Lately..

I wasn't posting lately, so I just wanted to write my 50 cent for the last few trading days and post some charts..

So what did I have, a very bad time during december, I lost some money, but still lost about 50-100$ a trading day, so it's in the borders of logic, thursday was a great day for me, I made 178.5$ and returned the confidence to me, it was after some time which I didn't trade since I had to rest from trading for a while..

Today I had a bad day, lost 128$, at one point I was -205$, but I recovered from it a bit, anyways I know what my problem was, I didn't put auto stop loss, so I've lost a lot in the first trade, and then I had to "recover" so I lost more, anyways, next time I just need to remember to put stop loss each time I trade, I used to do it automatically.

One last thing, in addition to what is taped to my screen, I'll be taping "always take the first 40$ out fast", since I think it will help me, I see that many trades I take come 40 dollars up, and then lose, but if I'll start positive, I think I'll have better chance to end the day positive.

Here are some trades:

Struggle..

December isn't going so well, and I keep figuring out the hard way, stuff I already figured out in the past.

For example in the last trading day I've had an impulsive rush to just buy something, I didn't wait for a clear long term nice signal, I've just traded by the 5min chart only, without confirmation from the 15 min chart, I think that I'm doing bad lately because I'm kind of in a rush to trade, whenever I'm not in a rush to trade I either earn money, or just fall asleep, waking up to see that my signal could have been a 100$+ winner(on 1 contract).

On the positive side, didn't have days where I lost more than I allow myelf lately, no blowup days, so I think that I'm in the right way, I just need to tape to my screen : "Only take trades with sound signal that you had to wait for".

Trading stocks is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I hope for it to also be the most rewarding thing I'll ever do.

Some thoughts..

This was supposed to go as a comment reply to my good friend Asaf (StockHunter), which is doing so well lately, but I decided to write it as an entire post:

It is so god damn hard!! sometimes I get such a frustrations like when I get out of trade that minute later is going my way HARD!

I think that I understand now how trading is gonna be like, I used to imagine it as a fast phase action that last the whole day, but then I realized that it's too stupid to "trade on instincts" , so I set myself the rule of not trading before 11am (so I could see nice setup intraday), and then the rule of trading at home so I could be more focused.

Now I see that I just need to wait, most of the day, for those 3-4 setups that we are so familiar with, and only when they come I should take them, not before, trading impulsively = big losses, trading like an experienced poker player is what I should do, "Fold" most of the day, not being fooled by the market noise, and just wait for clear justification that the trade that I took should work, and take it, get the profits fast, and wait again.

About last month, November, I finished it down, it was a -563$, I've had 8 down days, and 7 up days, but my down days were uncontrolled so I lost more than the 100$ which is my daily stop loss in some of them, it was a month that gave me a wake up call, after being +451$ in October, which was a great month, I felt in god mode, and just ruined the beginning of November, which made it hard for me to recover from the losses, I was actually at -620$ one point in November.

Let's hope December will be better, goal for this month is modest, only 400$, nothing more, little by little, after few up months, I'll higher my contracts size which is 1 right now, I just need the confidence first.

Yesterday -94$ today +37$

Well, today I wasn't such a nice day, but it ended up positive, which is better than negative, I had 1 missed opportunity that could have given me +100$, I was already in the trade, but 20 seconds before it went down sharp, I decided it might go against me, and settled for +10$ :(

This is one of the trades I made today:

Yesterday I was out of focus, I should never trade on days where I'm out of focus, at least I didn't break my daily stop loss rule yesterday.

My goal for december is only 400$, nothing more, I just need to assure myself that when I'm not "testing stuff" or making foolish mistakes like losing 300$ one day, I can make money on the long term, I must provide myself with the proof.

Tweety animation!

Hi!

This is why I was away lately, I've been doing animation of tweety for some competition, it was a bit difficult to do animation after such a long period of time on which I didn't touch 3d animation at all, Hope you like it:

-87$ one of these days..

Well I'm glad it has only been -87$ down day, instead of what happened to me Friday which was losing 154$ (54$ more than my rules say).

I started the day with a loser(1R), then a winner (1.5R), and from then it got messy, I kept trying to bet where the bottom will be, and go long, instead of just going with the flow, and short the market, I'm not sure how many times can I read the basic rule "The trend is your friend" and still not follow it, unpredictably enough the only good trades I made were on the short side..

In days like this, what I should do it stop try to fight the trend, wait something like 40 to 60 minutes recap myself, and begin the hunt for a good trade, today I was focused too much on the same false breakout, trying to win it all over again, and it didn't break the upper trend line of the downtrend.

Overall I wasn't in sync with the markets today (forcing long trades in downtrend), and I hope to do better tomorrow.

P.S - Tweety animation is coming along great, I'll post the result in the next few days.

+100$(net) means a nice day..

Today I had a nice day, starting with an initial losing trade, and then a streak of 4 profitable trades, while some of them could have given me more profit, I took minimal profit from some of them because I wasn't sure what the market will do.

I like days like today, where everything is sain, all rules are kept, finishing the day with profit.. that's the way it always should be.

I stopped trading early today since I'm currently working on some 3d animation I'm doing to try and win free ski vacation (maybe in the alps!), I love snowboarding and I love 3d animation so the mix is perfect, here is a WIP (work in progress) from my animation:

About -150$(net) - why?

I seem to be going two steps forward, and then two steps backward hehe.

Look, there are some days where I just shouldn't trade, and today is one of these days, I was having a nice start as always, but then I had about two or three bad trades and I just couldn't stop, I think the commissions I'm going to pay to MBT today is about 50$, which is way too much..

What happend? I wasn't in sync with the markets, I was taking impulsive trades, keep hopping from one trade to another, and two times I was about to get out of the minus, and had a trade moving 90$ my way, but then I let it turn into a loss!!!! that's why I said yesterday that I should always take about 70$, stop with the greed already! I should have had a good day if I would have sold some of the positions earlier..

Well now I feel crappy, I'm acually flat since September, all of the time spent learning the markets, trading, having the familier andrenaline rush you get when you trade impulsively(like today), having some quiet days like yesterday where everything adds up and is fine, and still, I seem to not be able to control my bad days.. I'll write myself notes from today and put them next to my screen..

Note#1 - "Stop with the greed, take minimal profit while you can (70$ / 3.5NQ pts).
Note#2 - "After having a bad trade, step back from the screen, don't get rushed into taking another trade so quickly".
Note#3 - "Always obey to the money management rules, if you are close to expose more than 100$ to the markets just finish the day, you will have a better day tommorow".

That's all for now, need to think more positive, and the results will come..

Moving on..

Well after a short absence I'm back, And what was my lesson from last week:

Things can go bad after going good.. October as a fertile month where I made 8% of my equity, but then started November and after a week or so I was down -9%, right now I'm -6%, but it's still negative number, so I'm not happy.

Why did it happen? because I didn't follow my daily stop loss rule, and lost in 1 day more than what I make in a few, which sux, at least it happened to me only once, so I know I can control it from now on, and I will not do it again.

Moving on to today.. +152.5$, finally profitable day after some time.. Monday for example I made 1.5$ after commissions, which is ridiculous but still it beats losing money :)

What I've learned this week? my risk number for now is 40$-50$ per trade, so when I say I'm up 3R today I mean I'm up 150$, so after playing with this technique for a week I saw that it really helps keeping track of your result.

What I came to realize from the experience of trading the NQ, is that I usually can risk 2 points(which is 40$, but 45.5$ after commissions and sometimes 50$ after slippage), and gain 3.5 points many times after a short period of time, so instead of trying to search for the holy-grail which we all know doesn't exist, so instead of trying to pump 5-10 points out of every 2 points risk trade, I'll try to get out after humble 3.5 points profit, and that way I can come faster to my desired daily profit.

Desired daily profit I said? well for my account anything from 120-150$ will be good, weekly desired profit for now will be as low as 300$ since my capital and experience is so low, it will get higher as I grow as a trader.

Today's action..

I'll put three trades, two winning and one losing:

Winner#1 - Speed!
I came and go quickly, as soon as I saw the downtrend channel break up, I went long, putting a sell order on my desired profit(3.5 points) and let the market work for me ;)



Loser of the day, even with slippage :
The call was right, the the uptrend did break and my short would have work should I take enter it again, but I came 4 minutes earlier, and my stop was too tight..




Winner #2 - It will go higher :
This one I took after I saw that the channel broke upward, I initiated long position with sell order 3.5 point higher, but as the market went, and as the other indices got up, I know NQ have to go higher, so I closed the sell order of 3.5 points higher, and put stop loss on the entry, and let the trade go, as it went by and started losing speed, I put sell order 4.5 points higher, and it got hit :)

Weired day..

I can't complain, I'm finally up today, +126$, let's try to use the R system, I risk about 45$ each trade, so I'm up 2.8R today.

I'm too tired to post charts, but they aren't that bright anyways, I took two trades today, and missed 10NQ points (200$ on 1 contract) short at 12:15, I wrote in my charts "paper trade short 2210, stop 2212, and it could have been the trade of the day, but I just couldn't pull the trigger, the problem was that I was right twice before (on paper too hehe), and couldn't believe I'm right again, so I just put another "paper trade" but this time it was very good trade :(

Well I'm glad I was profitable today anyways, ahh and a new rule I've got, since my money is running low I'll only risk 2R each day, which means 100$ max after commissions, that's why I quit yesterday when I was at -58.5, I couldn't take another trade because it could lead me to losing more than my daily stop loss.

I'm glad I'm finally obey my rules fully, I think I'll add some money soon so I could trade more than twice each day before I reach my daily stop limit, being under capitalized sux :)

At least when I started day trading I had what I call "tuition money cushion" which means I had a lot of money to throw away on stupid mistakes, and now that I'm smarter I think I'll refill the money.

Out of Sync lately..

Well I'm out of sync lately..
Friday I was "trying" ES for the first time, and man is it fast... I managed to lose 179$ in a matter of seconds.. too bad I took a wrong trade..

Today (Monday) I was just out of sync, I'll need to focus for tomorrow if I wanna be profitable.. I took 3 trades today, the first I quit fast since I went to eat, and had a "gut feeling" it was wrong, it turned out to be a 10 points trade, but I quit after getting one point since I didn't believe in the trade:( and the rest of the trades were just silly.. nothing to go on too much, the third was on the right direction but then flipped and I already put my stop on the initial position, so I didn't lose too much money..

PNL today -58.5$, sux, but I'll live :)

Hope to do better tomorrow

-143.5$ Losing day

Ok, So today I've lost money, the reason being was that I was too anxious to prove that I'm right, I entered almost at the same place (just before the collapse) and went long, losing 88.5$ combined, and then when I had the "guts" to go short, my stop was to tight.. so even though my call was right this time, I couldn't join it again because of the limits I've set to myself, which is while having this small account, never risk more than 150$ a day.

I'm Glad I've got to listen to my trading plan, and don't feel bad at all about losing this money. long term I'll still win this game :)

Swings..

I said I closed some swings before the FEDs, well I've closed all of them! and it turns out that since the FED cut interest they all kept going up, but I have no regrets about closing them.

I'll show you a winner and a loser just so you'd get in proportions how my swing trading looks like, I usually go only long in market condition as this (going up!), I look for strong stocks, that doubled at least the last year, and I try to join them when they make a new higher low.

BIDU +13%(best from my swings hehe I'm just showing off all of the others did like 4-7%):

CPHD -2.73%

Great day! +238$

Monday was a great day for me, I sold all of my swing positions due to the FED coming soon, the market has gapped up and my stocks did very well, sold most after a nice solid profit.

From now on I'll minimize my "overnight risk" as much as I can, I see that swing trading has given me 1/3 as much profits as day trading futures has given me, so I think that I'll stick to disciplined day trading.

I took only 1 day trade Monday, for a profit of 4 NQ pts (+75.5$ after commissions), I'll post chart later when I'll get my Internet connection home up and running.

Update:

This is the trade I took, I went long NQ at 2217 since I saw that the line I draw (lets call it intra-day resistance) was broken upward, which signal me to get long, I don't think I'd go short on 2214 and lower since it didn't seem like the time for short looking at the other indexes(s&p and djia).

I somehow knew the market will hit the resistance line there at about 2222 so I just sold for a minor profit, but still, profit is a profit :)

I start to see that I'm evolving my own style, or method, w/e you call it, I wait everyday patiently for the best setup I can find, and I take it, usually risking 2 NQ pts to win 4++ points, this is some nice risk reward ratio, and statistically long term the method should work, so some day I'll lose 40$, maybe 50$ after com's and slippage on one contract, but long term I don't need to be right more than 50% of my trades in order to make money (due to risk reward ratio Begin higher than 2:1).

I hope my positive attitude over trading will finally pay off, right now I'm in deep losses due to the initial mistakes of my day trading carrier, and I know that there are a lot of mistakes I shouldn't make again, and this "1 trade a day" method is the most relaxed I can, and doesn't encourage "overtrading", if I'll keep it going well until the end of November I'll start higher my size, and trade more contacts.

Trading is all about discipline, and patience, trading is the best field in the world, you discover yourself everyday, I really love trading, and sure glad my account had enough cushion to land on when I first started day trading and lost Hugh sums of money :)

If my plans continue accordingly I will be able to quit my job about 3 years from now, it might sound far, but I'll only be 26 by then, and hopefully a bit "richer" than today.

Weekly review

Well this week I didn't put on new day trades, just followed my swings, didn't have time nor did I have the mental power to trade, so I didn't push myself to trade, today I even had a "signal" that could have gotten me a lot of money, but I missed it and didn't feel like trading, next week I'll come with new powers!

Swings have made me +120$ this week, even after the gap down of VDSI, so I think I'll continue swing trading until I see if it fits my trading style.

Hope you guys had a good week aswell.

Gapping down :(

Quick update:
Today my swing position of VDSI have gapped down today and is now -33.95% only today, this have been my biggest nightmare, usually stocks gap down 10% max, and it is ok since other swings are winners and overall I'm usually up, but this is too much, the last straw? might just be.
I'll be thinking about it this weekend, I hate it when stuff like this happen, after I'm finally up 327$ on my day trade, which used to be harder for me than swing trade, I'm almost break even on the month results because of my swing trading.
Also, I think that I didn't day trade in the last few days because my mind was too busy thinking what should I do with the swing trading..

I think that swing trading is too stressful for me, and today's gap down have shown me what I hate the most about this style of trading, this unexpected stuff are terrible for business, in day trade you don't hold positions over night and therefore you go to sleep with the profit / loss that you had that day, and when you come back to trade a week later it remains the same..

I'll think about it over the weekend, any thoughts from my 2.5 readers?

Nothin' much..

I didn't trade in the last few days, didn't find the time, today I'll arrive home late, I might try to trade a little when I come back.

I found out that trading require maximum concentration, so I won't trade while I'm at work, and I won't trade if I cannot focus on it, I think that tomorrow will be a nice day to trade.

Taking things easy, this means I don't rush myself into trades I don't feel sure about, I've found out that it's the best way to trade, but I've found it the hard way while losing a lot of money.
Yesterday I looked at my "expectations" xls file, where I fantasize about great results, and my "take is easy" way have conquer it too, I finally not putting too unrealistic results there, for example I want to make only about 300$ this month, sum of money which can be made in a day, right now I'm up 238$ this month, due to the crazy swings actions, if I take for account only day trade I'm up 327.5$.
And still, my expectations are that in about 2-5 years I will be able to quit my job, which means I'll have enough confidence and money in order to trade for a living, now that is a nice goal to aspire for!

Also, I'll try to test if my swing trading is good for my style of trading, I cannot afford myself making money day trade NQ emini and lose money swing trading, I'll give it a go for the next few months, let's see how it develops.

The market is going random!

First of all I'd like to admit that I don't get the stock market sometimes, today for example I started -200$ on my swings, and after about 25 minutes in I was up already, I'm not sure how can it be but.. I'm happy anyways :)

Today I went to a wedding so I didn't trade, only to come back after hours and see that AAPL is going +11$ after market, so my immediate thought was "hmm, I wonder if it hit my price target.." and it did, my target was 180$ and the stock is up to 185.9, so I just sold my position as described in the following screen shot:

Weired day today, but I'm happy I've got to earn some bucks after all of the harsh time that the market has put us through.

Weekly review. +55$

Well nothing to brag about, this week have shown me that when I obey my rules fully I can make money, while I know that 55$ doesn't count actually as money, it's still not losing money.

I think that by limiting my losses I can actually concentrate on maximizing my profits, but for now I'm happy with the results, my stats for the last two weeks is about 40$ a day on 1 contract, doing the same trading lets say 5 contracts, means making 200$ daily, that is a nice figure right there, but I won't increase size until I will be consistent with my profits for about two months, and then I will only increase my size by 1 contract, taking it easy, I cannot afford such a stress.

Some more personal stuff:

I'm about to buy mountain bicycles Saracen Ariel 2, I'm finally about to be cycling again, didn't do it since I was like 12 or so, last time it was in China going to far away villages, seeing how they live, I love exploring cultures..

Friday skydiving was nice, I did the Fourth level successfully, had some fun in the skydive itself but landed so far that they had to come pick me up with an ATV :) other than that I just relaxed a bit, thinking again about the stuff I wanna do with my 20's.. what I mostly want is to use the time that I don't have real commitment, wife, kids and stuff to explore the world, have fun traveling and seeing other cultures etc..

Have a good week.
Tom

Wondering about trading..

Lately I've been wondering a lot about trading, whether it's possible to have consistent results or not, if it worth it or not, and such.

I see that two of the bloggers (tyro, phileo)quit day trading for a while, and it makes me wonder..

Why do we all drawn into trading? well that's easy, it promises big money with little amount of effort, well the truth being is that it's "enough money" with "a lot of effort", just face it, we all go through a long journey before seeing the real money, lately I've had some consistency and it's still not enough to pay any of my bills, but what my advise would be to gain confidence in your ability to trade, save a lot of money working for a regular paycheck, and only then start trading for a living.

Trading is a style of life, and while it doesn't offer the same challenges as you have at your work, it offer something else, it offers freedom, yes, you've read correctly, freedom, and that is the ability to do your job (in our case trade) from anywhere on the planet, and be able to make as much money as you do at work and more (if you play your cards right), trading doesn't seem like a gamble to me, nor does it seem like something that needs luck, it's just a calculated risk vs calculated profit, you need to love it in order to dedicate a big chunk of your life into it.

I guess trading doesn't suits everybody's lifestyle, and it might be psychologically difficult to handle with days like last Friday (down day for all of the swing traders since the whole market went down), I still believe that if you think positive enough, you will be able to generate a positive results.

+60$ NQ, -230$ swings hehe

Well swings positions are not closed at all, but they made me undesireable "unrealized loss" of 230$ today, I guess it wasn't so smart to take positions one day b4 options expiration day.

I call it a good day since I was able to make money in the NQ's. Anyways I'm glad I'm building my Futures day trading confidence, in the long term I can always decide which style suits me more, the reason I left swing trading a few months ago is a days like this, where all of the market is down and I only have Long swings, which are all red for the day, I had it happening to me many times and decided it is better for my health to day trade, not leaving money on the table over night.

But lately I saw that my day trading has developed to such extent that I can also continue swing trade and make some money "on the side".

Today's trade wasn't so exsiting so I will not post a chart, but again it was in one trade, bahh if I would just short at the beginning of the day and cover in the end... ez money lol :) but no one could have guessed the market will act so bazar lately.

Have a greet weekend,

And on the personal side, I've made a good skydiving jump today, I need 4 more to complete my AFF course and be able to jump out of airplanes alone.. (hehe I think all of us traders are a bit of andrenaline junkies, take dino for example surfing them waves : )

+105$ and loving it :)

Ok you guys, I finally feel more optimistic about my future as a trader, it doesn't mean I will not take precaution steps to avoid being in a "God-Mode" and thinking my trades will always go my way, but I'm starting to trust myself again, and truly believe in myself, and as they say, "with success come confidence", this time they are right :)

What happened?
A recipe for a good trader - First, lose money doing foolish mistakes, and promise yourself you never do them again, Second, lose even more money doing the same foolish mistakes, over trading, thinking "the next trade will save me for sure" and take trades without proper setup, try to scalp your way up, higher your quantity before you can handle 1 contract in NQ (or in stocks 1000 shares instead of just 100).

And Finally (step 3), after you promise yourself you wouldn't make mistakes again, lose enough money that will make you reflect on things for a month, and tell yourself "It's either I survive in this game, or go bust in less than a month..", and trade well, stop losing money, and even start making some.. just a little thought..

So you're asking what happened? I bet you do.. well I believe I'm in step 3, I finally lost enough money to shake my confidence in the business of day trading, and started actually to become cautious, I start following my trading plan by heart, disconnecting emotion from trading as much as I can, and cut losses so fast that two days ago I lost 70$ on 3 trades (2 losing 1 winning) and just finished the day, I cannot afford myself to lose a lot of money in one day, and that is the mistake I made in the start, I could lose 1000$ in one day (on small account!), now was I stupid or what?

Well enough with the educational part about losing money and stuff, and let's get to the report of the day:

Arriving home late after a relaxed day at work, I got back just in time to "miss" the 14:15 short, well at least I think it was a nice setup breaking the uptrend. I saw it with my own eyes, but wasn't able to take the trade since I still have some self confidence issues..

So I waited like a hawk, stocking his pray, which in this case was the NQ Future, and at 14:54 I decided I saw a setup of a double bottom and that the market will break up and took a long @ 2201, setting my stop at 2199.25 (below latest swing low), soon after I took the trade I had a little "heart attack" when NQ went down to 2200.

But hey, it's only a point down, so I stood my ground which in this case was the stop loss :), after seeing the NQ perform well, driving his friends the ES and YM up I figure it would be nice to set what I call a "stop win" at 2203.25, below the next swing low, and after a while (16 min in the trade) I sold at 2106.5, for humble 5.5 NQ pts, it's not a lot, but hey, it's money! :)

Here is the visual:


Oh and did I say Thank you NQ? ahh no, so 10Q NQ ;)

Have a nice day everyone!

Btw - another "1 trade a day", I think it's enough for me to find one good setup a day..

Things look better +130$

Woopy! a profitable day with only one trade!

Today I've made only 1 trade since I see that whenever I overtrade I lose money, so I just took 1 trade and it's enough for me for today, I couldn't take the morning breakdown because I was at work, but at least I got to take the reversal.



At 14:26 I took 1 long NQ@2163.75 , which I took since the downtrend was breaking down and the 2nd resistance point of NQ was hit, also I saw that during the last few day NQ couldn't go lower than that point so I figure it is a strong support, soon after dealing with my "greed" issues, I sold my position at 14:42 @ 2170.5, which is a 6.75 NQ pts, give me this "much" points everyday and I'm happy, for now I trade only 1 contract, but in a few years when I'll have enough capital 6.75 pts with 10 contracts will be 1300$, which is almost half of my monthly salary today hehe :)

Notice it's not the end of the trading day just yet, but after a nice "performance" as this I'm finishing my day early, going to eat and stuff,

Have nice day

Yet another losing day -70$

Today I've made some mistakes, but I'm still happy with the result, let me explain..

Ok so the first trade I took was stupid, but it was stopped right after losing 2 NQ pts, and then I made another trade and decided to sell on profit after 2 NQ pts, so were even now right? Nope, commissions make me be on the downside at the beginning of the day.

Then I had spotted a beautiful setup, took it, and it actually ran 4 pts up, and I really wanted to sell 3.5 pts in up but greed have made me not to, I saw that the direction of the trend is changing against me and still waited for the initial stop loss, not good, at one point I wanted to quit at the entry and just be even, but stupidity didn't let me.

As for the rest of the day I had spotted two 5pts NQ moves and froze before taking them, so I decided to just quit the trading day very early, and put myself into a test, when I first day traded I would open my trading platform after saying I wouldn't, but nowadays I do all sort of thing in order to avoid it, yesterday I just went having fun with friends, and today I tested my self control and stayed home, with the computer, and yet didn't open my trading platform, that is why I said up there that I'm still happy with today.

Hope to have a better day tomorrow :)

Monday trades..

The PnL for today is -8.5 NQ points and here are the mistakes.
First of all I traded at work even thought I have a rule against it, so the trades were stressed, and not nice.

Since I'm new to NQ I didn't put myself auto stop loss like I have 10pts in YM, so after investigating the charts I set myself a rule of risking only 2 NQ points each trade, unless the market volatility grows (happens rarely).

You know what is freefalling? this is what I did with the futures today, just letting them fall on me, it's not good for business, also I traded against the main trend, even thought all markets confirmed that there might be a direction change.

The second trade was stupid, I didn't know how exactly should I risk so I just went on with the trade, and quit too early, it was eventually to be a winner but I sold at it's weakest point.

Note to self - next time you don't have time to trade, just don't.. you need a piece of mind in order to trade.

+5 points at NQ..

I feel like a changed trader, lately I take my trading in a more mature way, I don't over trade, and I feel my confidence is building with every success I make, and I don't get arrogant after a winning streak, this was learned the hard way, after believing so much in my "good calls" for trades and going without a stop.. so this is what I did today:

At 12:47 I thought the market will continue his rally up, and took a long position:

soon after taking the long position I saw that the market breaks down and figured it would be a nice time to sell my long for a small loss(1.5pts) and join the bears with a short position two minutes later (at the same price that I've sold my long position).

It looked like this:

After that I had enough of real money day trading for the day, and put myself a "paper trade" of long 1 @ 2185.5 at 13:30, I'm happy it was a profitable call, even though it was only on paper, I still happy with my result.

Overall I had a nice day, my swings did nice today and once I'll see some of them I'll put on charts and investigate how I reacted with the positions.

The market did well today

I didn't take any trades today since I freezed over the first ideal trade (1 pm), I didn't take the short like I should have, and then I had regrets and wanted to take long thinking it would continue up, then when I saw that I did 2 mistakes, freezing and then making a false call, I just didn't feel like trading for the rest of the day, so I didn't get in sync with the markets today.

I know it will happen from time to time, and I just need to think positive, it's was for the best that I didn't take long thinking the market would continue his longer term trend, but yeah, I could have made some nice money shorting today, lesson learned, do not hesitate, usually my calls are correct, and if not, so what? losing 50$ for winning 200$ is a good deal., even if I lose 3 times I still get to earn money in the long run.

This is how the first set up that made me freeze look like:

Good trading day today!

I'm glad to say that today I finally got it right, after a long time of losing many trades for the "market noise" in YM, since I'm well undercapitlized and can't take such a big loss, I finally did the right thing and moved to trade NQ.

I got back from work (Israel.. I come back at about 12:30am your time), trying not to think about work too much, too many strange things happen lately, boss being bitchy etc, so after eating dinner I went to look at my stocks screen, which I'll soon cover (fairly simple), and lurked the futures good.

After watching some cool skydiving videos I saw that ES is about to make a move, and the volumes of NQ confirmed, so after my market compass (ES / YM / NQ) which was ES this time showed me that there is about to be a move, I looked at NQ, and figured I can risk 2 points to see if the market really changed direction in the second half of the day.
I tried buying NQ@2186 @ 13:45 but couldn't get a fill, I wanted this trade badly since ES was really showing it's about to change direction, so I put an order @2187 and got instant fill, had a small heart attack at 14:10 since NQ moved down to 2185.5, but then continued to trend nicely until I had enough and got out at 2192.5 (+5.5), I could of stayed in this trade and make more bucks but I had to go so I just sold as high as I could.

NQ Chart:


ES my humble market Compass of the day:

Swinging again!

After almost half a year of only day trading and mainly losing money, I'm glad I decided to mix it with swing trading as I think my day trading became more controllable and the less I trade the more quality I find and make more money.

VSEC did great for me today!

I hope my swing trading will improve with time, now that I'm posting I'll share my success and mistakes as I like learning from other people. just so you know I trade des woodruf style, after watching his videos I was inspired by the simplicity he put things on and a week after watching his videos I opened my own trading account :)

Trading lightly lately..

I had some Internet connectivity problems so I am not trading too much lately, maybe its also a way for me to relax and reflect on the past 4 months that I've been day trading at.

First of to summarize the last 4 months, "I have learned a lot!", I never thought it would be so difficult, I've lost a lot of money, but I call it tuition money, maybe it was too much ,but at least I learned from it, I got to know myself better, what kind of trader am I, I set myself more realistic goals than I did before.

Friday was a nice day, I didn't pull the trigger at the beginning and missed the first breakout here:

But later in the day I did take a trade and got 4.5 NQ points, lately I switch from YM to NQ, I see that YM is too volitile for my small capital, I still follow NQ ES and YM at the same time to confirm my signals, so finally I'm up 90$, hehe long time that I didn't trade.

Have a great week!

Holidays in Israel..

It's the Holiday season in Israel and we have a Jewish Holiday of the new Hebrew year.
I'm excited and happy to go to vacation from work, It's really about time to relax and enjoy.
Recently I've found the following forum post:
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=27286

There are so many good insights there, the guy who wrote it is a great man, and I feel as if he was talking exactly to me, he keep saying "This market will be here long after you and I will be dead, so there is no need to rush in and try to get all your money back in one day", which I totally agree with, in the days where I lost a substantial amount of money I thought I'd get it back all in the same day, and just winded up losing x4 more.

He also talks about the simplicity that trading should be, following a trend and making money while going with the flow, no fancy methods are needed in order to make money, and I totally into it, I don't over-analyze the market, and just tend to swim with the current trend.


I've realized something that happens to me lately is that I don't have time to trade (only about hour or so a day), so I try to get into trades without good signals, which is so bad.. so starting next week I'll go to the GYM before work, and leave enough time for trading so I won't rush into trades.

I really think I've grown as a trader and I'm much more mature now in my trading than I was 2-3 months ago.

I stopped doing mistakes like losing more than my daily stop loss, I don't take trades from other people, I don't trade when I cannot follow the trade, that's the latest improvements in my trading.

Need to improve:
1. Stop buying on spikes or when market gets crazy.
2. Start reading books or so while trading, otherwise I get bored and fall asleep and miss a good trades like yesterday's 50 points move.
3. Stop overtrading, the less amount of trades is the best usually.
4. Take time from trade to trade, otherwise you just take impulsive and bad trades.

Hope to get back on my feet soon,
Have a great week!
And to the Jewish folks reading my blog:
Shana Tova !

Busy month..

I moved apartment, changed place at work, rethink my life, and traded only 10 days of the month.
I think I'll try to make more time for trading, since I've finally started trading with discipline, and that is of course the most important thing in the world of trading.
I haven't got much to say thought, I think that being in this field of day trading 3 months have taught me a lot, and I am finally starting to see the light in the end of the tunnel.

Setting life goals, that is what important, and my goal for the next two years is to master the art of day trading so much that I could trade from anywhere on the planet, and have myself an endless "vacation", travel all over the world, see all the nice places I wanna see, and basically just have fun while I live..
In two weeks I'm going to skydiving course, which will be so much fun, I just need to overcome my fear of heights and it'll be good :)

As for my trading, it's ok, I put myself rules, I start following them, and now only statistic will tell if I'll make money in the long run or not, I decided to stop trying to reach impossible goals, and just take day trading a day at a time, believing that the odds(statistic) is with me, and basically have faith.
I'm tried sick of saying "today I must make 200$!!", this is not the way to do it, I'm not dependent on my trading for a living just yet, so I don't really have to make the money, I release the pressure of seeking "fast gains", and put myself a goal to really learn the art of day trading, only when I make it, I will think of quitting my job and start day trading for a living from everyplace with Internet connection on earth.

Have a nice week,

Slowly but surely..

I'm trying to focus on quality now, and not on quantity, therefore I'm taking less amount of trades, to make sure I'm not overtrading, also I'm happy with last Friday, which I stopped exactly at my stop point and lost money that day, I'm even more happy for that than I am happy for ending up with profits today and Thursday.

Let me explain why, in winning days, you are happy for being profitable, and it makes your account grow, but on winning days, usually what happens is that I look back at my big winning days thinking I'm going GOD MODE, and then I say to myself "nah.. I can't possibly lose money", and then a chain reaction happens that triggers me to just overtrade, taking every stupid setup I can think of, and then I lose x5 as much as I intended to lose, therefore I glad more for having a tight losing day, than a profitable day.

As for today, I made some money, and then noticed that the range between the high and low in the 15 minute chart is just too big for me, 40 points just going sideways is too much for my tight 10 points stop loss (YM), so after having my small share of profit, I just left the markets and watched a movie. I think that it's the smartest move I've don't in weeks, after I've had the nice winning streak week (triggering me going on "GOD MODE"), I kept thinking I was right all the time, and could just trade every market condition, well let's face it, I can't, and after realizing that, I decided to just earn my money day by day.

Today I've followed my plan well, made only 4 trades and finished profitable, I hope it's the beginning of a new era :)

When do you stop?

Today I'll be talking about the daily stop loss, since yesterday I had a strange day, I started it at up, then made another money, combined I made my profit for the day, which was roughly 150$, and then I started plunging down, and kept going all the way to my stop loss..

So here is what I realized yesterday, I should always start with my initial stop loss of the day (1.5% of capital), and once I'm up with profit, just move the -Daily stop loss- up, which means sometimes I can earn 100$ on a profitable day, or on days like monday when my method works well, I won't stop myself after earning 200$, but rather at 800$ profits, it's what they say "cut losers short, and let winners run" :) I always realized it on stocks, but now I starting to learn my lesson on my equity curve.

So many lessons to learn trading, let's hope I'll stop paying my tuition soon.

Bad week.

I'm not sure why is it that every time after I have a great week, I just blow it out the next, but I think it has something to do with "overconfidence", which is a bad state to be at.
This week I had been trading, thinking "my method is working, I don't have to stop with my stop loss limit of a day", at least I traded only 1 contract which made me lose less money than in my really bad days, but still, I should really stop trading after losing 1.5% of my equity, because after that each trade seem reasonable, even if it's 2 minute scalp of just 3 points, which makes you pay a lot of commission.

I know how to have good days of winnings, but what I need to control of is the losing days, not letting them effect my equity curve, and now they are just making it freefall everytime they happen, and if this keeps on, I'll be going bankrupt in a matter of weeks, this is how bad it has been, and now is the time to change.

I will have a losing days, everybody does, but that fact of the matter is that I need to make them as small as possible, and let the profitable days run.

Balance in trading.

Recently I've been paying too much attention to the stock market, trading, and anything that is financial, I need to balance it a little bit, and continue studying spanish and chinese like I want.

Today I lost 66$ after commisions, which is ok since I only been infront of the market for 30 minutes combined, my sister came for a visit which made me happy, so I didn't have too much time to trade, I had so many missed opportunities, and when I was finally +80$ on the day after starting it in a -100$ loss, I managed to take few wrong calls and lose the profits, then I decided to stop the trading day and go eat dinner (at 22:40 israel time which is 15:40 USEAST time).

After last week, and today, I really believe that making money in the markets is easy when you follow your plan, as I said I'm going to reward myself each day I follow my plan, and not each day I make money, because sometimes (rarely) it's inevitable to lose.

Great week!

Had a busy weekend so I couldn't post about thursday and friday, but here goes.. Thursday I closed +165$ after commissions, and friday +114$, I really starting to get the hang of day trading, and I'd like to talk about the most important thing about trading.

Self discipline, this is the most important trait in day trading, without it you are lost, I've lost a lot of money in the last few week, sometimes 2K$ a day, but I still had faith, which led me to better understanding of what I am doing, I saw that whenever I stop the trading day, and paper trade, no emotions involved, I "make money", even if it's on paper, it convinced me that money can be made from the markets, it's just that I have to discover what in myself is not letting me grab it.

This week had been great since I traded only on signals, and not on "2 minutes scalp" that just got me losing money, I only did what my method had told me, except on monday when I lost 90$, which is not too bad since after losing that money I saw that keeping my way would have got me winning money, so to make stuff simple, discipline discipline discipline, this is the most important trait, if you can wait for the right moves, and just enter with speed and power, you can make a lot of money.

I noticed that most of this week I traded for about an hour, and still managed to make 1-2% on my account, which means that heavily overtrading is not recommended, when you can just wait for the 5-15 minute moves that just makes the day like in my last posts.

How I trade Futures

This is how I trade Futures, I've got fairly simple rules, and when I keep them I make money on the long run, I'd like to share the rules with the world, and if anyone will follow them, he will make money.

Money management:

This rules will keep you alive in the markets on the long run, and they are probably going to save you from having a heavy loss.

1. Risk only 1% of your account each day, once you got to that point of losing a percent, leave the computer, don't let your emotions take over.

2. Trade only 1 contract per each 11K$ in your account, if you trade more than that you will make money faster, but when you lose, you'll finish the day after 1 losing trade, which is bad statistics and the odds are against you to make money right on the first trade of the day.

3. Always move your stop loss in the direction of your trade, never against it.

4. Finish a day after making 2%, or if you traded a lot that day and you are going to pay a lot of commissions, just finish the day either in a minimum amount of profit, or with your daily risk money (%1 max!)

Technical analysis:

1. Enter on simple situations, like channel breakout, support break, or riding the trend the market is currently at, I find that what works most of the times is watching the 15 minutes chart for a channel (longer time frame trend) that is broken, usually after it breaks the market surge in the other direction.





2. Time frames setup - Look at the daily for long term trend, then on 3 days 60min chart for possible support and resistance levels, 15 minutes chart for the current trend, and 5 minutes chart for your entry, always look for confirmation that what you are doing is right in all of the time frames.

3. Pivot points and support and resistance - The experts are looking at it, so you must do it too, whenever you get close to one of those levels, scale out of the trade a little to minimize risk, usually the futures will get stuck in those levels, but once it breaks it, you can buy or short for a nice and FAST profits.

4. Exit method, stop loss at -10 points, profit taking is on the usual break of a trend, and when you are at 10 points profit, higher your stop loss to +5, this keeps you away from a side going market.

A little disclaimer - I'm not recommending anyone trading with his money, I do not offer trading advise , I merely here to post my progress, my technique, and the way I trade, in order to learn to do it better.

Getting control again.

Two days have past since my "Things could be better" post, and I finally gain self control again, and starting to be more disciplined, today I was one point down 105$ (two losing trades in the beginning of the day), I kept following my rules, and got out of the day +160$ after commissions, on 5 trades.

Today I went to the gym after work (11:00 am US eastern time but in Israel it's in the evening), and just said to myself that I have to do all of the exercise, even the ones I don't like and usually skip after doing few sets, this time I did it all, and whenever I thought "I wonder what the market is doing now" I just completely ignored it and wasn't in a rush to get back home and trade, I was down 50$ since the first trade I took from work (remote control hehe), the trade was done following my plan, and just didn't work, so in my mind I had that -50$ on the day, but I got used to ignoring that, telling myself "sometimes you win, sometimes you lose".

When I got back home as I said, I was disciplined, and finished the day profitable after no more than 45 minutes, the best trade itself (which you'll see in a minute) took me only 5 minutes and 21 seconds, and gain me 45 points on YM which roughly translate to 225$ on one YM contract.

Today I finally realized the power of sitting on the sidelines, waiting for a familiar pattern to emerge, it's million times more powerful than second guessing where the market will go in the next 20 seconds (we call it scalping).

I've decided to reward myself for following my plan, and not on money returns, which means I put discipline higher than "making money", each day I follow my trading plan, and quitting in the right time (like today after doing my daily profit), I will give myself a nice reward, today it was some nice chocolate, yesterday it was toffife, I know that my method works, and now my mind come togather with the method, so I start making money.

Best trade of the day:

Disciplined day.

I'm finally start trading saint now, instead of walking in the dark like I did, I'm up 218$ after commissions today on futures.

Today all of the trades were as planned, I got 50 points from the market today, and then just left the computer as is, I "could" have gotten more points out of this bearish market today but I set myself a law, not to overtrade and just leave the computer after I gain enough, so I just followed my plan with discipline.

I traded for one and a half hours which is not too time consuming.

Best Trade of the day:

Overall statistics on today:

8 Trades at all, 2 of them have been a losers, which means 75% profitable trades on today,worst trade lost me 12 points on the stop market order(my stop is usually 10 points), and best trade gave me 45 points.

Things could be better.

I didn't post in the past few days, but I finally got the feeling of trading again, and lost the rush of andrenaline, or addiction, whatever you call that feeling of being hooked to the screen, hoping your "trade", which is more like gamble when it comes without indicators system or method, praying you will earn some money..

Eyes unfold now, I'm in trouble, finally I see how bad I've been doing, while still hoping to do good, since my system does make nice results, I'm unable to keep it.

I've decided to read "Come Into My Trading Room" again, which is a great book about trading method, money management and pshycology, I'm now seeing how many mistakes I've repeatedly made, and start get discipline again, Today I logged all of my trades, and finally there were few of them, so I wasn't overtrading like friday where I put about 40 trades one day (commission will eat me eventually if I won't change).

Here are the trades of today, hope it teaches you guys some stuff, because it sure did teach me that my rule about setting stop win at +5 points in YM after I'm up 10 points is crutial for times were market is moving sideways at times.

Just to note that I will not trade the first one and a half hours for now since I want to know the direction and theme of the day before I enter a trade, today for example YM seem to pull the market up, and today I wasn't home most of the time anyways so I took such a little amount of trades.

Bad Day..

I've heavily over traded today.. that caused me losing 382$ after commission today, at least it's not like on the days I started trading 2 contracts and lost 600$ hehe.

I traded 18 times, which is way too many for the signals that I really had, after the day finished I paper trade and had only 5 trades, I must work on my patience or I'll keep have days like today.

This is how I should have traded today:

The First trade I should have taken at 10:55, long YM 14073 after the resistance had been broken, and with my trade management rules I should have lost 10 points on this trade.

-You can see the trades in the image I attached.

The Second trade should have taken at 11:15, short YM 14065 after breaking the lower trend line, this is again another loser, 10 points.

Remember, my trade management rules are: exit a trade on the break of the current trend, so if I was following the trade down, I let it go down 9 points, on the 10th I stop loss, and if the stock have been going my way, I cover the short the minute it breaks the downtrend up, and another trade management rule I added is: after I'm on a 10 points gain, I automatically put a stop WIN on +5 points, so I won't lose money on sideways going markets.

Till now things seem rough, it seems like I'm losing money huh? watch the following trades:

Next trade (Third) should take place at 12:15, Short YM 14063, it goes all the way to 14045, but it still doesn't enough for me to close the position, this trade is closed at 12:40 on +5 points, just before the market flip on me.

The Fourth trade takes place at 13:35, long YM 14074, the market formed an uptrend, and the resistance had been broken, so I follow the trend until it breaks down at 14085, and get +11 points.

The Fifth and last trade takes place at 15:10 and is short after I close the last long position at 14085, short at about YM 14082, until about the end of the day, which gives me about +27 points.

Combined I get +23 on the day, it's a slow day but still not like the 382$ I lost..

Hope I explained my trading method, tell me if it's not clear enough.

Have a nice day.

Finally starting to pay off my tuition

Well I've got to admit, I had another profitable day, and it feels great! I'm up 190$ net on YM today, and things starting to feel right again.

I started the day going +135$, and then went down to +20$ after 3 bad trades, but I kept doing my best, not letting any good trade lose me money, and kept my stop loss the way I wanted, and it basically have been another good day.

I think that I pretty much understand how to make money in a days where the market does moves like today, Mini-sized dow (YM) moved about 130 points up and down intraday, and I took 54 net home, which doesn't seem so good, but it is for me since I want to make only 32 points a day average.

A mistake I didn't do today was not leaving a trade without a stop when you go to eat, at one point I was +12 points on a trade, and wanted to go to eat, so I just put a +5 points stop win and went to eat, a little reminder, this kind of behavior had cost me about 2000$ one day, when I was on 2 YM contracts and went eating pizza.

My profit / loss now is -23.9% since I started day trading Futures, and I finally start paying off my tuition which cost me so heavily (more than 4K$).

Finally, losing day is not so big.

Friday I was -130$ on the money, and It's good, finally I didn't make stupid mistakes, didn't risk more money than I could have won, and waited with discipline for trades.

I realized that on days like Friday, where the market is almost not moving, it is hard to make money future trading, but after the market closed I paper trade it and saw that my method of waiting for 10 points gain, and if it happens moving the stop loss to +5 points, which means preserving profit, brought me +30 points on the day, I should always use it, but anyways it has been a good day as far as following my trading plan, and that's what matters.

My trading is developing rapidly, and I know that soon I'll be making money since in the long run, my method is working, I should just follow it, and wait for days like thursday where I extracted 60 points from the dow jones.

Have a good weekend and good bye for now.

Yet, another good day

I'm up 276$ on the day (after commission), and I hope it stays this way.

What I did today was just following the bigger trend, instead of fighting to understand where the market is going in the next couple of minutes, I started going with the flow, and I really got in sync with the market, today I had a very good discipline, my stops were reasonable, I didn't get away from the computer without having a stop loss market order in my broker, and it saved me once.

I had to go help out my dad for a couple of minutes, so I put a stop loss in the broker, and when I came back I saw that I lost Internet connection, and when the Internet did work I saw that YM was down 20 points from where I entered, but my stop loss was 5 points above my entry (what we call stop win:), so I managed to earn money while not even watching the computer, I really believe that I'm developing in my trading every day.

Today I had 90% winners, which is usual for days that have certain main trend, I just join the market on the move and watch my profits run, +60 points on the day is very good for me, my goal is to get +32 a day average, so when my account grow I'll just add to my quantity, which is now 1 since my account size is so small, I'm not trying to reach the sky, but getting 32 points a day can be achieved in 2 hours of work.

On the personal side, I've just had a nice BBQ with my friends and it was really fun watching them all on my birth day, I think this is going to be my best b-day yet :)

It's my birthday!!

Today is my birthday, and I finally grow up in age, and mentally as well, I'm 23, and I'm happy : )



Last two days have been bad, I've repeated my old mistakes, and I glad to say that I think I found the reason.. It's something in me that I have to change, I'm changing it lately but it's still there.



You know it when you drive you car, and the other driver doesn't let you pass? so after you do pass him, you start rushing ahead "making up" for the lost seconds of when the other driver didn't let you pass? well.. maybe you guys aren't like me, but I'm one hell of an impatient guy, I can't wait a second, since I was a little kid I wanted it all here and now.



Now it's time to change, being a day trader require some core characters, for example diligence, you must see the light at the end of the tunnel, positive thinking, you must believe you will make it, self dicipline, you must be able to put your stops on the right place, these and more the the required day trader's characters.



But the one I lack most is "Patiance", this is the key element I lack, today I took 3 "Home run" trades, each given me about 120$ gain on 1 YM contract, and I still didn't finish the day green.

I've made so many "rush trades" that came without any real trigger, I was just simply bored.. and thought I'm right, this what got me to lose money the last few days, from now on I promis myself, I'll be more patiance, I will trade only on real trigger, and not a "revenge scalp trades" which I made, yesterday I even rise my quantity to 2 contracts so it made my losses bigger, I think after making the same mistakes twice, I learned my lesson, at least I hope I do, because this tuition becomes very expensive.



I still think positive, and know I'll make it trading, but I see that I still have a lot to learn, good bye for now

Today -150$



I've had a bad day today, looking at the day I made only about 3 mistake trades out of 14 trades, which makes me think I improved, but still I'm not exceeding my expectations, which is trade my method and always make money.





The mistakes today consisted of not following my method, which manifests itself as one of the trades I took, was after the trend line broke down, I took a long position to try and stay with the current uptrend, and that was a mistake, my trading style says that after a trend line is broken, I sell the current position and short / buy long to the opposite direction.


Right after mistake #1 I took a short too low, which I then decided to stop before it hit my stop loss (-10 points), and the trend kept going down right after I covered my short, it seems like one mistake leads to the next, tomorrow I'll try to avoid both.





This is how the market looked today :



My method, in paper trade, produced only 9 points today, which is unusual to my method, because usually it produce at least 25 points, I guess it's just happened to be a day where the market didn't move so much, and deceived my method a lot (false breakout of trends etc.).
My method usually means going with the current trend, get in sync with the market, and when it catches the market, it should make me nice profits.

Method update:

I'm changing a bit my trading method, I've tested a new rule and it will help me earn money in days where the market is going a bit sideways at times, tested on friday I could of gotten 52 points with 15 trades all day.

It goes like this :

As usual I buy and sell on support and resistance, if I'm riding a trend and he is breaking I'm just quiting with the profit of the trend.

1. Stop loss stays at -10 points.

2. Profit taking is the following :

A. The usual trend breaking profit taking (Ex. YM went from 13517 to 13526, and then the trend broke down at 13524 and I take 7 points profit).

B. And this is the improvement, If I'm at 10 points gain, and the market goes against me, I take 5 points gain home, and if the market keep going my way I buy back 10 points more than my entry. I'll explain it with screen shots of trades the following days.

Having a bad week.

This week I think I went -681$ overall, which is the exact opposite of what I intended to do, there are a few reasons why and I would like to tell you what I have learnt from this week:

1. Don't scalp in futures trading, the commissions will eat you alive.

2. Keep your stop loss, if you don't you get to a point of losing 20 dollars here, 20 dollars there, and then you "scalping" your way to losing money, what happened to me this week is that I went out of trades before my stop loss have been met, on false alerts, while the market was going sideways, I lost a lot of money trying to join the next market move.

3. Keep the method simple, buy on breakout of resistance, or in a forming trend, don't guess the market next 2 minutes trend, just go with the flow, I could have gotten 30 points Friday without a sweat, but instead I just scalp my way up, which means I took about 19 points, maybe less including commissions.

4. Don't ever set unrealistic goals, like 500$ a day (on 1 contract), just because you feel like that, because it will cause what happened to me Friday, which is averaging up (buying another contract on the top of the trend), and then when Dow went down few points, all of my profit was lost due to the other contract, basically don't trading more than you can handle to lose, for me 2 contracts is too much for you now, and it caused me coming from a profit of 150$, to losing 130$ Friday.

I hope it will help me form somewhat of a trading rules in futures trading, learning from mistakes is the best way to evolve as a day trader, and I would like to help you guys learn from my mistakes.

Have a great week end!

Having a good day..

Since it's the first post about a trading day I'll just say few of my methodologies.

I'm trading mainly the YM now since I don't have enough to day trade stocks, usually a breakouts of support and resistance throughout the day, and I risk 10 pts each trade, to win at least 12 pts, unless I'm entering a scalping spree (happens in flat market).

Discipline is the key on my style of trading, and I've had a day where I lost 2000$ so it taught me a lot about taking my stops seriously.

Today I took only two trades, first one at about 9:40, took short YM 13531, since I believed the market is continuing the downtrend, which it didn't, and the market changed direction rapidly so I couldn't catch it at 10pts lose, so instead I catch it after 14 pts lose, and took long at 13549, which became the trade of the day for me, and it made me 54 pts gain so I decided not to trade more today, and keep discipline doing that, I "could" make more money today because the market made few more big trends, but I'm fine with not taking the trades since I've made enough money today, PNL 192$ (1 contract) after commissions.

This is a nice day for starting my blog, hope you guys enjoy, learn about what I do, and most of all have fun reading.

About the blog..

The blog is about day trading stocks, I will do it using all of my two years experience in the markets, and will post some of the trades I take, hope you guys have fun reading it.