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 :)