Need Some Comments/Advice on Plan

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

2. Why did this person stay in the same position for 5 years?

 

His platform froze and he couldn't get an order in to exit the position.

[goodoboy 10]

At a minimum, the stats. What is your win:loss ratio? Your profit:loss ratio? What is your monthly net (considering at least commissions and trading costs)? Are you maintaining a trading journal? A trading log? Where? If those who are willing to help are going to be able to do so beyond the generic "keep up the good work" and "don't give up", they have to know what you're doing and why.

Db

 

Thanks for replying

 

I do have a trade journal that I have been daily keeping up for the past two weeks. Is there a thread here where I can read on how to keep an good detail trading journal? I have not been keeping up with ratios and monthly net. Mistake on my part and I'm will to start keep a spreadsheet with this information starting this week from Monday. I should take me a good 30 days to accurately record my progress as you stated above and then review the outcome. Before this week, i was taking maybe 2-3 trades per week. But as I develop my plan moving forward, I am making a commitment to atleast take 1 trade per day. I even record the trades I don't take or miss.

 

[quote name=DbPhoenix;155922

He made so little progress because he thought all he needed to do was keep practicing.

 

There's an old observation about the man who has twenty years' experience versus the man who has one year of experience twenty times. Unless you keep careful track of what you're doing and why and how much you profited from the work' date=' if anything, you'll just spin your wheels. I notice from another post of yours elsewhere today that you missed an entry again. Do you keep track of when and how often and why this happens? Is it happening less? Do you have a plan for dealing with it? And so on.

 

Practice is great. The central question, however, is (a) what are you practicing and (b) are you reaching your objectives?

 

Db[/quote]

 

Yes, I missed a long position today and I am not too happy about that. I don't like when I miss out on big runs like today, especially when I am staring at a level where I want to enter and a bunch of other stuff is going through my head like:

1. "wow GDP is just inline and the market not selling off"

2. "the hourly, 15 min, and 5 min is very over bought and although the trend for today is upwards and for the last two days I went long when the trend is upwards and had good success, surely it can't go any higher" "Forget the indicators, obviously the trend is up, get on board"

3. "Today is Friday and I notice the last few fridays very choppy, but the trend is up and when the trend is up, i look for retrace, define the risk (stop loss), whats the reward (target), enter the trade, manage the trade to get as many pts as I can get until target is reached"

4. "OK, I missed the entry I wanted and now price is at the next resistance. Well, lets wait for a retrace after this resistance breaks. Also, watching the 15 min slow stoch and rsi to return to oversold level at the support and then I enter off retrace once the slow stoch shows buy signal. Besides, yesterday, this work method work nice. And worked nice last when I was follow price action around the 1354 level.

5. "Its friday, i missed my first entry, just forget about it, more than likely volume is about to die off. Wow, ES is at 1370 now, Darn I wish I would i have pulled trigger at 1365, I know thats a pivot area, I should have taken the risk and kept price target 1376 as my reward. "

6. "You know the rule, after you miss the first two entry in an uptrend in the morning, done for today. Just have to watch now"

7. "ok now price is way up here at near 1376, time to short. No no, counter trending I will never do again, cause I lost money doing this about 3 times in the past. Sorry, I pass on that." "I work on counter trend trading later on, too risky"

8. Acutally there was a channel that broke out too, and I still did not buy on the retest of the upper trend channel. measure move of channel was to 1376 as well.

 

Those where my actually thoughts dismorning. here is how I plan to fix the issue cause it happens pretty often, except the last two days. Last two days, I woke-up, market in uptrend, good, data already out, market didn't care, look for retrace, i got in, rode it up. made a mistake on not defining my target on one trade, but on the other trade did well.

 

Here is what I am thinking to fix the issue:

 

1. Trade what I see on the charts. If economic data comes out and its bad, and trend for the day upwards, wait and observe price action for sell off at the next support level. if supports hold buy on the re-test of that support.

2. Review the price action of today charts over the weekend look for other entries i missed. Once again practicing cause I am sure i will see a day like this soon.

3. Stop thinking about the news and how bad economic is and why the market is going up on all this bad news and wow es up nearly 40 pts in two days in the morning when I am trying to focus on entry and exit. That thinking while trying to trade is bothering me. Forget the news and the numbers, look for a trade setup.

4. Forget the indicators when I know the market upward or downward from over night action. Pick an retrace and get on board.

5. Forget what day it is! What direction is the trend of the day, wait for news to come out, wait for reaction, look for retrace get on board. Atleast I know I reduce my risk if I 1. buy/sell in the direction that momentum is currently going, 2. buy/sell when risk vs reward is attractive doesn't matter what day is.

6. Don't buy before news of course

7. I need to figure out how to buy/sell on retrace when market moving up or down.

8. Use the indicator (15 min rsi and slow stoch) when price action is not moving as fast.

 

Am I reaching my objectives, no I am not. Main reason is because I don't take enough trades. But that will change cause I will take one trade per day for next 30 days to measure my results.

 

What I am practicing. My current method is:

 

1. My current method taking a trade in the mornings (7:30am to 12pm) in the direction of the trend for that morning. No trading before big news come out.

2. Technical analysis, resistance/support, chart patterns, trendline, pivots,volume profile.

 

I hope that explains enough.

 

Thank you

Edited July 28, 2012 by goodoboy

[DbPhoenix 42]

As for an introduction to journals and logs, click the link in my signature, below this post.

 

As for a place to keep the journal/log, you can try Traders' Logs. Whether or not you use the other logs as models is up to you. They may not all be great examples of journals and logs, but they're there.

 

As for taking at least one trade per day, this should be done only if a setup meets your criteria. Otherwise, you'll be moving backward rather than forward. If you do not yet have criteria, develop them first using the steps in the journal link I referred to earlier.

 

If you're interested in auction markets and Market Profile, read Auction Markets, then Getting Down to Cases. If you need more examples and further guidance, read Support and Resistance, Trading Ranges, and Retracements.

 

As for gathering your data, doing that in real time could take a year or two. If your software doesn't provide replay, find some that does. By gathering your data via replay, you can accomplish this step in weeks or even days.

 

Db

[goodoboy 10]

As for an introduction to journals and logs, click the link in my signature, below this post.

 

As for a place to keep the journal/log, you can try Traders' Logs. Whether or not you use the other logs as models is up to you. They may not all be great examples of journals and logs, but they're there.

 

As for taking at least one trade per day, this should be done only if a setup meets your criteria. Otherwise, you'll be moving backward rather than forward. If you do not yet have criteria, develop them first using the steps in the journal link I referred to earlier.

 

If you're interested in auction markets and Market Profile, read Auction Markets, then Getting Down to Cases. If you need more examples and further guidance, read Support and Resistance, Trading Ranges, and Retracements.

 

As for gathering your data, doing that in real time could take a year or two. If your software doesn't provide replay, find some that does. By gathering your data via replay, you can accomplish this step in weeks or even days.

 

Db

 

Thank you DbPhoneix. You are very resourceful and helpful. I am reading your trading journal now.

 

Good advice on the market data replay software.