Trader P/L 2010

[sappjason 10]

LOL.... Yes... They were! Thanks again.

 

Jason

 

Congrats man! Drinks are on the markets tonight I suppose? :rofl:

[enochbenjamin 10]

I don't want to become a trader that relies upon big moves to survive since those don't always happen, I am not always going to catch them, and I want to be able to take vacations without worrying about missing the big moves. My new philosophy is going to be based around being able to make money day in and day out on swings that always occur.

 

Truer words could not be spoken. I used to have a sign on my desk that referred to trading being like a bricklayer - come in and do the same setups every day, day in and day out. Note - bricklayers don't try to build a house in 1 day. They know to complete the house on schedule they have to come in and do an honest days work every day.

 

I have not been posting recently because I have been taking a bath this year. After ending 2009 with consistant profits of $350 - $1000/day I decided to be a rock star in 2010. Go figure. After having a year (2009) in which my largest losing day was $350, I have already had 3 losing days of over $1000 in 2010.

 

Needless to say, for me it is time to get back to being a bricklayer.

 

Today was my first day of SIM trading in over 2 years. Figures it would be my best trading of the new year! Life is queer with its twists and turns as every one of us one day learns...

 

+$900 on 2 trades

($400 in CL and $500 in ZN)

[Dinerotrader 10]

I have not been posting recently because I have been taking a bath this year.)

 

I hope losses don't deter people from posting here. Losses and learning periods are part of the game. No reason not to continue posting even if you have a down period. Nobody's posting here to impress anyone, what would that get you?

[sappjason 10]

+$761. Not a bad day, considering the chop....

 

Jason

[Dinerotrader 10]

 

 

I thought I would try to start posting my net profit after commissions to help reinforce my need to keep the trading at a minimum and post my running week total. My emotions got me today. Got out of a short that went straight down after oil coiled up at open and I just started trading wildly after that. Should have put my head down for a few moments and repeated a mantra or something after that missed trade.

 

Plan is to go live trading in mid April if consistent profitability becomes the norm. Why trade live if I can't make money on SIM.

[garak 10]

 

I thought I would try to start posting my net profit after commissions.

As far as I know every non-member pays 2,90/RT for CL plus NFA. Taking into account additional fees for your broker, 3,5 USD sounds a bit too good

[Dinerotrader 10]

As far as I know every non-member pays 2,90/RT for CL plus NFA. Taking into account additional fees for your broker, 3,5 USD sounds a bit too good

 

You're right. I checked my live trades and I paid a little less than $4 RT so I'll assume an even $4. I'll change that. Thanks.

[sappjason 10]

+$2868. Another very nice day for me.

 

Jason

[brownsfan019 17]

2-22-10: +$670.00

 

2-23-10: +$220.00

 

Mon good, Tue was alright. Weird day on oil today from my point of view - felt like an inventory day where not much movement off the open and then bam, off it went. Felt and looked like inventory even though inventory is on Wed.

 

That's something that you can really only learn and feel by being in the markets daily and seeing what is the norm and what is not.

[Dinerotrader 10]

SIM

-$156

 

 

 

 

Crappy day. 2 errors in trading which hurt me bad. First error, I clicked the wrong side of my mouse in a trade which exited me at market instead of moved my stop so I got out of a nice early winner. Second error, I was on a different time chart than I thought I was on for 30 minutes and that caused some bad trades. Luckily, once I found that out, I fixed the problem and traded profitably after that. I controled the emotions better even with the errors so that was good.

Trading after 12:00 ET is so boring. My overall trading plan is to definitely be done trading by then. That is 10:00 am my time so that would be a great time to be done with my work day. Get to the office, trade from 7:00 to 10:00, review the trades for the day, get lunch, hit the gym and then go home. Someday, Brownsfan, I'll be living the dream too.

Edited February 24, 2010 by Dinerotrader

[sappjason 10]

+$1244. Another nice day. Man, I could really get use to this. But, every time I do, WHAM!!!!! Back in the gutter I go.

 

Jason

[daedalus 10]

+$1244. Another nice day. Man, I could really get use to this. But, every time I do, WHAM!!!!! Back in the gutter I go.

 

Jason

 

"The sweet just isn't as sweet without the bitter baby!"

 

Thanks for continuing to share with us and its awesome to see your system performing and making new equity peaks.

[sappjason 10]

Yes. You are right on the money with that quote.... And..... You are most welcome.

 

Jason

 

"The sweet just isn't as sweet without the bitter baby!"

 

Thanks for continuing to share with us and its awesome to see your system performing and making new equity peaks.

[Dinerotrader 10]

SIM

+$342

 

 

 

After suffering through a 30 tick range on oil for 1.5 hours I am happy with the result. A little emotionally drained from all the back and forth and having hairtrigger exits so I am calling it a day.

 

I have done my fair share of complaining about trend days but this is not what I was hoping for.

 

Here's a chart of today's range for those not trading oil.

 

[sappjason 10]

+$1361. Not a bad day, but one hell of a fight. Was down like crazy in the morning and then got a huge run up in my profitability later in the day, only to give half of it back again.... I hate these kind-a days....

 

I've attached my daily profitability graph, so you can see my times of sadness and elation (all in a nice little 4 hour stretch).......

 

Jason

[Dinerotrader 10]

SIM

-$94

 

Week P/L total: +$676

 

 

 

Well, too many trades today. For some reason, setups were 50/50 today. I still need to do some post trading research to figure out what was going on but happy to come out just paying commissions and with a positive week. I am liking focusing on the net profit since that is the reality of the results.

 

My long term S/R level of 78.78 provided a good outlook for trades yesterday and today. 78.21 turned out to be an important level. I try to keep my S/R levels to a minimum on my charts just to give me a roadmap for price and I had decided to leave off 78.21 which was a mistake. It would have certainly given me a better picture of what to expect if I had had it on my chart the past 3 days.

 

[thalestrader 14]

... I still need to do some post trading research to figure out what was going on

 

I tend to believe that you would do much better trading fewer markets.

 

78.22 was a key level this week, and with CL, any recent prior high/prior low can be a level at which one can look to fade or play for breakouts, though it can get a bit helter skelter at times, such as this morning. I had 12 trades today, and nine were CL because price could not figure out whether it wanted to break clean with the 78.83 or fall away from it, so I was in and out five times before the rally finally got in gear. Here is my ninja demo results from today - each of these trades, except for 5 frantic stops and reverses in CL this morning were posted in the real time thread:

 

 

 

 

My daughter had a snow day today (again), and she had a blast clicking chart trader buttons as I was shouting "Buy Market" "Sell Market" "close" "reverse" (It was all I could do to get my own orders off - between CL's fluctuations above and below 78.83 and the two of us laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes and I could neither stand nor sit in my chair.

 

At any rate, those numbers above are from trading one contract of CL and one contract of the 6E at a time. That, my friends, is trading for infinite yield. You do no need to be over leveraged to make decent money in this game (and for what its worth, though I traded some larger size in my real account on the 6E, I was only doing a one lot on CL). And you do not need to make it every day. I traded one lot for a long time, and my broker loved the fact that he made more in commish off me in a year than any ten of the guys who open accounts with him, insist on swinging 10 lots in 10 different markets, and blowing up, never to be heard from again. I remember apologizing to him one time for trading so small, and he said "no problem at all, you''re one of the few clients I have who actually makes money."

 

If you were to focus on one or two markets only, you'd be better able to to do a thorough prep before the trading day, and be better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that arise.

 

One other thing, Dinero - you seem preoccupied with "per day" profitability. You do not need to make $X hundred/day. You do not need to trade every day. There are days where I sit here for 8-10 hours and I get nothing. That is how this game is. If you decide you "need" $2500/week, does it matter if you make $1800 of it on one day, then losing $300, then losing $600, then making making $0 (no trades) and then making $1600? How about this - does it matter if you are down $1000 one week, and then down $900 the next week, and then down $400 the third week before you finally start moving toward profitability again, and you finish the month up 12K? Why does it have to be $500/day?

 

You are going to end up putting too much pressure on yourself to perform everyday with a profit. What is worse, you will condition your wife to the same expectations. What then happens when you hit your first multi-week draw down?

 

It will not be pretty, and you will not recover.

 

If, however, you condition yourself (and your wife) to monthly and quarterly expectations, then that first multi-week draw down, while perhaps disappointing, should at least be emotionally manageable, and you will have a shot at maintaining the poise necessary trade through it.

 

One other thing, I do not know how much you are funding your account with, and it is none of my business and I do not care. But before you go live, decide on a fixed amount you are willing to lose before you stop trading. For example, suppose you have a 10K account (it doesn't matter whether it is 50K or 3K, let's just use 10K for the example). Decide that if you find yourself down 2K, you will stop live trading, take off one week completly without even lookng at achart, and then spend one week demo trading before going live again. And here is the thing - once you lose 2K, stop. But do not stop live trading so long as you have not hit the kill switch level. Have a loss limit. Trade live so long as it is not hit. This can be a trailing limit as well based upon closed week ending equity. If you find yourself up 6K at the end of week one, you still have a 2k kill switch, but it is 2K below your cweek ending equity close (not your equity high, your equity close).

 

Anyway, I've watched you here for going on a year - if anyone has done the work and shown the commitment, its you. Just look at how many have come and gone from the Reading Charts and the PnL threads alone over the course of the last year. You ought to be one who makes it, so don't short circuit all of your hard work by trading too many markets and burdening yourself with a daily profit objective.

 

And for crying out loud, get live before your son is born in May - the last thing you want to do is go live at the same time your wife is recovering and your family is adjust to a new little one.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[Dinerotrader 10]

Thanks for post Thales. Its always nice to get your take on things.

 

You ought to be one who makes it, so don't short circuit all of your hard work by trading too many markets and burdening yourself with a daily profit objective.

 

Last week I decided to only trade the CL with occasionally looking at Nat Gas to see if anything great is going on there. I am sticking to that so no worries about trading too many markets.

 

Daily profits.....

I don't have a daily profit goal. Right now I am more focused on trying to quit trading for the day at the right time if I am up or down. I do have a goal to average $600 per day because I need to be averaging that in order to justify leaving my job and trusty paycheck. I am only trading 1 contract though so if my average is $300 that is okay, I'll just trade 2 contracts.

 

Here is the deal with big swings in profits. I was okay with the idea of having big up days and big down days until I realized 2 things.

 

1. I will often overtrade in an effort to make sure try to catch the big move of the day. I was so focused on catching the HOD or LOD that I would sometimes have 5-10 trades at the level where I thought that would happen.

Today was overtraded so I am going back through to correct that.

 

2. If I don't trade on a day that has the big moves that make me money I'll not have that offsetting great day to counter the losing days. Which means I will constantly be worried if I don't trade one day that I am missing the big profit day. That would bring a lot of stress to days off from trading which is when I don't want any stress. I want to know I can pull money out of the markets on most days.

 

The idea of trading like your friend who is only catching the big moves on trending days sounded good to me until I realized that he can't miss those days or he his month's income will be in trouble. What if he sick one day, wants to take a vacation or something. He might miss one of the few days he can make money from.

 

Anyway, I don't think I know the answer or that I am right but that's the current argument going on in my head. I'll keep thinking through this though.

 

Trading live

I want to make sure I am showing some consistent profits before trading live. How could I ever expect to make money live if I can't on SIM. I have also been refining and changing my trading over the past 6 months as I learn/make mistakes/realize new things so each time I make some changes I start the clock over on proving my profit consistency. Another thing is that I still have too many days in which I make errors in my trading. By error I don't mean losing, I mean click the wrong mouse button or place my stop at where I think is below the swing but is actually at the swing low so I get stopped out too early.

 

I am currently planning on putting $15,000 in my account to trade live.

 

I am still getting used to the method changes I made to my trading strategy on Monday so hopefully next week will be better.

 

Anyway, I've watched you here for going on a year - if anyone has done the work and shown the commitment, its you. Just look at how many have come and gone from the Reading Charts and the PnL threads alone over the course of the last year.

 

I am committed to becoming a full time trader but sometimes I read posts from you, Brownsfan, Bathrobe, Blowfish, Kiwi, etc. and realize that I am a very new player to this game so why should I think I can become profitable so quickly. I work hard but this one of the hardest games to play and win at. I'd like to be live in April before my new son is born but if I have anything it is definitely patience. If more waiting and practicing is required, so be it.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Dinerotrader

[sappjason 10]

This is just a fantastic post. In all respects (including laughing with your daughter during the trading day). I love it!

 

Jason

 

I tend to believe that you would do much better trading fewer markets.

 

78.22 was a key level this week, and with CL, any recent prior high/prior low can be a level at which one can look to fade or play for breakouts, though it can get a bit helter skelter at times, such as this morning. I had 12 trades today, and nine were CL because price could not figure out whether it wanted to break clean with the 78.83 or fall away from it, so I was in and out five times before the rally finally got in gear. Here is my ninja demo results from today - each of these trades, except for 5 frantic stops and reverses in CL this morning were posted in the real time thread:

 

 

 

 

My daughter had a snow day today (again), and she had a blast clicking chart trader buttons as I was shouting "Buy Market" "Sell Market" "close" "reverse" (It was all I could do to get my own orders off - between CL's fluctuations above and below 78.83 and the two of us laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes and I could neither stand nor sit in my chair.

 

At any rate, those numbers above are from trading one contract of CL and one contract of the 6E at a time. That, my friends, is trading for infinite yield. You do no need to be over leveraged to make decent money in this game (and for what its worth, though I traded some larger size in my real account on the 6E, I was only doing a one lot on CL). And you do not need to make it every day. I traded one lot for a long time, and my broker loved the fact that he made more in commish off me in a year than any ten of the guys who open accounts with him, insist on swinging 10 lots in 10 different markets, and blowing up, never to be heard from again. I remember apologizing to him one time for trading so small, and he said "no problem at all, you''re one of the few clients I have who actually makes money."

 

If you were to focus on one or two markets only, you'd be better able to to do a thorough prep before the trading day, and be better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that arise.

 

One other thing, Dinero - you seem preoccupied with "per day" profitability. You do not need to make $X hundred/day. You do not need to trade every day. There are days where I sit here for 8-10 hours and I get nothing. That is how this game is. If you decide you "need" $2500/week, does it matter if you make $1800 of it on one day, then losing $300, then losing $600, then making making $0 (no trades) and then making $1600? How about this - does it matter if you are down $1000 one week, and then down $900 the next week, and then down $400 the third week before you finally start moving toward profitability again, and you finish the month up 12K? Why does it have to be $500/day?

 

You are going to end up putting too much pressure on yourself to perform everyday with a profit. What is worse, you will condition your wife to the same expectations. What then happens when you hit your first multi-week draw down?

 

It will not be pretty, and you will not recover.

 

If, however, you condition yourself (and your wife) to monthly and quarterly expectations, then that first multi-week draw down, while perhaps disappointing, should at least be emotionally manageable, and you will have a shot at maintaining the poise necessary trade through it.

 

One other thing, I do not know how much you are funding your account with, and it is none of my business and I do not care. But before you go live, decide on a fixed amount you are willing to lose before you stop trading. For example, suppose you have a 10K account (it doesn't matter whether it is 50K or 3K, let's just use 10K for the example). Decide that if you find yourself down 2K, you will stop live trading, take off one week completly without even lookng at achart, and then spend one week demo trading before going live again. And here is the thing - once you lose 2K, stop. But do not stop live trading so long as you have not hit the kill switch level. Have a loss limit. Trade live so long as it is not hit. This can be a trailing limit as well based upon closed week ending equity. If you find yourself up 6K at the end of week one, you still have a 2k kill switch, but it is 2K below your cweek ending equity close (not your equity high, your equity close).

 

Anyway, I've watched you here for going on a year - if anyone has done the work and shown the commitment, its you. Just look at how many have come and gone from the Reading Charts and the PnL threads alone over the course of the last year. You ought to be one who makes it, so don't short circuit all of your hard work by trading too many markets and burdening yourself with a daily profit objective.

 

And for crying out loud, get live before your son is born in May - the last thing you want to do is go live at the same time your wife is recovering and your family is adjust to a new little one.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[sappjason 10]

-$340. A pretty good day, considering I was down over $1K earlier in the day. +$5874 for the week, so I'm ticked pink with that. Attached is my 2010 P/L graph, just to show (like Thales mentioned) that you can certainly have long stretches of miserable trading. The entire last 3 weeks of Jan were wretched for me..... I also attached my 2010 (per trade) stats just for fun.....

 

Jason

[Dinerotrader 10]

If, however, you condition yourself (and your wife) to monthly and quarterly expectations, then that first multi-week draw down, while perhaps disappointing, should at least be emotionally manageable, and you will have a shot at maintaining the poise necessary trade through it.

 

This is an important part of my planning. My wife is very used to the semi monthly bank deposit from the steady job which provides a warm blanket of security to her daily living. Finding a way to transition to income that fluctuates without that taking away her security blanket will be tricky unless I am just making money hand over fist.

 

A monthly income report or something like that would probably be best. Or maybe I'll just tell her how much I made only on the days I make money sort of as a fluffing of the security blanket to make sure she knows its there.

 

I'm curious how others have dealt with this issue if they have significant others. Maybe I'll have to start another thread for this issue.

[bathrobe 10]

This is an important part of my planning. My wife is very used to the semi monthly bank deposit from the steady job which provides a warm blanket of security to her daily living. Finding a way to transition to income that fluctuates without that taking away her security blanket will be tricky unless I am just making money hand over fist.

 

A monthly income report or something like that would probably be best. Or maybe I'll just tell her how much I made only on the days I make money sort of as a fluffing of the security blanket to make sure she knows its there.

 

I'm curious how others have dealt with this issue if they have significant others. Maybe I'll have to start another thread for this issue.

 

When I first started trading futures and was unprofitable, I gave my girlfriend daily P/L reports initially. This added to stress, trades I should not have taken and over trading; I would not recommend a daily p/l report to your wife unless this is what you both want. Some other type of reporting would be better, maybe monthly. We obviously had no kids and our finances were separate. We did live together though and this created a lot of fighting and is also a contributing factor to our eventual breakup......just my 2 cents on that. Hope it helps some.

[enochbenjamin 10]

 

I am currently planning on putting $15,000 in my account to trade live.

 

 

I for one subscribe to the philosophy of the late George Lane (father of Stochastic) that you should never give 1 broker more than $5000 at a time. If you are trading 1 or 2 lots 5k is plenty and when you make profits withdraw regularly. If your starting with 15k open 3 separate accounts and only trade 1 at a time.

 

Just my 2¢

[enochbenjamin 10]

My daughter had a snow day today (again), and she had a blast clicking chart trader buttons as I was shouting "Buy Market" "Sell Market" "close" "reverse" (It was all I could do to get my own orders off - between CL's fluctuations above and below 78.83 and the two of us laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes and I could neither stand nor sit in my chair.

 

Classic!

 

I always make money when my boys are home during the day because they see the painfully obvious. Dad - why are you selling when the chart is going up? Shouldn't you be buying?

 

But I am way to nervous to actually let them hit the buttons...

[Dinerotrader 10]

I for one subscribe to the philosophy of the late George Lane (father of Stochastic) that you should never give 1 broker more than $5000 at a time. If you are trading 1 or 2 lots 5k is plenty and when you make profits withdraw regularly. If your starting with 15k open 3 separate accounts and only trade 1 at a time.

 

Just my 2¢

 

Margin for oil and natural gas is about $3,000 a piece on OEC.

 

I only trade 1 lot at a time but I want to make sure I am okay with margin if I end up needing a trade on natural gas and oil at the same time with other possible order sitting on the DOM. I am not sure if OEC requires you to have double the margin if you have 2 orders on the DOM, like a buy stop and sell stop on either side of a channel. I'll have to find this out.