minute my trade registered a 1.25 point gain, only to suffer a stop two points down, just about wiping me out of all of todays gains. Have a 66% positive trade ratio, but the two trades that went south went way south. Looks like massive profit taking late today and yesterday....this reinforces morning trading only. I can definitely see the market moving sideways most days, appears that the conditions previously really suited my trading style. Gonna have to learn to profit from .75-1.25 point moves

jack, thank you for the vote of confidence. However, this still does not sway me from my original thoughts as I still have more to learn and define in regards to my strategies. Raw talent, for any field, requires discipline and concerted effort to ensure future payoff. Finviz aggregates several news sources w/ title of article and a link. In that scenario, I could short the market, buy at the bottomish of the sell off or wait for the correction. Given I am new to this trading platform, what is your way to benefit from this scenario? Also, I must say, I never took anything you said as abrasive. Isis, what an invaluable contribution! Thank you so much.

Bathrobe, my remarks were absolutely (!) not directed at you, instead two individuals who made comments that were in jest of my intentions. Thank you for your input. I know I am a beginner at this and my risk management plan is in development. With my experience being in a different field, the plan for futures has to be researched and with discipline, followed. Thanks so much! My methodology is in development now.

This week, with two days out of the market and a fluke on Monday night/Tuesday (based off a hunch for the Ireland bailout and a market overnight gain of 10 points), the net this week was 23.25 points, less than half of the first week. But now I'm using live feed, made some mistakes, and am getting back up to speed. Exclude Tuesday's overnight 10 point gain (which I admit is reckless) and the average gain was almost 4.5 points a day. That is more "normal", is it not? I wonder if this will quell the haters....

I think I found some indicators which I like, an zero lag exponential moving average and Support 1/2 and Resistance 1/2. Yesterday the contract was changed to the 03-11 whereas yesterday I was watching the 12-10 contract, resulting in a difference of price and mistakes on my behalf upon opening today. Was able to pull 3.5 from the market today with an 80% winning average. I took my eye off the ball for a few minutes and it smacked me as soon as I was away.

Proven track record? Uh, no. And there is no promise of future growth. I'm a firm believer in the 7P's. Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance. But I'm sure you know this

The average market moves how many points per day? I'm doing this to learn and practice which is giving me a better opportunity to be profitable down the road, plain and simple. I'll begin trading when I have the platform figured out. As of now, it seems after hours data feed doesn't work. I'm not losing money, I'm taking steps to ensure future growth.

Tams, I already know I'm a rockstar but I'm a solo artist :thumbs up: Although, thanks for the vote of confidence... :doh:

Finally got the charts to load and am viewing the live feed, now trying to get a sense of the day's markets. Added the Bollinger Band, Buy/Sell Volume, and Momentum. Will be reviewing different indicators to see what makes the best indicators for the rest of today. Been WAY too swamped with over half our office out to pay any sort of close attention to the market, so I've kept out of it. Possibly may tomorrow as well, depending on how much time I can dedicate to this.

What indicators within the software are most applicable to you? What do you use? there's something I am missing, I'm connected to a live feed but the chart only loads to when I DL'd the program earlier yesterday, no current data is available......hmmm.... Using a delayed feed. Now it is a live feed, once I get it all configured.

Gone into live demo mode w/ Ninja trader and Zenfire from Mirus Futures. I've not used these systems before and there will be a bit of a ramp up for me with this platform while I play with it. will still be doing the paper trading while I get familiarized with this. Thanks!

I understand the limits of paper trading, believe me. I've done paper trading for stocks before I put my money where my proverbial pen was. My next step is to sign up for a demo account w/ live feed for two weeks or so and then fund the account to go live. I still have a few weeks before going live, and am anticipating a change within the trades and gains during this period which will require a tweaking of my approach. I'll see how my existing approach works first though and makes changes then. @Why? I'll definitely begin small. 1 contract only until sufficient account size and experience warrants two contracts, and even then, will only do two on occasion until sufficient experience and funding is applied.

I'd be happy to provide you my logs of each in and out trade. As far as having only positive days, yes that is absolutely right, I've only had positive days for the past two weeks. I'm not gaming any trades and when I would make a trade, am immediately inputting it into my log. There have been losing trades, definitely. In fact, here is the day number, trade day, date, daily points, number of trades, contracts traded per trade, daily profit, cumulative profit, and weekly points: 1 Wed 24-Nov-10 2.50 2 1 $118 $118 $- 2 Thu 25-Nov-10 0.00 0 0 $- $118 $- 3 Fri 26-Nov-10 2.25 1 1 $109 $227 $- 4.75 4 Mon 29-Nov-10 8.50 1 1 $422 $649 $- 5 Tue 30-Nov-10 11.50 3 1 $565 $1,213 $- 6 Wed 01-Dec-10 11.25 4 1 $549 $1,762 $- 7 Thu 02-Dec-10 8.00 6 1 $379 $2,141 $- 8 Fri 03-Dec-10 12.75 7 1 $613 $2,754 $- 52.00 9 Mon 06-Dec-10 4.75 6.5 1 $215 $2,968 $- 10 Tue 07-Dec-10 15.00 4.5 1 $734 $3,703 $- I edited the log on the 1st of December to include my in's/outs and designate short/cover. 6.) Wed 01-Dec-10 1195 1200.25 1199 1201 1204.25 1207 1204 1205.25 7.) Thu 02-Dec-10 1204.5 1214 1215 1216 1216 1215 S 1221.25 C 1220.25 8.) Fri 03-Dec-10 1215.5 1220.25 1219 1221.25 1217.75 1219.5 S 1218.50 C 1217.50 1217 1217.75 1217.25 1218.75 1218 1219 9.) Mon 06-Dec-10 S 1218.50 C 1220(stopped) 1221.5 1222.5 1222.5 1223.5 1223.25 1224.5 1224.25 1224.75 S 1222.50 S 1220 1123.75 (long to next day) 10.) Tue 07-Dec-10 (long from previous day)1234.5 1233.75 1233.25 S 1229.50 1228.5 1228.5 1230.75 1229.75 1230 Perhaps you missed this earlier, especially given your comment of how I need to pay an installment loss, but I've traded stocks for many years, am licensed, and understand the mindset, had losses of several thousand on a day before and been down for weeks at a time, which was really rough. The emini is a new instrument for me and I am schooling myself to acquire the knowledge to do this for income, as, after all, isn't that what we all want? Iris, I just saw the bloomberg calendar on a webcast about indicators and when to stay out of market and I definitely agree to stay out when market swaying news is about to be released. Thank you for the S/R 1 and S/R 2 lines to watch.