Trader P/L 2009

[pimind 10]

Here are my results for today. I had a very good day as far as money made and quality of trades. I hope i can build on today and not regress. I am trying to trade with my signals both on entry and exit. Still got out of a few trades early, went against a signal once, but this is better than usual, Could I be getting closer to trading in the zone, I hope so.

 

900+ after commissions.

 

 

[Robert Joyce 10]

Ok, still with the sim, I got distracted today, was up $610. then got smoked hitting 3 stops in a row and I ended up only $145. This is a problem for me late in the day when I am up substantially, I start taking riskier trades and then just do stupid things.... Good thing this is phoney baloney money. There were 20- 2 contract YM trades, 4 losers, 10 at or near even and 8 winners. Some of those even were actually stopped out at $50. which is where I move my stop to once my first target is hit, especially if the signal is not real strong. Oh yeah and I was duped by some of my longer term EMA's... arrrgh Anyways $145 is 15 real pts. Not very good... especially when I failed to protect my profit late in the day... aargh... I was up 61pts.... my target is 50.... damn it... one of my rules for trading real money will be to put a stop at my daily target once it has been exceeded and then just walk away if it gets hit. There will always be tomorrow and this is what will take real discipline. This is a 'money management' discipline rule. It's the most important rule. Oh yeah and always, always, always check my stochastics before I enter or exit a trade..... But no seriously the most important rules in 'rule based' trading are the money management rules. That is where the real discipline is required.

[pimind 10]

Early Day today. Had a great morning. Didn't take any trades that did not meet my entry signals. Most importantly didn't try to pick tops or bottoms. Have to work on exiting better got out early on several trades only to see them run. But all in all i'm pretty happy with today, i feel i'm making strides in my trading.

 

 

I can't figure out how to get my reports to report the correct commission. I f anyone can help please let me know. Right now it is reporting 2.40. It should be 4.80 approx.

 

Actual results $446.40.

[brownsfan019 17]

Been very busy here after trading so can't post blotter daily. What can I say, it's summer in Ohio and there isn't much time to enjoy this weather.

6-16-09

6-17-09

 

6-18-09

 

 

Not much on Tue and Wed to say.

 

Today however... I dropped the ball big time on that 6E short. I got short around 10am (HOD) and held. And held. And held. I actually could have tripled up if I wanted to as the same signal saying SELL appeared three times. I did not triple up though. But that was not the issue.

 

The issue on this trade was my planned exit in advance was the LOD. Around 1:30pm, the 6E began to drop as I expected but b/c it took so long, I flattened.

 

 

Shortly thereafter it not only hit the LOD, it collapsed through it like it did not exist.

 

What to say... held that damn thing for well over 3 hours and then I didn't make what I should have made on it. Profit should have been about more than double what I reported here.

 

Moral of the story - if you got a good plan, follow it. I almost just put the trade on and walked away. I should have. Instead, I sat here babysitting the damn thing and it cost me a good $500 or so.

 

I don't care what other people say, but this job never gets 'easy' IMO. I would expect a rookie to make this move, but Mr. Market does not care whether you are a seasoned trader or novice - it will mess w/ your mind beyond belief. The biggest challenge I face is what goes on between my ears. My system said take this trade out at the LOD. There were so many reasons to exit there, but that's not the point. My system said to short the HOD, which I did. But when you can only follow 1 out of 2 components of your trading plan, you are setting yourself up for some serious frustrations. Hopefully this little rant of mine will help someone else facing the same situation.

 

Prognostication - I'm going to give a little prognostication too here... sometime soon (maybe Fri), this same thing will happen - but this time I'll tell myself 'stay in, remember what happened on Thurs?' - and the end result will be a full stop out. Why? B/c the market can and does do that to you. It will teach you how to beat yourself up for 2 similar trades and teach you to either follow your plan or continue to give yourself more frustrations. When that happens, I will have turned a winner into a small winner and a loser into a full loser...

 

Again, hopefully that will help someone not make the same error I did here today.

[brownsfan019 17]

Thales - awesome stuff w/ your daughter there btw. The fact that she's interested at such a young age is incredible.

 

I just found this site - http://www.weseed.com

 

Take a look, maybe it would be of use for you and her. My significant other teaches family & consumer sciences and she might use that in her teachings to discuss stocks.

[diablo272 10]

I can't figure out how to get my reports to report the correct commission. I f anyone can help please let me know. Right now it is reporting 2.40. It should be 4.80 approx.

 

Actual results $446.40.

 

Are you sure that isn't correct as it is? It could be reporting $2.40/side, which is the same a $4.80/rt.

[Robert Joyce 10]

Ok, still with the sim, I traded 2 to 4 contracts on the YM today, 22 trades, I didn't figure out the mix but profit of $900. or about 50 real pts. The same 50pts, almost twice the profits and I didn't have to get better or be smarter or have more or better signals. I love this. the day is coming......

[thalestrader 14]

Thales - awesome stuff w/ your daughter there btw. The fact that she's interested at such a young age is incredible.

 

Thanks Brownie!

 

She and I have been going over charts using Ninjatrader for the last few weeks when she has had time. I had her read a nice little book called "Stikky Stock Charts," which is very easy and straight forward.

 

Today she and I familiarized ourselves with the FXCM microtrading staion demo account. She is really wanting to go live, so tomorrow or Monday she will place her first real trade.

 

I have her watching the EURUSD, the EURJPY, and GBPUSD.

 

I have her call the price moves "ticks" and not "pips" as I am not a big fan of retail forex. This is for fun and learning. If it goes well, some day she'll trade futures, and I don't want to hear her say she made 20 pips on the 6E.

 

She's learned about trendlines, a little fib stuff that I have found useful in S/R, and at the end of today she said, "So basically, if the bars are going higher I should buy it, and if the bars are going lower I should sell it."

 

I think she's ready!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[paulrico 10]

thanks,

 

Weekly summary. Nothing remarkable, but not too bad for the few trading hours this week.

 

have a nice weekend

 

================================================

 

[pimind 10]

diablo,

 

No it's it's wrong, I found out because my p&L never matched up with the statement I got . Then I figured the commission manually and it is only reporting 1.20 per contract instead of the 2.40. It should actually be 2.35. It's not a big deal unless you take tons of .25 - .5 scalps and then realize that your commission eats what profits you think you have.

[pimind 10]

I'm done for today , 1 small trade picked up $175+.

[thalestrader 14]

Hi Folks,

 

I did two trades on the ES, +11 and + 6 points respectively. No Stock trades as my attention was really focused upon helping my daughter with her summer project - learning to trade a microlot forex account.

 

She did her first trade yesterday. I would post the blotter, but I didn't take a screenshot yesterday before we shut down to go celebrate, and when we logged onto FXCM's trading station tonight, we found that we were not able to log onto the trading station. I guess it is only available during market hours.

 

She decided (and it was her decision, and it was she who identified the set up - though I did agree with her and told her as much) to go long with a buy stop above a small consolidiation area, and a fairly tight stop loss just below (about 15 ticks initial risk). We identified two areas of resistance above the morning's high, and decided to take profits on a sell limit at the upper range of that resistance. (See chart).

 

The charts we use to watch price action are Ninjatrader charts with data provided by Gain Capital. The buy stop, stop loss, and profit targets are not precisley the same on the chart as the prices she actually traded, because there is a slight difference between the price data between FXCM and Gain. We use the FXCM charts to identify actual trading levels for entry, stop loss, profit objectives, etc., but we watch price action and identify opportunities using the Ninjatrader charts.

 

At any rate, if one eyeballs the Gain data on Ninjatrader, what looks to have been an 88 tick profit was, in her actual trade, an 83.7 tick profit, or $8.37 (one microlot = 1 tick = $0.10 which requires $2.50 margin).

 

So her $25 starting capital now stands at $33.37

 

Not a bad start!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

Edited June 21, 2009 by thalestrader
typo

[atto 20]

That's pretty cool with your daughter. From personal experience working with someone, it's quite interesting how fast someone can learn when given decent instruction with no distractions. Best of luck to you two

[brownsfan019 17]

6-22-09

 

 

A little too early on that 6B short. I was correct in wanting to get short, but the move up at 10:25am EST grabbed my stop. Good news it that I was able to get short again and at least get back most of that.

 

We'll see how these trades would play out as my initial profits have not been hit but my trigger finger took them out when it looked like the 6E was finding some support at a level I had previously been watching.

 

Will update if any bond or index trades fire off. Unfortunately not able to jump on this down move as my level was a tad higher than where the indexes got too.

[hedonQ 10]

...hectic last couple of weeks. Started trading stocks as well. I'll post results from those as well.

 

Trades in GBP/USD from last week:

 

Good Luck.

[pimind 10]

Took one trade today 8 lots for 1.75 points went short at open. Net + $661 after commissions. I'm going to try to trade less with more contracts. I'm only going to trade with the my trend indicators and take higher probability trades, I'm sick of over trading paying more than what i make on slippage and commissions. I hope I can be can keep to my plan.

[brownsfan019 17]

Hmm...I don't know how to post pictures. But I was trading after hours Sunday night in CL. Found a great base forming around 69.6 at 9:30PM and carefully scaled in 10 contracts over the next half hour. It was kinda sketch because of the poor liquidity, but it fortunately worked out OK. I scaled out 5 half an hour later at 69.85 and the rest at 69.9 at abut 1:45 AM when it didn't look like it had enough force behind the move. Made about $2750 over the night and slept in cause I was kinda sick. =)

 

This thread tells you how to post pictures.

 

Welcome aboard.

[brownsfan019 17]

Took one trade today 8 lots for 1.75 points went short at open. Net + $661 after commissions. I'm going to try to trade less with more contracts. I'm only going to trade with the my trend indicators and take higher probability trades, I'm sick of over trading paying more than what i make on slippage and commissions. I hope I can be can keep to my plan.

 

pim - I've mentioned before that I pretty much have done the same thing. Looking to take a handful of trades per day spread over 3-5 different markets and take my best setups.

 

Since starting this thread it has worked out nicely. Keep us posted.

[thalestrader 14]

Hi folks,

 

Other business will keep me from trading until Wednesday.

 

If no one objects to my reporting on my daughter's progress, I'll post an update here as we move through summer. My little girl made one trade today, short EURUSD, in which she was stopped out with a 10.1 tick profit, less .01 for "rollover". The current balance of the Microlot account is now $34.37.

 

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[pimind 10]

Hi,

 

I had some things done around the house and didn't have time to trade the way I wanted to today, . With the amount of time i had i couldn't concentrate on the charts. Here are 3 quick trades i took.

 

Traded 2 lots per trade. Again with the time constraints I didn't want to trade larger lots.

 

[

[thalestrader 14]

Hi Folks,

 

Other business kept me out on the road today, so no trades for me again, but I'll be back to trading tomorrow morning.

 

My daughter did trade today, and she grabbed a nice piece of the up move in the EURJPY - +74.9 ticks. The microlot account has an ending balance of $42.70

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[bathrobe 10]

Shorted 60 es around 3:15 est. +2250. No trades late last week or early this week because I was sick.

[pimind 10]

no trades for me today, my kids just finished school so hung out with them today.

[thalestrader 14]

Hi folks,

 

Today was my first day back. I can't tell you all how great it feels to be sharing my office with my little girl. I got a little computer armoire and set up a computer for her use next to my work space. She trades forex while I trade stocks.

 

We only traded the am session this morning. I managed to finish 2/2 with a net profit of +$0.28 pennies per share traded.

 

She had her first losing trade today. She shorted the GBPUSD, and price immediately went against her and stopped her out for a loss of 24 ticks or so. She then saw another short opportunity, and was stopped out with a profit of just over 60 ticks on that one. So net for the day she was a bit over +26 ticks. The sceen shot of her equity run apparently includes her profits from yesterday as well as today. The microlot account balance finished today at $45.35, up $2.65 from yesterday. She's making me look like an amateur!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[thalestrader 14]

no trades for me today, my kids just finished school so hung out with them today.

 

Good for you! I knocked off early today myself and we had a family afternoon that included pizza, wings, and ice cream.

 

I love having the kids home for the summer