Trader P/L 2009

[XDTrader 10]

BF has encouraged me to start posting my daily P&L so here goes. Currently they are in sim mode.

 

I use a Ninja ATM strategy that takes me out 3 contracts at 4 ticks and brings my runner to break even. I then use a progressively tightening stop as the trade moves in my favor. This works well on ES, but I am not sure what to expect going forward on ZB or Euro. BF has advised me to go with fixed targets, but for now I am going to give my current strategy a chance.

 

Time will tell. I will confess up front that I am a work in progress and trying to nail down the instrument and method that will work best for me in the future.

 

I have committed all of 2009 to trading, and hopefully getting it right. As an entrepreneur at heart, that's a big step for me, but there is nothing that I enjoy more than what I am doing right now.

 

This P&L is from yesterday.

[XDTrader 10]

Todays Trading.

 

I am trying out the ZB and Euro, and it went really well today. Maybe just beginners luck. Thanks to BF for helping educate me on the nuances of the Bonds. I was up nicely on all 3 instruments.

 

Also per my trading rules no afternoon trades on Friday.

[brownsfan019 17]

Week update

 

16-Mar

46.88

17-Mar

328.13

18-Mar

203.13

19-Mar

281.25

20-Mar

-93.75

Total

765.64

 

 

Overall an ok week. Nothing to write home about.

 

Looking to step it up this coming week.

[brownsfan019 17]

I wanted to answer a few questions about the account being presented here that were asked throughout my time in the chat room:

 

What size account is this?

$10,000.

When do you plan to increase the # of contracts being traded?

I think I will bump it up at $20,000.

 

Is this the only account you have?

While I am trading in a few accounts, I am presenting the account that is a realistic starting point for many people. Funding an account w/ $10k is very reasonable and something that most can follow.

[brownsfan019 17]

Going to try something this week - turning my P/L off on my OEC Dom so that I am not staring at every tick up or down and the resulting $ gain/loss. See if that helps keep me in the winners longer or not.

[XDTrader 10]

Todays Trades. Great way to start off the week. Missed the best trade of the day at 14:50 messing around relocating my home theater system. Working out of the house can lead to easy distractions.

Edited March 23, 2009 by XDTrader

[daedalus 10]

Back at it live again and boy how i'm glad I took the time to SIM last week and get this new idea nailed out. Worked great today... not a lot of profit but I didn't lose at all and personally that really helps keeping me pulling the trigger correctly and keeps a low stress environment for me to work in. Personally I trade better with a higher win rate method than a lower win rate method regardless of profitability.

 

Anywho... here ya go!

 

[XDTrader 10]

Could you guys inform me on how to post pictures in full size? The way I am doing it they are showing as thumbnails.

 

Edit: Never mind, I figured it out.

Edited March 23, 2009 by XDTrader

[brownsfan019 17]

3-23-09

 

Glad you guys did ok today. Not a good start to the week here.

 

[XDTrader 10]

Choppy day as I expected it would be after the monster move yesterday. +50 Buckaroonies. Giddy up.

[daedalus 10]

re-entered on the ES long when I shouldn't have.... missed a tiny (35.00) nq profit because I wasn't paying attention. Would've lost today either way you slice it but I could've lost a lot less (-10, rather than -110).

 

Oh well.... traded pretty well today overall.

 

[86834 10]

any particular reason why you're just taking 1pt per trade? Just wondering that's all....

 

Just some advice... A few scalpers that i have known have found in the past that they would have massive up days and massive down days and their pnl would yoyo. I don't know how you're trading to scalp these 1pts but if you find this happens to you, and you're not looking at the other time frames, then it might be an idea to keep them up, as they are great for letting you know when to trade and when not to trade. This way you can keep yourself out of the crap. For example my last trade of the day on ES was short 812.75 which i held. On the larger times frames you can see the importance of the break below 813. The hour or so before this break lower was a bit crap and was time to be sitting on your hands.

 

Like i say i don't know how you trade, so this might be completely irrelevant to you, but if you find that you tend to loose on choppy days then try it out.

 

It doesn't matter what your style is, but there are some basics that are applicable across all styles. One of them being knowing when and when not to trade.

 

Boost!

[XDTrader 10]

any particular reason why you're just taking 1pt per trade? Just wondering that's all....

 

Just some advice... A few scalpers that i have known have found in the past that they would have massive up days and massive down days and their pnl would yoyo. I don't know how you're trading to scalp these 1pts but if you find this happens to you, and you're not looking at the other time frames, then it might be an idea to keep them up, as they are great for letting you know when to trade and when not to trade. This way you can keep yourself out of the crap. For example my last trade of the day on ES was short 812.75 which i held. On the larger times frames you can see the importance of the break below 813. The hour or so before this break lower was a bit crap and was time to be sitting on your hands.

 

Like i say i don't know how you trade, so this might be completely irrelevant to you, but if you find that you tend to loose on choppy days then try it out.

 

It doesn't matter what your style is, but there are some basics that are applicable across all styles. One of them being knowing when and when not to trade.

 

Boost!

 

Thanks for your input. Sounds like you are a support and resistance trader.

 

I am trading short term momentum. The one point is the first profit target on 3 contracts, then there is one contract left as a runner with a progressively tightening trailing stop.

 

My method does not generally do well on choppy days. I am scalping and participating in the short term trend with my last contract using big relative volume as my bread and butter tool for entry.

[bathrobe 10]

Here is my first entry into P/L Thread. Yesterday I could not trade because of a migraine. Acct. is smaller due to unexpected personal costs. Only 1 trade today.

 

Chris

[86834 10]

Thanks for your input. Sounds like you are a support and resistance trader.

 

I am trading short term momentum. The one point is the first profit target on 3 contracts, then there is one contract left as a runner with a progressively tightening trailing stop.

 

My method does not generally do well on choppy days. I am scalping and participating in the short term trend with my last contract using big relative volume as my bread and butter tool for entry.

 

Momentum and S/R goes hand in hand, to be able to use s/r levels effectively then you need to be able to gauge momentum and how price reacts around those levels.

 

To illustrate my point, attached to this post is a trade that i took today. The chart is a 15mins chart and the resistance that i'm using for this example is highlight in red.

 

Now generally you want to be trading with momentum on your side, so it helps identifying the areas where momentum is likely to pick up. So when the market is chopping back and forth between support and resistance levels, momentum, depending on the size of the range won't be at it's best. However when a key area in the market is breached then one expects an increase in momentum. Trading these areas where the momentum increases will help keep you out of the chop.

 

 

On the same chart you can see how once the red resistance line was broken to the upside it then acted as support, then once we were near the end of the session this level (813) was breached. As a result one expects an increase in downward momentum.

 

Trading with momentum is always advisable regardless of trading style.

[XDTrader 10]

Momentum and S/R goes hand in hand, to be able to use s/r levels effectively then you need to be able to gauge momentum and how price reacts around those levels.

 

To illustrate my point, attached to this post is a trade that i took today. The chart is a 15mins chart and the resistance that i'm using for this example is highlight in red.

 

Now generally you want to be trading with momentum on your side, so it helps identifying the areas where momentum is likely to pick up. So when the market is chopping back and forth between support and resistance levels, momentum, depending on the size of the range won't be at it's best. However when a key area in the market is breached then one expects an increase in momentum. Trading these areas where the momentum increases will help keep you out of the chop.

 

On the same chart you can see how once the red resistance line was broken to the upside it then acted as support, then once we were near the end of the session this level (813) was breached. As a result one expects an increase in downward momentum.

 

Trading with momentum is always advisable regardless of trading style.

 

Thanks for your useful input and yes your right I could benefit from paying more attention to the longer term chart.

 

A lot of days however I catch nice moves within the ranges when my volume indicator signals big size coming in. The only problem is at the highs or lows, the market gets jiggy, as I am sure you know, and I typically avoid those areas do to my tight 6 tick stop as well as it being a possible reversal area.

 

As a newer full time trader I am constantly investigating new methodologies so I will be following your blog.

 

It would be great if you would post your P&L here with the rest of us. It would be useful to see your daily equity swings with your method.

[daedalus 10]

basically a wash day for me today. First es trade should've been par (that was the level it was at when I got my exit signal, but I couldn't fill so I took a loss) and second trade I should've got +.75 but price was whipping so violently I got filled for +.25... disappointing but thats real life trading for ya.

 

Wasn't 1 signal setup for me the entire morning. Not the kind of tapes that are ideal for my style of trading personally so you just take it and move on. The point is that you don't get killed on a day that doesn't jive with your method.

 

[bathrobe 10]

1 tick today, learning to be more careful with trades.

[brownsfan019 17]

3-25-09 update - didn't do much on Tue as I was working on a few behind-the-scenes things for trading.

 

After some thought and consideration, I am going to take this account in another direction which should hopefully yield a smoother intra-day equity curve.

 

When trading, there are a couple options that most traders contemplate at some point and one particular consideration is whether to trade 1 market (and focus on that one) or trade multiple markets. There are pros/cons of each that we can discuss in another thread, but I've decided to take this account in the direction of multiple markets, with more strict entry parameters.

 

The idea being to be more strict on my entry triggers, but trade a chunk of markets vs. hammering 1 market.

 

We'll see as this could be a very good exercise for everyone to watch - good or bad on the outcome. Obviously I wouldn't be doing this unless I felt the switch was a good thing.

 

The primary reason for a more broad focus and trade multiple markets is that the bonds seemed to dry up a bit for me after that Fed announcement last week. The intraday movements dried up and got slower, which was causing some issues for the way I trade.

 

This is also why I tell traders, esp new, while you may want to focus on 1 market, it's always good to at least watch what else is going on out there b/c if you pigeon hold yourself to 1 market, you may be missing other opportunities. While I had been focusing on bonds recently, I constantly watch the indexes, currencies and oil to see how they are reacting. I may not trade there, but I have my charts up to see what's going on there. And it's a good thing I did b/c if I had been so narrowly focused on just bonds, I wouldn't have seen that the indexes and currencies were doing well on my trading parameters (esp the currencies).

 

So going forward on this account, the markets that will be watched and potential trades coming from will be:

 

Bonds - ZB, ZN, ZF

Indexes - ES, NQ, YM

Currencies - 6E, 6J, 6B

At first glance that could seem like a lot or overwhelming to some, and it can be if you are used to trading 1 market. The advantage of having all these charts up at all times is that working a trade there is just a matter of clicking the DOM as my eyes are used to the constant checking and monitoring of these markets.

 

Again, the reason for this is to take better trades on the markets that have the trades vs. being focused on 1 market and feeling like I could be forcing trades.

 

The downside here is that I will have to trade a few more hours during the day (probably till 2-3pm). So, it's going to require a little more focus and patience, but my stress level intra-day should hopefully go down as I know I am just working my best setups.

[daedalus 10]

Work till 2-3PM?! Blasphemy!!! :rofl:

[brownsfan019 17]

Work till 2-3PM?! Blasphemy!!! :rofl:

 

I know. I hope I can adjust to the longer work schedule.

 

[brownsfan019 17]

3-25-09

 

Just took 2 ES trades today after I got myself settled in. Real work starts tomorrow.

 

[XDTrader 10]

Could only trade the morning session due to an obligation. After looking at the charts post market, I am fairly confident that had I traded the entire session I would have finished in the green, but there's always tomorrow.

 

BF, I am eager to follow your multi market approach.

 

 

[brownsfan019 17]

XD - me too.

 

It should be good to see how this works vs. focusing all on the bonds. Today was a good day in hindsight via this method, but I wasn't there mentally to get it all done. Should have, but didn't.

[Hlm 10]

So going forward on this account, the markets that will be watched and potential trades coming from will be:

Bonds - ZB, ZN, ZF

Indexes - ES, NQ, YM

Currencies - 6E, 6J, 6B

Sounds good BF. I am the same way...I trade the same setups in any highly liquid market. For a while now I have been trading both ES and NQ evenly because one usually sets up much nicer or at a different time than the other. Just recently I have been trading 6B intraday after hanging out with a friend who trades currency futures for a living. Some may argue that it's over trading, but I think it's quite the opposite. If your strategy is mechanical in nature and based around the natural ebb and flow of price action, trading multiple instruments allows you to take advantage of that intraday leverage without having to drop down into smaller time frames to accomplish the same result. You also have less days where you are stuck with little or nothing to trade. So in turn, if one is able to do it, it should decrease any over trading and increase the PnL.