Testing Times.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for 5th. Another day with a lot of trades, felt a little over cautious at times and exited a few trades as I was focused on the P&L.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 6th, frustrating day as I got tangled in chop, I did not identify it as such until after the fact.

[Gamera 15]

Actions for the 7th, made a slight mistake with prep as some charts had rolled, made more mistakes as I got selective about my trades and took the less than ideal setups. Old habits die hard.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 8th. Took trades as price broke to new lows but felt a little lost inbetween those moments.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 11th. Very frustrating day as the market seemed to probe and backfill in the early part of the session.

[Gamera 15]

No trading since last post, time zone and hardware restrictions will likely limit my trading for the next couple of weeks.

[Gamera 15]

Happy New Year. Not a whole lot to report since last post, traded when I could but struggled to put in screen time as I was away from my usual setting. This time last year I was getting back into things after a 6 month layoff and struggling with what seemed like a really hard intraday market (in my mind at least). Whilst results have been improving I am still having a hard time getting myself to do the job I'm supposed to, it's a work in progress that I will continue to improve on.

 

Prep and actions for the 16th. A little sloppy, went on holiday after trade 2 as I waited back at the Lo-Hi of the day for the next trade, then missed the first op back at the lows as it happened to quick. And by the time trade 3 came about, I was thinking price could go much lower given PA was bouncing off the UL of the weekly channel, despite that, I got tangled with longs and could not engage that heavily on the short side which frustrated me as the day dragged on.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 17th, small time thinking leaves me scrapping for ticks.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Gamera

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 18th, Changes in volume along with behaviour pointed towards bigger things happening but despite these observations I failed to capitalise in the moment. Chart review attached to give an idea of what I was seeing/thinking.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 19th, had to shut down 60 minutes into the session.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 22nd. Very frustrating as I got point precious on trade 2, no real reason to exit just did not want to give up too much of what I gained.

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Prep and actions for the 23rd.

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Prep and actions for the 24th. My focus was not at its best after trade 6 and once the drop started I was not willing to chase.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 25th. I was too slow in picking out some of the trades that I should have taken and found myself being whipsawed by larger than usual oscillations.

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Prep and actions for the 26th.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 29th. Made some changes after going over my trade log, I have a real problem holding trades to DP if I am wrong about my hypothesis regarding my trade. The more volatile days last week Wed, Thu and Fri caught me out and I could not tolerate the wider stops so ended up getting out in the middle of nowhere (pains of a 1 lotter). I'll initiate with a tighter stop and should the trade idea hold I can look at a re-entry should the initial stop get hit. It would also really help if I could hold to a managed exit rather then a knee jerk reaction.

Pic of log attached for posterity (16th-26th), kickback on some trades is another thing I am trying to figure out.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Gamera

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 30th. Tighter stops hurt today, I'm paranoid enough to think it would not have mattered where my stops were. If I am taking a trade its because I think its at a point where price is so off balance that it will fall or fly. The problem I have is after it jumps (triggers) it bounces back onto the ledge and second guesses itself (bungee jumpers backing out at point of jumping).

 

My expectation is that the trade should be swept into a movement as it unfolds but the kickback after triggering which will happen, is happening a little sooner and deeper after triggering a trade than I would expect. I kept watching after trade 3 but saw every opportunity as a trap.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 31st.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 1st. I'm finding volume a little harder to figure out at the minute so I'm looking at activity charts (tick, volume) to track PA, volume seems to be double what it was this time last year and I wonder what it could mean.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 2nd. No rhyme or reason to some of my thinking throughout the session.

[Gamera 15]

Better late than never, weekend thoughts and ramblings.

 

By the end of last week it was becoming increasingly clear to me that this increased volatility/activity was making things a little harder, actually a lot harder with the problem kicking off on the 24th Jan (in my mind at least).

 

It seemed that the PA around my entries came with a sting in its tail with price often backing up with little in the way of favourable movement. This exposed a number of problems in my thinking/psychology and plan (I'm sure I've gone over this before) .

 

1. Knowing that a ret will inevitably happen, I often waited for one to happen (anticipating trending moves), even if MFE was positive several points I would sit on my stops and wait for the ret to confirm only to see the ret slam my stops. Seeing this happen repeatedly has pushed me into getting out early whilst the going is good (limiting).

 

2. Stops should be beyond the climax Hi-Lo, the movements have pushed this out wider than I can tolerate (not like I was doing well following this rule). My magic number of tolerance seems to be around 5 points ($100), it seems to be a barrier on the plus side too.

 

These are a couple of the more obvious ones but as the week was ending some questions came up that needed some thought.

 

Entries are problematic, with the volatility being higher those little oscillations are just in range of my track and are often being triggered a little early, it doesn't mean the idea is ultimately bad, its just the ret is not at a point where it tips over, tighter tracking and I get more triggers, looser and I'm running out of room on the entry leg and moving onto the next ret which will be a problem. In my mind if price ain't going something's wrong.

 

Given that I was getting a lot of kickback on trade entries from test failures a question was asked, if chop and backfill is likely could a later entry be taken? Yes, quite a few trades backed up through my entries (sting in the tail) before finally going, the premise of the trade was often sound, the timing was off and my tolerance of adverse excursion was low, but, if my timing was right there was little kickback and PA would go and FOMO then becomes a problem.

 

Whilst looking at later entries I wondered if earlier entries were possible and started to play with a few ideas, the best that I could come up with would not always get triggered or would have PA blow through it, when it works it works but it goes to show that there is no catch all when it comes to trade entries.

 

As for trade management, my thinking is skewed in a big way due to results and a negative expectancy. I don't give trades that are working any time to work, in some instances a trailing stop of a few points would have netted far better results, and taking losers with decent MFE is all too common. If PA looks like it is going, the least I can do is move to BE once a trade is a few point positive rather than wait for a stop hitting ret (these rets are a possible entry point rather than the initial trigger).

 

Trying different entry criteria might mean watching trades go without me, FOMO is something I will have to come to terms with along with trying to stick with trades that have given no real exit signal.

 

So, lots of things to keep an eye on and ideas to think about.

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 5th. I knew there would be issues tweaking my entries but I did not expect the day to turn out how it did. Being fixated with my entries left me paying little attention to context, I shorted the dips in the rally and bought the rallies in the drops. The volume on rets if heeded would have me looking at things the other way, but, it was a learning opportunity and despite the number of trades I wasn't down that much by the time I shut down

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 7th. Another interesting day exposed some learning opportunities. No trades for the 6th as things were a little wild.

[Gamera 15]

Trades for the 8th. Prep was a little difficult as PA prior to open had recovered back to the MP of the previous days high and post market low in a choppy manner.

 

Note: I'm finding a lot of conflict between the different time frames, some context could help when best to use lower time frames or higher time frames such as levels of interest (bigger swing points, areas of S&R) and behaviours (climax PA or volume)

[Gamera 15]

Prep and actions for the 9th. A little bias got me into trouble again, and despite picking out a few better spots found myself being kicked out early on.