AbeSmith 7-30-07 YM

[AbeSmith 10]

Hello. Not sure if I can post this here (i.e. start a new thread every day) or post on the thread Brownsfan started. I assumed that is for while trading is going on. So if it is too much for me to post a separate thread for my log every day please let me know.

 

Today I traded YM, 1 contract. Chart is in central time. I decided to type my log as I’m trading so that way I can better remember what happened. So today’s log is a combination of that and later editing.

 

 

 

Trade 1 and 2(accidental): Went long around 9:50CT 13330, after seeing the green print indicating possible reversal. Placed stop at 13315. Target, 13360. Moved stop to 13331. Changed outlook when bottom hammer printed and price movement seemed to be reaching a resistance point. Sold quickly with market order at 13335 for a 4 point gain to bail out. But forgot about the stop order at 13331, or rather, assumed that the stop order would be automatically cancelled after I sold at 13335. Instead the stop got triggered, causing a short of 1 contract at 13331. I noticed this by seeing P&L change. By the time I noticed the price had climbed to 13350, so I decided to sell it immediately for a 19 point loss.

 

Trade 3: Now I’m seeing a head and shoulder at 10:08CT, so shorting. Shorted at 13334. Target is 13290. Placed stop at 13310 at 10:10CT to lock in profit. Stop triggered at 10:10CT, 24 points gain. But price continued to go my way after stopping me out, reaching my target of 13290. Should have adjusted stop to break even instead of locking in short term profit. Then I could have more profit. But still, profitable trade, +24 points, and currently up $37.22 including commission.

 

10:25CT. Lunch time. 10:43CT. Lunch finished.

 

Trade 4: 10:43CT. Went for a quick scalp by shorting at 13285 and buying back at 13282 for a quick 3 points. Trade lasted less than 1 minute. Realized gains now at $47.96. What caused me to short was seeing a quick drop in price, and usually when I see that kind of drop the price tends to drop more. But when I saw the price was not going down as fast as I hoped and then started to move back I quickly exited by buying back the short. I’m glad I got out quick because the price is now reversing quickly. In retrospect this was a sporadic trade that shouldn’t have happened.

 

11:00CT. Getting some sings of resistance around 13325. Seeing lower lows and lower highs (so I thought) in the trend. Waiting for 5 minute print to go short. Though one the 1 minute chart it is showing the last dip with a higher low and higher high. Don’t know if that is significant.

 

Trade 5 and 6 (accidental): 11:03CT. Shorted at 13310. Placed stop at 13319. But accidentally cancelled it. In the process of resetting the stop accidentally shorted another contract. Noticed this on the P&L. So got out completely. Was a bad setup anyway because I would have been stopped out. The reason I entered this setup is because the trend since 9:15CT was lower lows and lower highs. But now that I look at the chart again it shows that I didn’t notice a higher high right before I entered. I don’t know how I could have missed that. Realized gains is now $24.44.

 

11:22CT. Since the last high was a higher high, I’m looking for this dip to be a higher low, and then I will go long after getting a 5 minute green candle confirmation print. I also notice that often noon ET tends to be the low of the day, so I’m looking forward to a profitable long.

 

Trade 7 and 8 (accidental): Again, had some unintentional trades here due to unfamiliarity with stop orders. I’m not quite sure what happened. Following the plan in the paragraph above, I saw a 5 minute green candle print and so I went long at 11:28CT by buying 1 contract at 13304. I placed a stop 10 points bellow that. Price was going up, but I was getting jittery again so I accidentally put a buy limit order at 13319 when I wanted to sell. When it got triggered I noticed that I still had activity on the P&L, so at that point I was very confused so instead of trying to figure out if it was in my favor or not I decided to try to get out as quickly as possible. So I Sold at 13312 and again at 13316. It was a disaster, but still overall positive. Realized gains are now up, $40.92, but I missed the big move.

 

12:01CT. Getting ready to go to coffee shop.

 

12:41CT. Arrived at coffee shop. Current price is above 13385. Price broke through pivot point at 13391.

 

1:08CT. Price above 13391 pivot, but too volatile to enter IMO.

 

1:12CT. Coffee shop internet broke down. Switching over to AT&T wireless broadband.

 

2:30CT. Did not enter any more setups today. Just studying the chart and curious to see how it behaves towards the close.

 

What I learned today and some thoughts:

 

I'm beginning to better appreciate what traders like Torero and Brownsfan have been suggesting to me about removing the P&L. Although I don't think I will do that, I understand the idea behind why they might say that. The idea being that I'm paying too much attention to the money. For example, when I see $80 profit I don't like to give that up because to me that is a day's work. But I can see now that I should try to maximize profit, and to do that a lot of times it is better to hold on to a position and wait for it to increase. With one solid trade I could have made much more than what I made with multiple trades, in actual points and in lower commission. So next time I will look for longer duration setups. Then after some good profit I will move my stop to break even. Then I will look for the price to reach my target. Once the target is reached I will move my stop just below it and wait and see if I can get more out of it. So to sum it up, I will try to go for longer duration setups and not get too attached to a little profit on my way to bigger profits.

 

Still, I'm seeing some improvement in my trading. Overall I was profitable today. Many of my setups were good. A big chunk of my potential profits though, other than the bailing out prematurely ones, were lost due to purely technical problems of misunderstanding my trading platform when trying to incorporate stops. Those technical issues can be solved, so I'm feeling good about my progress. Total points: +15, including loss of over 20 points due to technical issues. Total commission: 34.08 after 16 trades, 8 roundtrips. Realized Gains: 40.92.

[MrPaul 10]

Abe,

 

You do a great job of journaling your thoughts and actions. Keep it up!

[AbeSmith 10]

Abe,

 

You do a great job of journaling your thoughts and actions. Keep it up!

 

Thanks Paul.

[james_gsx 16]

You know it's funny, several months ago I tried day trading stocks and I would keep a log of where the stock had to go to make x amount of dollars. I was so focused on making a few bucks that I actually lost most of my trades. Why? I got greedy, I would see a good trade and enter, the trade would go the way I wanted but I was dissapointed at much money I made. I figured for all that work I should make more, so I'd hold and that gain would quickly turn into a loss and I would get pissed off.

 

Now, I focus much more on what trades could be setting up and how I plan on entering them. I have started to set things up well ahead of time, so I am prepared and I know exactly how much I can make ore lose on the trade. I'm doing a much better job controlling my emotions and surprisingly making more money.

 

I think it's very positive to set goals for yourself, do you have any daily goals or weekly goals you can trade for? Maybe not even goals about money, but maybe a certain win percentage? Maybe.. avoiding a certain amount of trades you see that have hurt you in the past?

[AbeSmith 10]

You know it's funny, several months ago I tried day trading stocks and I would keep a log of where the stock had to go to make x amount of dollars. I was so focused on making a few bucks that I actually lost most of my trades. Why? I got greedy, I would see a good trade and enter, the trade would go the way I wanted but I was dissapointed at much money I made. I figured for all that work I should make more, so I'd hold and that gain would quickly turn into a loss and I would get pissed off.

 

Now, I focus much more on what trades could be setting up and how I plan on entering them. I have started to set things up well ahead of time, so I am prepared and I know exactly how much I can make ore lose on the trade. I'm doing a much better job controlling my emotions and surprisingly making more money.

 

I think it's very positive to set goals for yourself, do you have any daily goals or weekly goals you can trade for? Maybe not even goals about money, but maybe a certain win percentage? Maybe.. avoiding a certain amount of trades you see that have hurt you in the past?

 

Hello James. I'm glad you ask me that. Money wise my goal was to make 100 a day from 1 contract, or at least not to lose money. I also have a goal of reducing the number of trades I do by staying away from spur of the moment trades and concentrating on setups as you described above where you plan it out and know your entry, stop, and target.