Dinerotrader

No problem Jason. You gotta do what helps you make money. It was good having you post here. Let that machine print the money day in day out! An automated system really highlights the reality that trading is all about playing your statistical advantage over and over again.

I'll hopefully be starting with real money on Monday. I'm biased but I think SIM results are great here as well. For me, other's results lose the most value when they are infrequent. Taking a break like Brownsfan is fine but when you decide you want to post here, throw your results up everyday whether you have a loss or a profit. I have a whole laundry list of ways that posting to this thread has helped me but in the end, like Brownsfan said, the point is to post to the thread to help your own trading.

Well, I certainly learned a lot from those I mentioned. Seeing the variances of daily P/L helped give me more realistic expectations for my real trading. But hey, if you take a look at all the discussions on the 2009 thread and you find no value, this just isn't for you.

Can you post a chart so we can see what you are referring to. Thanks.

Its too bad we lost everyone on this thread. I was just looking through the 2009 P/L thread and we had Soultrader, Thalestrader, Brownsfan, Bathrobe, ....etc. Great discussions and charts from a diverse group of seasoned traders. It is so nice to just see how everyone did at the end of the trading day. It pushes you do do better, reminds you that everyone is having rough days, etc. Who else can share in the excitement or disappointment from a day of trading better than TL folks. Have a great weekend.

SIM +$742 I am feeling like I finally made it to becoming a profitable SIM trader. Great week. Had some some good trades this week and some trading plan enhancements to reinforce my setup opportunities. Wasn't expecting that huge rejection at the bottom of the breakdown today. Got a few failed but good setups. I guess I'll have to see if there was a good reason to not have taken them or if those were just the business expenses of the day. Since its Friday, I have been writing a few things to myself about trading. Just thoughts put on paper. Nothing revolutionary. I thought I'd throw them up here with my post today. Losses Losses in trading can very reasonably be viewed as operating expenses. In trading, losses are a necessary part of daily operations. Maximizing revenue and minimizing expenses is how every business must operate and trading is no exception. If your profit margin is tight like Walmart, you simply increase transaction volume and in turn profits go up while maintaining historical margins. Thinking you can eliminate losses in trading is like a hair salon owner wishing they didn't have to pay employees or pay for supples. That salon owner wants to keep those costs down as much as possible without affecting revenues. The owner could only hire 16 year old hair stylists to keep wage expense low but that most likely would in turn decrease revenue from repeat customers. A trader can easily make the same mistake and cut profits by trying to decrease expenses (losses) to excessively. There is a careful balance of accepting expenses and revenues that must be maintained while always striving to adapt to market changes. A business owner would not characterize a wage expense as a loss and neither should a trader. I will define and shift my own paradigm in trading to realize that each trade loss is simply part of my business expense structure. Ignoring bias What indicators/bias to ignore while trading. It is easy for me personally, to consider far too many factors in evaluating an possible entry or exit point. Long term trend, intermediate trend, short term trend, previous candlesticks, trendlines, longterm/shorterm/ S/R levels, the day's directional momentum, volume, price patterns, etc. These are all valid considerations but a simulateous weighin of all indications normally leads me to confusion. At a given decision point in the trading process only certain factors should defined in my trading a worth consideration with deliberate and specific ignorance of other factors. Trading decision points would be entry and exit(trail or flatten). I will define which bias define my entry/exit and I will ignore other factors which I feel do not add value to the decision analysis.

1.5 hours of trading. Wish I could do that everyday. There were several good moves after that but I had to cut things short today. Nice work there yourself.

SIM +$474 Couple bad trades but overall got great entries on the breakdowns. Everything was a little too slow for my liking but you take what you get. Good day.

I hate it when the wedge closes after the pit closes. I don't trade after pit close but maybe I should consider starting. 2 days in a row!

SIM +$118 Focused a lot on only entering in better setups and I am happy with today's trade number. I guess I was so focused on keeping the trade # down I forgot to let a trade move before exiting. Cut huge profit winners after 5 ticks for some reason. I'll have to fix that tomorrow. I also skipped traking any trades before inventory. Even though it was a narrow range the only trade setup I saw yielded an easy 25 ticks.

"To each his own" It is very interesting how different everyone's opinion can be about cars. There were some people that decided to buy Pontiac Aztec. Everyone likes what they like.

I like the LS 460 L AWD as a daily driver in the snow. I especially like the reclining back seats. Thats a pretty high end luxury feature you won't find in to many other cars. Get one a few years old, probably cost you around $45,000 if you have someone good to buy from.

SIM -$412 I have got to stop taking momentum based trades, especially in historically choppy price areas. Drawdown was my worst in 5 weeks. Bad day. Can't blame the chop, I just traded poorly.

This area can be very choppy. Got a lot of chop today so far. Lots of moves with no follow through.

I had a thread going about this a little while back Here. See if it gets you started.

The monthly roll over of oil is a recurring annoyance. I hate having to switch over every month. Also, the normal momentum behind price swings dies out a little during the few days that there is a large volume split between the current and future contracts as seen on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Do a quick morning check to compare the volumes on the contracts like Brownsfan said and you'll get the heads up when you need to switch.

I am no expert but I have never seen a day where the volume on the next oil contract in line was larger than the prior on one day and then switch back to having lower volume than the prior. It seems like once the volume switches to the next contract, that is where the larger volume stays.

SIM +$838 I really wanted a better than $1000 day so I kept trading and ended up with a boatload of trades today. I was long at the LOD and considering the opening gap I was going to ride it but I saw those ticks start rolling in and cut the profits. A little dejavu day from March 15 when we got a trend up day right after a big breakdown. I first started trading oil back when these types of days were the norm and making money was easy. Luckily I stayed in SIM to get a handle on how to trade all the other narrow range days. If oil keeps making these types of moves, I'll be very happy.

Everyone switched to the K contract on Friday. Did you see my post above?

On monday morning when that happened the tech guy at OEC found some sort of problem that was fixed by the next day. He gave me a couple months free DEMO time for the inconvenience. My problem might have been different than yours. Not sure. I wasn't getting any futures data at all. By the next morning I was getting everything as usual.

SIM +$374 Well, I blew my chance for a great day. Oil moved big and I was early to short but just couldn't hold through it after getting used to all those choppy days. This is my recurring problem. We'll see if I can come up with some solutions this weekend. Okay week. Really need to improve things going forward.

Had to switch to the K contract this morning.

Good points BF. Here is how the volume ended up today between the J,K, and M contracts. I am hoping to not change over to the K contract until Monday so I can redo all my charts over the weekend.

I'll throw my 2 cent in here. I don't know what the right answer for you is but I think quite often about what I will teach my children if I raise them while being a full time daytrader. My plan right now is to teach them that they need to get a college education, work a few years in their industry to build some real world knowledge/skills, and once they have that resume and experience to fall back on, only then should they consider full time trading. There are more specifics to the idea. Too many fail at this and I would hate to see one of my children try their hardest, fail, and then be stuck trying to build a career way behind the curve. Plus, such a situation would make it hard for them to marry, start a family, etc.. which brings way more joy than money does. I am someone who can only enjoy life's richness if I am able to pay the monthly bills and have money for emergencies. Financial stress ruins all the things that make life great. So that is my basic idea right now for guiding my kids. Build a safety net, and then get your trading going. Like I said, it appears that so many fail at this that you can't just have faith you will succeed. Even if I fail, I will still have a good paying job so I can take the kids to Disneyland, go out with my wife on the weekend, buy a new TV when the old one breaks, etc... Take it all with a grain of salt. Everyone has their opinion and there is no way to know what your future holds. My plan for my kids could dramatically change as my trading career progresses. Great log Cory. This is great stuff for aspiring traders to read through.

SIM +$348 Great day of profits for the small range moves that were provided. All the volume was split between the J and K contract so none of the moves had much umph and someone did not want to let oil breakdown. Every try failed. Nice to have a day with no drawdowns though.