jonbig04

My it has been some time since I've updated this thing. Why is that? Mostly because this journal has fulfilled it's sole purpose-for me to develop a profitable trading strategy. I can say today that I have done that. I've been consistently profitable for long enough now to say, well, that I am consistently profitable. I want to take some time to recognize that lot of that is due to the help and advice of people on this forum. I was also lucky enough early on to be able to witness and learn from some amazing traders in action. While watching these successful traders was of course helpful strategically, what it really did was to open my eyes to what is possible trading. It showed me what is possible if you work hard and never give up. Just browsing trading forums can be downright depressing to anyone hoping to turn this into a career. Sometimes it just seems impossible. It's not. Having said that, I want it to be clear that I am not where I want to be as a trader. Difficulties have arisen that I could have never foreseen. Difficulties that aren't even really related to having a profitable trading strategy. All I can say is that learning to trade is an intensely personal and subjective experience. And, for me at least, trading profitably is just one part of really making this work. So, having said all that, it seems that the public aspect of this trading journey is over. The hurdles I have to overcome now are more personal, and in some ways more difficult to pinpoint. But I welcome any questions from anyone regarding all aspects of what I do and how I learned to do it. I would love to help anyone who needs it, if I am able to (and I'm not saying I am). I'm not going to be browsing forums and answering questions...that can make anyone go insane. If I can help, please let me know either in this thread or via PM. And with that said, see you in the markets bitches! :evil tongue:

There may exist a better book about trading than Reminiscences, but I'm not aware of it.

Hello TL! It's been a while since I've posted, but I thought this was something that should be brought up. Attached is an article I wrote a few months ago. It's long. I'm not even sure if anyone will bother reading it, but I think what is happening right now is simply unprecedented and that as many people as possible should be aware. In my opinion we are inflating perhaps the largest bubble in history. Not one that is tied to one commodity, sector, or even country. I'm talking a global bubble-the bursting of which would be catastrophic. I could be wrong though. I've attached the article and hope a few of you will get some pleasure out of reading it. Happy trading. Jon GlobalDebtBubble24.pdf

Just thought I'd share my progress with the new setups I'm working on (see previous post). These are on a smaller time frame and are kind of my answer to taking more trades. I haven't perfected them yet. I've learned that these are not breakouts in the same sense as my other break out trades. These small time frame trades usually lead to more of a meandering, slow but steady, break out. Therefor they do require a larger stop. I did manage to find a good one yesterday. Hopefully soon I'll be taking these for real.

In my very humble opinion, if you haven't decided that you are going to work as hard as you can for however long it takes to become a "successful" trader, you are destined for frustration. My trading improved so much when I stopped worrying about deadlines and simply realized that I was in this for however long it takes.

Today was a little annoying. Thought I caught a nice move with an early morning short. was able to book one of the 3 targets, but the rest came back to BE. Bah! Just wanted to share a setup I will be taking. I already take this on large time frames, but I will be taking this one on smaller time frames. I actually thought it had a name already, but I was wrong. I've mentioned it in this thread before, and in Thales' thread in which we entitled it "jonbig breakout" haha. As far as I know this pattern isn't out there yet. Anyway, I like it. I saw something the other day about someone not posting their exact strategies for fear of some kind of edge diminishment or something. As far as I'm concerned, my setups are based on reoccurring human behavior. Since that hasn't change in the last couple thousand years, I doubt I'm in any danger. Anyway, for what it's worth-here you go: I want to mention again that taking setups or patterns or whatever only works if you know WHY they work. The market is too ever-changing for this kind of thing to be plug-in play. Without understanding a setup or patten you will see them all over the place when you shouldn't.

No real action for me. Took 2 BE trades and a few losses for -4 ticks and -2 ticks. Kind of annoying. I am still sim trading that box strategy. Basically it's the same thing I do on a large time frame, only on a smaller scale. The box just keeps me looking for areas of congestions. I've taken 3 so far, and in true sim fashion, they all worked lol. One was the 6E short from the other day. The other was a crude long which I was able to scale the first half off at +20 and got BE on the rest. The other was a 6E trade from last night. May start taking these live soon. Oh I lost 4 ticks on the first try. I'm a little lost on what to do as far as targets and such on these smaller time frame trades?

That box ended up being very important. After I played the breakdown from it, price rallied. I played the breakout above 1.236. I was only able to scaled half out for +20 and got knocked out BE on the rest when it flipped (only by two ticks though, grrr) Oddly, price decided to flip the top of box level at 1.2348 as well, making a double bottom there. Earlier in the night I didn't want to play a breakout above the box because the 1.236 level loomed. But that definitely would have been the way to go. Since I move to BE anyways, it wouldnt matter if price got rejected at 1.236 and came back down. I would simply re-enter above 1.236 after getting stopped BE. Woulda shoulda coulda.

A few days ago I realized that, in a way, my trades are somewhat similar to Db's Cajas Famosas. I've started dialing down the time frames just a bit to try to identify these value areas, boxes, ranges, patterns-whatever you want to call them. The biggest difference is I prefer to play breakout below/above these areas as opposed to fading the extremes. Anyways, as luck would have it, my first intraday box trade worked well. I did take it sim, not like that really matters anyway. It netted 30 ticks or so. I also tried to play a BO below the 63 level, but that didn't pan out and I lost 5 ticks (target was 40 ticks on that one though). I have a potential long and short on 6E and a short on CL. We'll see how those work out.

So here's a link to a funny South Park episode about the economy/market: South Park Episode Player - South Park: Margaritaville

Possible CL trade. Just possible.

I'm using amp. I'm going to watch it tomorrow and confirm that it is that wide.