brownsfan019

I try to eat 4 egg whites + 1 yolk before the open. Protein shake as mid-morning snack. Sensible, light lunch (usually). Drink hot tea as first drink of day and then move to water. Since I got going on p90x and trying to compliment that w/ a good diet, it's helped keep me refreshed and alert (most days).

1) I suppose some overseas guys are trading afterhours. I only trade during pit hours. 2) And IMO that's why this thing will move on the open. There's built up interest while it's closed and that open gets it going quickly. I much prefer that over the 24 hours of the other globex products. I kinda wish everything was just open at 930am and closed at 415pm. 3) No idea.

JKLM - look at your exit points - do those look random? I don't use pivots. Just looking for a few good setups per day in each market and today was oil's turn to produce.

1 setting per market (tick charts mainly right now - range chart on ZS) And yes, I do set audible and popup box alerts in the OEC trader software PS I think you're kicking my ass in terms of $$$. You got it going Chris and have the confidence to do some nice size. If anything, you are proving it can be done w/ 1 or 2 little trades, but trade some size and be confident in them. That's all you need to make a nice living at this. Gone are the days of trading over and over and over for me.

Jimbo - thanks for posting. That was a lot to take in such a small post. If you could elaborate on the trade/setup, that'd be great. Pictures always work nicely.

Alright, back to blotters and the day at hand. Feel free to take all side stuff over to Thales' thread since he graciously offered to take it there. I guess Mon was slow all around as I didn't do much either. It got so slow I just shut it down, so nothing on Monday. Today was a bit better, particularly on oil: 10/6/09: +$755 As a side note, the ZN has been slow the last few trading days. It's really irritating me...

OK - I'M ENDING THIS NOW. THIS THREAD IS ABOUT POSTING YOUR RESULTS AND TALKING ABOUT THEM IF YOU WISH. IF YOU HAVE PARTICULAR QUESTIONS, CONCERNS, WHATEVER START A NEW THREAD. I'M VERY CLOSE TO JUST WIPING ALL THESE RECENT POSTS OUT OF THIS THREAD. Monday is a new trading day and we will treat it as such in this thread. To participate in this thread, either: 1) post your blotter 2) discuss your trading day That's it. If you want to discuss the merits of trading more than 1 market, open a new thread somewhere else. If you want to discuss why you should only trade 1 market when starting out, start a new thread somewhere else. If you want to say you think the posts here are fake, start a new thread somewhere else. Is that clear? You guys know I'm a very lenient mod, but this recent multipage outbursts is not what this thread is about. If you're not sure what this thread is about, see page 1, post 1. Thank you and good trading. Hope to see many participating here on Monday with blotters - good or bad, real or sim - doesn't matter, just participate!

Dinero - the chart setting really is up to you and your comfort level. I would suggest opening up at least 3 different chart settings and see what you like the best: 1) Volume Chart - something like 50-250 2) Range Chart - something like 4-15 3) Tick Chart - something like 30-100 The higher the number, the slower the chart will print new candles. From there, it's a comfort level. I personally like range charts on the ZS. Watch them in real-time and see what you like. Just looking at static charts is misleading b/c you might not be noticing that there are bursts of candles printed and then not much, esp. on the open. Lately I've seen the ZS pretty much head in 1 direction once it's decided what that direction is (and usually doesn't take too long). If you can get on the right side, can make some quick money as this bugger doesn't wait around. Good luck and let me know how it goes and what you are seeing.

MM - let me share this w/ you then... 1) I've been trading for about 8 yrs or so now. I've been through the ups/downs and now I'm sharing my experiences here. 2) I know that you've been taught via books, blogs, etc that the way to trade is focus on 1 market and only 1 market. I was there too, just like you are now. After all those years, my focus went from1 market to 1 setup (and trade multiple markets). When I did that, my equity curve changed dramatically. So I know what the standards or rules of thumb taught out there are, but there also must be a reason why many new traders fail and don't survive this business, yet here I am still doing it after all these years. Maybe, just maybe, I've been there, done that and found a few things that work. If you don't keep an open mind when you first start trading and learning this business, you'll have a hard time succeeding IMO. Keep in mind that when you read those books, newsletters, seminars, etc. that they are profiting by selling you some item... rarely do they offer anything of substance that can make an impact on your trading. And no offense, but I don't think a trader that is break-even and trying to find their way should be criticizing someone that makes a consistent profit (proven throughout this thread) and is happy to share experiences here with all. Instead of being so quick to call something 'suicide' maybe take it in and think about it. And if it doesn't make sense now, that's not surprising, but maybe down the road something might hit you. Like I said though, there is no perfect 1 and only 1 way to trade to make money at this business. There will be plenty of people that think the way you trade is foolish and silly. That means nothing if it works for you and makes you money. It's all about the $$$$. That's it. That's how we keep score here. If you are making it, then it really doesn't matter what other people say. If you aren't making it, maybe listen to those that are... food for thought.

Guess we'll disagree MM on that one then. I'm posting blotters showing that it can in fact be done. How about you? Care to show how it looks perfecting 1 market? Or just an observer? B/c I believe we've yet to see 1 blotter from you demonstrating what you are claiming is the only way to trade... I find it humorous when people think that their one opinion is the only truth out there. As you can see in my posts, I'm usually pretty good at saying 'IMO' or 'this is what works for me' etc. THE FACT IS THAT THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG WAY TO TRADE. WHAT WORKS FOR YOU MAY NOT WORK FOR OTHERS. AND THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE RIGHT AND THEY ARE WRONG. There are many, many ways to trade and everyone eventually finds what works for them. And if it works for YOU then it's PERFECT for YOU even if other people would claim it's 'suicide'. See, what you're failing to grasp MM is that you can in fact master 1-2 predictable setups and then exploit those over multiple markets. I know that trading multiple markets may be daunting to some and most 'gurus' w/ books, newsletters, etc spit out the same rhetoric as you did here, but it's nonsense. Perhaps the edge I'm exploiting depends on certain conditions to be met and those conditions are typically met 1-2 times per day, per market... why just trade 1 then when I can trade more and make more? Anyways, I'm showing that it can be done daily w/ consistent results. Do you plan to show what it looks like when focusing on 1 market and only 1 market? You'll find that in this thread, it's not just talk. This is the one thread here where people post blotters, which you've yet to do. As they say - talk is cheap. Show me the $.

It took me quite awhile to figure that, but once you do and if it works for your trading, it's such a beautiful way to trade. I think we're bred to believe that work must occur from 9am-5pm (or longer) and if you want to be wealthy, you better be working round-the-clock. But that's simply not true in trading. You can take a handful of trades per day, be done by noon and make a good living. It is possible and IMO it's easier than trading all day. A lot of it has to do with the amount of mental stamina required when trading manually and trading for hours. To trade all day, 5 days a week manually is a daunting task. And I tried so hard to find a way to do it for a long time. It's not easy and I applaud those that can do that consistently and profitably. In the end, all that matters to me is the $$$ gains. That's it. This is what I do to support myself and family so it's about the benjamins. And the 'easiest' way for me to capture the most $$$ was to focus hard from 8am-Noon, be particular on my entries and then just do it. Sounds so easy but it literally took me years and thousands upon thousands of dollars to realize that.

Well, it wasn't the plan, trust me.

My original post has direct links to the CME. I went ahead and did the work for you.

I think someone requested a down day for me... here you go Mr. Mouse. Enjoy! 10-2-09: -$186.87 I'm ok w/ the day other than the CL. Wow did I fucker that one up good. Scenario: was short the CL and up over $600/ct. I guess some greed took over and I was shooting for about $800/ct in profits. And it looked like it might get there too - and I thought, wow the TL guys are going to love this. Well, price quickly snapped back and I covered to cover the loss from the first trade. It happens I guess, let it be on a Fri.

Go back through the thread and you'll see plenty of losing days. Of course I have losing days. lol. While there's good volatility, I should see good results. When this volatility dies, I will have to revisit profit targets. With that said, I'm typically on target to "win" about 4 out of 5 days. Keep in mind that a win can be as small as +$1 as long as it's +. This week was nothing to write home about in terms of the $ wins. Thurs was a target day but others were not. And rarely do I see all trades in all markets lose. That's the point of trading different, uncorrelated markets. This week, ZS has been great to trade and saved my ass a few days. Check blotters to see what I am talking about. For now, the trades seem easier on the ZS but that's subject to change in a heartbeat, which is why I trade others as well. If you want to see a smoother equity curve, I would strongly recommend trading multiple markets and ones that are uncorrelated to the indexes. Will you be joining us here MM? Be nice to get some new people posting in the thread.

So far so good since I came back from summer break. My strategy is simple, esp on a smaller account - keep intraday losses small, keep profits larger and try to have more winners than losers. That's the basics of it at least. There's some more risk mgmt parameters in place, but that's an entire post on it's own. As you'll note if you look at the blotters, I do not focus on 1 market. I have a prime setup that I'm simply looking to exploit over a variety of futures markets. At most I will have 3 trades in a market and a good day is more like 2 setups. Since I know my ideal trading setup is 2 winners in a market, I've chosen to open up my markets traded to include bonds, currencies (although currently on hold), oil, gold, indexes, and grains. Now my ideal day looks like 1-2 trades per market x 6 or so markets. I also don't trade all day. That was also a losing battle for me. I try to get the charts shut off by 12pm EST at the latest. I don't know what happens the rest of the day and I don't care. If I can make $500-$1000/day per contract on this account, that's exactly where I want to be. It's taken awhile to get to this point - to know that: 1) There's no need to trade all day (and it's actually very counter-productive for me) 2) There's no need to focus on just 1 market and feel like you have to trade in that 1 market you are watching 3) There's no need to have many different setups if you find 1 solid, reliable, consistent performer Now I'll say this - this week has been FAR from perfect. I track what I did vs. what the system produced. So at this point I should have had a much better week than what was posted, so it's very possible a losing day will hurt more than it should. And that's my issue - overriding the system out of fear.

Let me save you some time searching for the magical indicator settings - TI is selling garbage. It's trash. All they are selling is a divergence based trading system, which you can easily read via a google search or Amazon book search (such as this one or this one). There is no magical setting on the stochastics that will turn it from a severely lacking indicator into a leading one. It won't happen.

How often - your guess is as good as mine. 2 schools of thought here... 1) If it's true S/R it should act like that and just go or 2) since it is S/R there will be a lot of defending going on by bulls and bears so some chop could ensue. Anticipate chop - my way of avoiding chop is to not take trades after a few hours that particular market has been open. In other words, if trading the ES, I'm done w/ that thing no later than 12pm EST. Usually sooner. That's my way of avoiding the lunch time drag and a possible afternoon chop session. For me, I've found 3 cycles and I focus on cycle 1. With that said, you'll have to find what works for you and your methodology. I do not trade the same way Thales does in his charts so my ideas here may not work under those conditions.

There are quite a few reasons to post grey1: FOR YOU Create a place where you are accountable Get feedback on your trades, progress, etc If you do want to post charts, you will probably get feedback on these as well Occasionally you'll get a PM from a new person that says 'Thanks, you've give me some ideas or given me drive to do this' FOR OTHERS Show those new to trading it can in fact be done Show that there's many ways to make money in trading (by seeing a variety of blotters from people posting here) There's no requirements to post here but it would be nice to get a few of us doing this regularly again. I was and then took a break fro the forums and starting it back up again.

Provide a non-correlated market to the indexes or currencies to trade Post edited, thanks for the question. I should have clarified better.

One thing that really helped my equity curve become more smooth was using markets where the best opportunities exist. I'll dive into this some other time, but I wanted to bring to focus trading the grains (Soybeans, Corn, Wheat) contracts as weapons in your arsenal when you go to battle each day. Some characteristics of these markets that I've noticed: Open @ 10:30am EST (very convenient to roll to these marekts once other markets have been open for a bit) These contracts move and move quick on the open usually Good liquidity for daytrading Provide a non-correlated market to the indexes or currencies to trade 3 Main markets to choose from in this arena for daytrading purposes: Soybeans Wheat Corn Personally, I like the movements on the ZS the best. IMPORTANT TO WATCH ON GRAINS: WHEN ROLLOVER IS NEAR In my haste to get this up I missed an important consideration when trading grains - watching when rollover occurs. When rollover is near, the volume can split over the current and future contract which can cause each contract to slow down b/c volume is split. Just be aware of when rollover is near and watch the overall volume on each contract. Take a peak if you are looking for a non-correlated index market to trade. As always, watch these and practice on sim before placing any real money trades. Just remember that I can't stress enough that these guys will move on the open and move swiftly waiting for no man. I would suggest using a non-time based chart (volume, tick or range) to smooth out the fluctuations a bit.

I hope me posting has not scared others off... this is OPEN TO ANYONE - LIVE OR SIM. I'd rather it not be my own posting each day so come on, come all.

Here's a potential issue that I see - when price consolidates (aka chops) around your entry level. You may need to buy/sell/buy/sell before the move occurs. IMO if you are going to trade as you've illustrated here, you need to read Thalestrader posts and get some ideas on how to execute trades like this. You need to take a stand, draw your line in the sand and let it go. Either works or doesn't.

10/1/09 update: +$648.12 Thought I was done and then then ZS just gave me a gift I could not refuse.

10/1/09: +$485.62 Better but not perfect.