Trader P/L 2009

[BrianNC 10]

Sim trading. Today's results. 4 trades, 3 winners, 1 BE.

[BrianNC 10]

Sim Trading. 15 min. chart. Set trade before I went to bed as usual. Buy and sell stop at the breakout of the ellipses. If it broke to the upside my target was 1070, and to the downside the target was 1057.50 which was a prior area of support on the 60 min. chart. I was stopped out by 3 ticks. Still wouldn't have hit my downside target by the time of this screenshot though if I hadn't been stopped out.

[bathrobe 10]

Sim Trading. 15 min. chart. Set trade before I went to bed as usual. Buy and sell stop at the breakout of the ellipses. If it broke to the upside my target was 1070, and to the downside the target was 1057.50 which was a prior area of support on the 60 min. chart. I was stopped out by 3 ticks. Still wouldn't have hit my downside target by the time of this screenshot though if I hadn't been stopped out.

 

Brian,

 

When you are trading real $$ are you going to set your orders before you go to bed also.

 

Chris

[brownsfan019 17]

10-9-09: +$657.50

 

Nice morning, missed a gorgeous ZN sell near the open.

 

I had to take the NSEA trade (oil traded @ ICE) on a different computer when my alert triggered. If you set alerts and will be roaming the house or office, sometimes handy to have a laptop here and there.

 

And to answer the question - why NSEA? B/c that market triggered my sell alert and the GCL did not today. So it was advantageous to have 2 identical markets up side-by-side and get the trade done on the market where it triggered. That's one nice thing about the NSEA/GCL/QM combo - those are all trading oil but sometimes one can give the setup you want and the others do not.

[BrianNC 10]

Brian,

 

When you are trading real $$ are you going to set your orders before you go to bed also.

 

Chris

 

Well, I don't know yet. I know the emotions are totally different with real money, as I have traded live before. Probably not, as I am going to start with a smaller account. I could definitely see myself doing it with a larger account. But I am in an experimenting stage right now too. So I will continue to set that trade before bed to see the results. Yesterday, as you can see from the post I made about my trades then, I still had 3 trades besides that one, two 1 pointers and a BE which is probably more like I will be trading to begin with. Smaller stops and smaller targets but with multiple contracts.

 

To be honest, smaller targets with multiple contracts like you trade is really what suits my temperament. I'd rather take 1 pt. with 5 contracts than 5 pts. with 1 contract because I believe the odds are greater for a 1 pt. trade than a 5 pt. I would rather increase profit by adding contracts as opposed to trying to get more points out of a trade due to the emotions involved. That's one reason I set a trade and walk away. It keeps my emotions out of it and either it works or it doesn't.

 

So anyway, I guess that's about an ambiguous answer as I can give you.

[brownsfan019 17]

 

To be honest, smaller targets with multiple contracts like you trade is really what suits my temperament. I'd rather take 1 pt. with 5 contracts than 5 pts. with 1 contract because I believe the odds are greater for a 1 pt. trade than a 5 pt. I would rather increase profit by adding contracts as opposed to trying to get more points out of a trade due to the emotions involved. That's one reason I set a trade and walk away. It keeps my emotions out of it and either it works or it doesn't.

 

 

I'm the same way Brian. As the account sizes grow, I incrementally add to my contracts traded. No need to start looking for more trades, just trade more size. The particular account being highlighted in the p/l thread is a smaller one, so I'm keeping that at 1 contract basically for now. If all goes as planned and I'm still posting, I'll add size later.

 

IMO the way BR trades is an excellent way to trade when you find 1-2 setups per day that you can count on. He's trading the ES, so you can take on substantial size w/o affecting the outcome which is nice.

[bathrobe 10]

Brian,

 

Regarding trading before bed; I really think this is a dangerous and possibly extremely costly way of trading. Your margin is going to be around 6k per also. What if something went wrong while you were sleeping? Your broker will not be in. Many people do not know this but stops are not guaranteed, so if you had a 1 point stop and there was a malfunction and the es ran against you for 50 points you would have no course of action. Also, many times you will see a large spike in volume in the middle of the night and then the market moves 20-35 points or more and this kind of buying and selling does not revolve around technicals usually. I just think it is too dangerous not to manage a trade actively when trading using a lot of leverage.

[BrianNC 10]

Brian,

 

Regarding trading before bed; I really think this is a dangerous and possibly extremely costly way of trading. Your margin is going to be around 6k per also. What if something went wrong while you were sleeping? Your broker will not be in. Many people do not know this but stops are not guaranteed, so if you had a 1 point stop and there was a malfunction and the es ran against you for 50 points you would have no course of action. Also, many times you will see a large spike in volume in the middle of the night and then the market moves 20-35 points or more and this kind of buying and selling does not revolve around technicals usually. I just think it is too dangerous not to manage a trade actively when trading using a lot of leverage.

 

Good points. I also forgot about that pesky little overnight margin thing.

[bathrobe 10]

Well, today was the best trading day I have ever had. I waited until I saw exactly what I was comfortable trading, When I came upon this setup which was the perfect storm of setups from my pov at about 3:55 est. I loaded up on es contracts like I mentioned Tudor does when he is trading well (taken from his market Wizards interview by Jack Schwager) and the trade met ALL my criteria.

 

One negative, although the P/L is large, the gross loss is too big for my taste, the reason being is that although NT did not drop any contracts in my target like yesterday, I was scaling out and selected a number of es contracts and placed them in the sell column. Rather than get me out of some NT placed sell orders. I exited these mistakes at market to keep the majority of profit.

[BrianNC 10]

I'm the same way Brian. As the account sizes grow, I incrementally add to my contracts traded. No need to start looking for more trades, just trade more size. The particular account being highlighted in the p/l thread is a smaller one, so I'm keeping that at 1 contract basically for now. If all goes as planned and I'm still posting, I'll add size later.

 

IMO the way BR trades is an excellent way to trade when you find 1-2 setups per day that you can count on. He's trading the ES, so you can take on substantial size w/o affecting the outcome which is nice.

 

If you can tell me, how do you exit? What keeps you in the trade? One of your trades today was 31 ticks and another 23 ticks. That's a lot more than just the 4 to 8 ticks I would be looking for on the ES.

[gooni 10]

Amazing trade man, congrats on the biggest day ever. Last few weeks you're P/L has really shot up.

 

Any reason why this was the 'perfect' storm for you?

[brownsfan019 17]

If you can tell me, how do you exit? What keeps you in the trade? One of your trades today was 31 ticks and another 23 ticks. That's a lot more than just the 4 to 8 ticks I would be looking for on the ES.

 

Good question (and good observation).

 

My exits are dependent on the market movements and fluctuations.

 

For example, if I was in that trade that BR took, here's what I see for an exit:

 

 

I try not to be a hero and wait to see if those previous reaction levels will hold. I'm just looking to ride the wave to that level and out - I'll let others see if it will crack.

 

Also, keep in mind that depending on what markets you are comparing my numbers to are not the same as the ES. Oil for example, I am typically looking for 20+ ticks which is very attainable on oil. 20 ticks on the ES = 5 pts and that's an ambitious profit target IMO. So the same amount of ticks is very attainable on 1 market but becomes a stretch on another.

 

That's part of the reason I enjoy trading oil, gold and soybeans - when moving, they crush the movements you'll find on the ES. Of course the flip side is that you can trade size on the ES that you can't do on these markets.

[bathrobe 10]

BF, I searched all over but I must have worded it incorrectly, you once gave me a link for instructions on how to post a chart directly in the post, could you please re-post the link.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

[brownsfan019 17]

BF, I searched all over but I must have worded it incorrectly, you once gave me a link for instructions on how to post a chart directly in the post, could you please re-post the link.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

 

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f30/how-post-chart-properly-805.html

 

It's in the beginners forum.

[brownsfan019 17]

I warned the thread that taking this off topic will result in posts being deleted. MM wanted to test that theory.

[hunnybunny 10]

Brilliant trade and congratulations on the nice profit, Chris! You've incurred a couple of losses recently on account of your platform - why is that?

 

And thanks for sharing what you would have done on the same trade, Brownsfan.

[BrianNC 10]

Sim trading. Trading the break of the channel. Target 1 pt. Target hit. 1165 tick chart. Which used to be my 466 tick chart before they changed the tick data.

[brownsfan019 17]

Sim trading. Trading the break of the channel. Target 1 pt. Target hit. 1165 tick chart. Which used to be my 466 tick chart before they changed the tick data.

 

One thing I noticed Brian on this chart - looks like your profit target was 73.50 and looks like price touched that. On the ES, you need to assume that price must trade through your level to ensure a fill. This is an issue with sim trading, but here's a quick workaround - whatever your real-life profit target would be, put it 1 tick above/below on simulation.

 

For example:

Your real money profit target here is 73.50

On simulation, put your profit target at 73.25

 

This will keep your profits in check with real-time trading on the ES. This is one disadvantage of the ES to other markets but personally I always want to assume worse case scenario when going live. Yes, you might get filled at 73.50 but that's a 50/50 shot at best. If price touches 73.25 (even for a split second) that means all 73.50's have traded through.

 

Better to head this off now than when real money is on the line b/c you don't want to fool yourself into thinking you will always get that same fill on real production.

[BrianNC 10]

One thing I noticed Brian on this chart - looks like your profit target was 73.50 and looks like price touched that. On the ES, you need to assume that price must trade through your level to ensure a fill. This is an issue with sim trading, but here's a quick workaround - whatever your real-life profit target would be, put it 1 tick above/below on simulation.

 

For example:

Your real money profit target here is 73.50

On simulation, put your profit target at 73.25

 

This will keep your profits in check with real-time trading on the ES. This is one disadvantage of the ES to other markets but personally I always want to assume worse case scenario when going live. Yes, you might get filled at 73.50 but that's a 50/50 shot at best. If price touches 73.25 (even for a split second) that means all 73.50's have traded through.

 

Better to head this off now than when real money is on the line b/c you don't want to fool yourself into thinking you will always get that same fill on real production.

 

I noticed that myself. It normally trades through my target before it will register. I am not sure why it didn't on this one. It did go on to hit my target without hitting my stop on this particular trade though. Thanks for the heads up. I am not sure why it did that. I need to watch and see if it continues to do that.

[bathrobe 10]

Brilliant trade and congratulations on the nice profit, Chris! You've incurred a couple of losses recently on account of your platform - why is that?

 

And thanks for sharing what you would have done on the same trade, Brownsfan.

 

Losses are part of being a trader, in some cases I was unable to exit my entire trade in the green, last week I had problems with Ninja Trader, though

[bathrobe 10]

I meant to say in the black, not green---but I guess they both work.

[BrianNC 10]

Sim trading. This was my 2nd trade of the day. 1 point. +2 for the day.

[brownsfan019 17]

10-13-09: +$415.62

 

Me + ZN today =

 

Here's an important lesson on knowing the markets you trade -- today bonds have auctions and I think that's causing this thing to do nothing. This is a good example where if I had checked econoday closer I would have seen the auctions today. I glanced at it this morning but apparently it did not sink in.

 

Got a good thing going on oil and grains in recent memory, so I hope that continues indefinitely.

[subterfuge 10]

yesterday's trading: ........... :

[BrianNC 10]

Sim trading. Another overnight trade. I wouldn't trade this for real as was discussed in an earlier post, but still using it to practice setups. 15 min. chart. bought on breakout of channel (actually somewhat of a bull flag) at ellipse and the target was the previous high of 1081.50 of the long candle to the left. Had my target set at 1081. Target hit.