Short Term TF & ES Trading

[indextrader7 10]

I've been trading for over eight years now, and I'm looking to get more involved with the trading community. I don't know anyone else that trades really.

 

I'll be posting daily trade recaps and walking through each trade I made for the day. I think it will be good for me to be public with this, and hopefully you guys gain from it as well. I've never been a part of forums before, so bear with me.

 

I trade short term price action on the emini russell 2000 and emini s&p contracts.

 

So far in April I'm up 8.6% with a max drawdown of 3.2%.

In March I made 22.7% with a max drawdown of 4.5%.

 

I'm very analytical and have a robust trading spreadsheet I update daily to monitor my performance (true performance, risk adjusted. not just looking at %p/l which doesn't tell us much) and my susceptibility for making trading/money management errors.

 

I'm looking forward to this!

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

Welcome to TL!

 

I'll look forward to following your thread, as I'm sure many others will.

 

Would you be able to provide a brief overview of your trading style and why you focus on these specific markets? Also, what led you to trade on an intraday basis?

 

Many thanks,

 

Bluehorseshoe

[indextrader7 10]

Welcome to TL!

 

I'll look forward to following your thread, as I'm sure many others will.

 

Would you be able to provide a brief overview of your trading style and why you focus on these specific markets? Also, what led you to trade on an intraday basis?

 

Many thanks,

 

Bluehorseshoe

 

Thank you.

 

I started out trading stocks in 2005 as that was all I knew you could trade. Reading every trading book I could get my hands on and learning. After working on a trading floor, I learned about currency trading and switched over to that. I was put off with the lack of regulation/slippage/etc with forex, so I switched over to futures to continue to trade the Euro. Then I learned about the beautiful, transparent, liquid, emini index markets and fell in love. Most of all I like they're rhythm.

 

I'm a descretionary price action trader. I consider my method to be very short-term swing trading. I like to trade direct price movements. I try and be with the "flow" of the market. I watch 50 tick, 250 tick, and 5minute charts. I trade pullbacks within trends, breakouts, breakout failures, and tests of support/resistance levels on higher timeframes.

 

I used to trade currencies of 1-hour and 4-hour charts, but it never suited my personality. I like to have very tight stop-losses and focus intensely for a few hours a day as opposed to always watching for some signal/pattern to develop day/night like I used to.

 

Hope that answers your questions.

[phoenix01 10]

Could you give us an examples of a few trades you placed recently, explain your reasoning and trade style?

 

Thanks

[Klem 10]

Sounds great. I too trade the ES & TF exclusively, mainly trading MP & VP. What is your long term intentions with this thread? Are you looking to mainly post your results ie: trading blog, or are you looking to create a group and share ideas? I second some of the previous posts. Would like to hear more about your trading style, what platform you use, some recent trades you took and why, risk management, etc etc. Please be as specific as possible. Look forward to hearing more. Good luck

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

 

Hope that answers your questions.

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

How similar do you find the behaviour of the Russell and the ES? Does there tend to be much correlation between the trades you take in each, or do they behave very differently on a tick-by-tick basis?

 

I'll look forward to following your thread.

 

Regards,

 

Bluehorseshoe

[GoodSeed 10]

Hi, I will also attempt to follow your posts... from the north Atlanta Ga area (Cumming, GA).

 

Trade YM and ES along with some swing options spreads. Been trading a long while but only the option spreads have been doing any good for me. But I am getting better at day trading and been in a "trading room" for couple of months. I am learning from experience in room. I have a lot to learn on money/trade management (which seems to be more experience driven).

 

Finding that trade management for me is the most difficult part of trading. Specifically where to place a stop after getting first target (T1) and/or when to go flat so as not to give back more than T1 gives me. I can bring stop to Break even or minus a few ticks, but that often gets me out of trade only to see mkt then move in direction of trade again. So there must be a balancing of risk and trade potential that must continually be considered.

 

Seeing another's trade management will help, looking forward to your posts.

[indextrader7 10]

Thanks for your reply.

 

How similar do you find the behaviour of the Russell and the ES? Does there tend to be much correlation between the trades you take in each, or do they behave very differently on a tick-by-tick basis?

 

I'll look forward to following your thread.

 

Regards,

 

Bluehorseshoe

 

I haven't done much "real" analysis on this. I imagine they have a fairly high correlation. I think there are so many arbitrage, quant, hft, etc traders on the ES that that's the reason it moves in those tight blocks so often (as in a 1-2 tick range just miserable to look at for my style). The russell/TF tends to move quicker and farther. You know it has 10 ticks/point vs the ES's 4, and the TF moves more points on an average day. For me it means a 1 tick slippage on a market entry order is much less of a deal because that's a smaller percentage of my average winning/losing trade in terms of ticks, so that's a plus.

 

I certainly don't want this thread to get off on a tangent of ES vs TF. They're both great markets to trade, and it comes down to personal preference.

 

(I've tried to post a recap video for yesterday (4-13-12) but since i'm new, it's taking a very long time for my posts to hit.

 

At the moment I very much prefer TF.

[indextrader7 10]

 

I'll get better at doing these videos as I find out what content I need to talk about more. Feedback is appreciated.

[indextrader7 10]

Sounds great. I too trade the ES & TF exclusively, mainly trading MP & VP. What is your long term intentions with this thread? Are you looking to mainly post your results ie: trading blog, or are you looking to create a group and share ideas? I second some of the previous posts. Would like to hear more about your trading style, what platform you use, some recent trades you took and why, risk management, etc etc. Please be as specific as possible. Look forward to hearing more. Good luck

 

Long term intentions are to just create a good, sharing, respectful environment for sharing and everyone growing in their own trading. This will be a trading blog for me, but I think a group setting will develop and everyone benefits.

 

You'll fully see my style as soon as the moderators allow me to post my trade recap videos that are on youtube.

[indextrader7 10]

Hi, I will also attempt to follow your posts... from the north Atlanta Ga area (Cumming, GA).

 

Trade YM and ES along with some swing options spreads. Been trading a long while but only the option spreads have been doing any good for me. But I am getting better at day trading and been in a "trading room" for couple of months. I am learning from experience in room. I have a lot to learn on money/trade management (which seems to be more experience driven).

 

Finding that trade management for me is the most difficult part of trading. Specifically where to place a stop after getting first target (T1) and/or when to go flat so as not to give back more than T1 gives me. I can bring stop to Break even or minus a few ticks, but that often gets me out of trade only to see mkt then move in direction of trade again. So there must be a balancing of risk and trade potential that must continually be considered.

 

Seeing another's trade management will help, looking forward to your posts.

 

Stop placement, for me, is all about having the stop at a level that will invalidate your future expectation, and it's something that (I am supposed to) decide on before I even enter the trade. Should my stop be moved to breakeven? That depends on at this point in time, if price retraced to that level, would I still want to be in the trade? That's all there is to it.

 

You said, "Specifically where to place a stop after getting first target (T1) and/or when to go flat so as not to give back more than T1 gives me." This is making trading decisions based on previous actions by you, and that's never correct. Whether it's making a decision based on your last trade, or making a stop placement based on how much profit was taken at T1, it's not correct analysis.

 

The only correct analysis is to remain pure, in the zone, unbiased, with the market. We all struggle with this. Don't let previous decisions affect future ones.

[2213045 10]

Look forward to your sharing!

[jazz 10]

Welcome Indextrader7!

 

I'll be looking forward to your trading recaps. Trading is lonely at times. It's good to have a group of like minded people.

 

Jasmine

[indextrader7 10]

Here's what my drawdowns look like since I began trading full time in February of this year. It's on a per-trade basis, not end of day data.

 

Risk is the most important thing to keep up with. Risk management is priority numero uno.

[indextrader7 10]

We already took a look at my drawdown chart. Now let's look at my trading stats for the year.

 

The "equation" (if you will) for profitability is looking at the combination of win% and your avgwin:avgloss ratio. I use the past 20 trades for each calculation. Have no clue if 20 trades is a good number or what, it just sounded like it would work.

 

Have a look at each graph.

 

Looking forward to feedback.

[indextrader7 10]

Didn't keep losses small enough today! Pretty upset at a lapse in discipline money management. Slightly profitable day $ wise, but -11 ticks.

 

Looking forward to feedback on the video. What would you rather me talk about during it? I really want this thread to revolve around the trade recap videos.

 

[indextrader7 10]

+9.5 ticks today, but could have been much better. Will widen my stops out a touch tomorrow. Looking forward to feedback. What would you have me discuss in the videos?

 

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

Hello,

 

I'm finding this thread both useful and interesting. The videos are a great way to present what you're doing. Could you explain a little about how you determine your bias for the trading day?

 

Thanks,

 

Bluehorseshoe

[indextrader7 10]

Hello,

 

I'm finding this thread both useful and interesting. The videos are a great way to present what you're doing. Could you explain a little about how you determine your bias for the trading day?

 

Thanks,

 

Bluehorseshoe

 

Yes, the bias is quite an important part of what I do. I don't always trade with it, but when I don't, I know what I'm getting myself into, so I adjust risk accordingly.

 

The bias is really what is happening as far as trending/ranging on my trading timeframe. For example: I have a bias upward while we're making higher high's and higher low's, but at the same time am more aware than just that... Obtaining a 3D view of the market by using multiple timeframes. The longer timeframes set up the structure that the shorter timeframe trends and ranges within.

[indextrader7 10]

Quick edit for 4-17-12: Actually made +16 ticks, rather than the +9.5 I previously thought. It's like finding $5 in my jacket from last winter.

[nicosxm 10]

Interesting, I too will be looking forward to the different post for this thread .....

Good luck to all.

 

nicosm.

[indextrader7 10]

Done for the day. Will post the video as soon as it uploads.

[indextrader7 10]

You'll hear in the video how my bias changed through the day. Downtrend (didn't work), uptrend (didn't work), then I saw the range and killed it for the rest of my session.

 

Thought that might be of value for bluehorseshoe and others

[indextrader7 10]

 

.....................

[indextrader7 10]

I thought I would share something more today. Here's a look at my trading stats spreadsheet I made.

 

Monitoring performance is crucial for me. A combination of a trade journal that I write in as I trade, a trade log- (this spreadsheet) with analytics, and a daily and weekly trade review. These things have a lot to do with my success.