Trader P/L 2009

brownsfan019 · #**1411** 12-04-2009, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Dinerotrader

Holy Freaking Oil trades. Today was and probably will continue to be a great day to trade oil. I am really busy at work so I can't keep trading it. I should have had a record day but I am still struggling with trailing my stops too close on the big oil moves.

I struggle w/ the same thing Dinero - my p/l was alright today, but could have been more. Trailing stops is a fickle animal and here's why - days like today, you want to trail your stop liberally and make a killing. Other days, you will take +3 and +5 all day long.

IMO you just have to decide what YOU are comfortable with. Your options:

1) Take reliable, predictable bunches of profits in increments. Make money most days.
2) Go for the home run and make killings some days, breakevens on other days.

There is no right answer - it's entirely up to what you want to accomplish. I take a #1 view even though I try my hardest to bring a little of #2 over when appropriate.

Originally Posted by Dinerotrader

Check out how much of the move I missed on this one. I arrowed my entry and exit. All the move between the circles was lost for me. About 120 ticks lost on a trail that was 5 ticks too close. I did better later on and kept my stop at breakeven though I was up 20 ticks and got stopped out at breakeven. The 3rd move I was in, I thought a 15 tick trail would be reasonable and once again I got stopped out only to miss out on more of the move. I am still working on this.

Same as above -- those trails are not easy ESPECIALLY on oil. It has too many quick moves up or down to grab some stops and then continue. If you want to trail on oil, you need to give it a large cushion. Of course that opens yourself up to 'giving away' large chunks of profits when price does reverse on you.

Originally Posted by Dinerotrader

I couldn't even watch the ZS I was so focused on oil.

That's ok too. You might find that 3 markets is too much in real-time. As I mentioned yesterday, oil is becoming more and more attractive to me. To the point of ONLY trading oil. Food for thought.

brownsfan019 · #**1412** 12-04-2009, 11:49 AM

12-4-09: +$740.00

Just oil baby.

brownsfan019 · #**1413** 12-04-2009, 12:11 PM

Found a couple oil icons that I thought were funny. Feel free to use if you enjoy oil as much as Dinero & I! Think I might be needing to change my avator here...

Dinerotrader · #**1414** 12-04-2009, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by brownsfan019

Found a couple oil icons that I thought were funny. Feel free to use if you enjoy oil as much as Dinero & I! Think I might be needing to change my avator here...

I like the top one best.

I guess my current avatar could pass as something oil related. My avatar is actually my logo I designed for my photography business.

Dinerotrader · #**1415** 12-04-2009, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by brownsfan019

I struggle w/ the same thing Dinero - my p/l was alright today, but could have been more. Trailing stops is a fickle animal and here's why - days like today, you want to trail your stop liberally and make a killing. Other days, you will take +3 and +5 all day long.

IMO you just have to decide what YOU are comfortable with. Your options:

1) Take reliable, predictable bunches of profits in increments. Make money most days.
2) Go for the home run and make killings some days, breakevens on other days.

There is no right answer - it's entirely up to what you want to accomplish. I take a #1 view even though I try my hardest to bring a little of #2 over when appropriate.

The more I look at Oil charts and contemplate your ideas above the more I think I really need a rule system to decide when I will trail my profit or when I will leave my stop alone to wait for the 150-300 tick move.

Today, I remember getting into 2 of the positions based on a longer term S/R consideration and I thought, this could be a huge move. Both ended up being huges but I have a habit right now of trailing so I didn't consider just letting it ride without trailing it. There are however many trades to be taken which are not based on such good S/R levels so those I would take what I can get and probably trail 10-15 ticks behind or at each natural stop point. If price is at a range extreme (from a larger scale chart) and looking to reverse, that seems like a point at which you don't trail and see if you can make that homerun. What is the worst that can happen, you take a ~breakeven trade.

Thales demonstrated this on a USDCAD trade recently in his thread and it made sense to me. You probably saw his post about this trade.

Of course even with a home run trade you have to decide when to pull the trigger and take your boat load of money out of the unrealized column.

brownsfan019 · #**1416** 12-04-2009, 04:52 PM

12-4-09 Revised to include PM ES trade: +$2615.00

Yep, that's not a typo. Got a nice setup on the ES and off we went. Afternoon trading has been pleasant to me the last couple days. Have a good weekend all!

jack411 · #**1417** 12-04-2009, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by Dinerotrader

Holy Freaking Oil trades. Today was and probably will continue to be a great day to trade oil. I am really busy at work so I can't keep trading it. I should have had a record day but I am still struggling with trailing my stops too close on the big oil moves.

Check out how much of the move I missed on this one. I arrowed my entry and exit. All the move between the circles was lost for me. About 120 ticks lost on a trail that was 5 ticks too close. I did better later on and kept my stop at breakeven though I was up 20 ticks and got stopped out at breakeven. The 3rd move I was in, I thought a 15 tick trail would be reasonable and once again I got stopped out only to miss out on more of the move. I am still working on this.

I will be shocked if Brownsfan's P/L isn't amazing today. So far 3 oil moves, each giving a possible 100 ticks each. What a day. I couldn't even watch the ZS I was so focused on oil.

SIM
+$380

Hey Dinero,

What tick chart is that?

Dinerotrader · #**1418** 12-04-2009, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by jack411

Hey Dinero,

What tick chart is that?

It is a 100 tick chart.

bathrobe · #**1419** 12-04-2009, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by brownsfan019

12-4-09 Revised to include PM ES trade: +$2615.00

Yep, that's not a typo. Got a nice setup on the ES and off we went. Afternoon trading has been pleasant to me the last couple days. Have a good weekend all!

Brownie took on the bots and brownie won.

bathrobe · #**1420** 12-04-2009, 09:02 PM

One of my resolutions in 2010 is to watch more markets. I am getting an audio alert to help with this.

The other markets will trade at a fraction of what I trade in the es save for the DAX and FESX

Trading resolutions must be kept if you want to continue to improve as a trader. If not kept or kept part time I would believe they could be a disaster.