[bathrobe]

Shorted failure of short term resistance, exited at short term support. P/L reflects years of obsession, dedication, education and blowing up in the beginning 3 times.

[brownsfan019]

I think someone requested a down day for me... here you go Mr. Mouse. Enjoy!

10-2-09: -$186.87

I'm ok w/ the day other than the CL. Wow did I fucker that one up good.

Scenario: was short the CL and up over $600/ct. I guess some greed took over and I was shooting for about $800/ct in profits. And it looked like it might get there too - and I thought, wow the TL guys are going to love this. Well, price quickly snapped back and I covered to cover the loss from the first trade.

It happens I guess, let it be on a Fri.

[Grey1]

Originally Posted by Grey1 »

a nice start for the day as seen in the point of entry and the P/L up $800 first basket trade

one more trade all entry and exit and P/L seen
total win for the day $1100 . no sweat just MATHSSSSSSSSSSSSSS 2+2=5

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by brownsfan019 »

It's taken awhile to get to this point - to know that:

1) There's no need to trade all day (and it's actually very counter-productive for me)
2) There's no need to focus on just 1 market and feel like you have to trade in that 1 market you are watching
3) There's no need to have many different setups if you find 1 solid, reliable, consistent performer

Some of the wisest words ever spoken.

While I still trade most of the day, what I have to agree 110% is this: Trade that one reliable setup in your arsenal and just exploit it on as many markets as you can. Its a hell of a lot easier than trying to trade every setup known to man on one market. It keeps things simple, it allows you to truly spot those exceptional setups, and doesn't force you to force your trades on one market/timeframe because you are monitoring so many that you almost always catch something worth having!

[MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by brownsfan019 »

I think someone requested a down day for me... here you go Mr. Mouse. Enjoy!

10-2-09: -$186.87

I'm ok w/ the day other than the CL. Wow did I fucker that one up good.

Scenario: was short the CL and up over $600/ct. I guess some greed took over and I was shooting for about $800/ct in profits. And it looked like it might get there too - and I thought, wow the TL guys are going to love this. Well, price quickly snapped back and I covered to cover the loss from the first trade.

It happens I guess, let it be on a Fri.

I didn't ask for you to do it today. Showing me a day in the past would hae been good enough.

[brownsfan019]

Originally Posted by MightyMouse »

I didn't ask for you to do it today. Showing me a day in the past would hae been good enough.

Well, it wasn't the plan, trust me.

[brownsfan019]

Originally Posted by daedalus »

Some of the wisest words ever spoken.

While I still trade most of the day, what I have to agree 110% is this: Trade that one reliable setup in your arsenal and just exploit it on as many markets as you can. Its a hell of a lot easier than trying to trade every setup known to man on one market. It keeps things simple, it allows you to truly spot those exceptional setups, and doesn't force you to force your trades on one market/timeframe because you are monitoring so many that you almost always catch something worth having!

It took me quite awhile to figure that, but once you do and if it works for your trading, it's such a beautiful way to trade. I think we're bred to believe that work must occur from 9am-5pm (or longer) and if you want to be wealthy, you better be working round-the-clock. But that's simply not true in trading. You can take a handful of trades per day, be done by noon and make a good living. It is possible and IMO it's easier than trading all day.

A lot of it has to do with the amount of mental stamina required when trading manually and trading for hours. To trade all day, 5 days a week manually is a daunting task. And I tried so hard to find a way to do it for a long time. It's not easy and I applaud those that can do that consistently and profitably. In the end, all that matters to me is the $$$ gains. That's it. This is what I do to support myself and family so it's about the benjamins. And the 'easiest' way for me to capture the most $$$ was to focus hard from 8am-Noon, be particular on my entries and then just do it. Sounds so easy but it literally took me years and thousands upon thousands of dollars to realize that.

[MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by brownsfan019 »

So far so good since I came back from summer break. My strategy is simple, esp on a smaller account - keep intraday losses small, keep profits larger and try to have more winners than losers. That's the basics of it at least. There's some more risk mgmt parameters in place, but that's an entire post on it's own.

As you'll note if you look at the blotters, I do not focus on 1 market. I have a prime setup that I'm simply looking to exploit over a variety of futures markets. At most I will have 3 trades in a market and a good day is more like 2 setups. Since I know my ideal trading setup is 2 winners in a market, I've chosen to open up my markets traded to include bonds, currencies (although currently on hold), oil, gold, indexes, and grains. Now my ideal day looks like 1-2 trades per market x 6 or so markets.

I also don't trade all day. That was also a losing battle for me. I try to get the charts shut off by 12pm EST at the latest. I don't know what happens the rest of the day and I don't care. If I can make $500-$1000/day per contract on this account, that's exactly where I want to be.

It's taken awhile to get to this point - to know that:

1) There's no need to trade all day (and it's actually very counter-productive for me)
2) There's no need to focus on just 1 market and feel like you have to trade in that 1 market you are watching
3) There's no need to have many different setups if you find 1 solid, reliable, consistent performer

Now I'll say this - this week has been FAR from perfect. I track what I did vs. what the system produced. So at this point I should have had a much better week than what was posted, so it's very possible a losing day will hurt more than it should. And that's my issue - overriding the system out of fear.

I need to respectfully disagree with your second point which is probably more accurate if you are a position trader who holds trades for weeks or months where you might chew on a decision overnight to decide whether you should sell, etc and are not bothered by the daily or weekly price fluctuations. But, because of the competiveness of the intraday markets, successfully taking intraday short term trades in one market on a consistent basis is very difficult. Trying to do it in multiple markets is suicide. In sim you are playing something similar to a video game and it’s great to learn that way. But, in live trading you are trading other traders who eat, sleep, and breath the oil market, S&P, Euro, etc and will eat you alive if you do not eat, sleep, and breath that particular market and get on the wrong side of their trade. Their behavior is nothing short of predatory and I would strongly recommend that people master one market especially if you are new to short term futures trading.