Mark's Day Trading Blog

Time for Trading

Mark — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:08:41 +0000

Well it’s a new year and life is finally starting to settle down so it’s time to get back to trading. After looking through my 2011 results, I’m not too unhappy with the results. I didn’t trade very much fort he year, only 39 days total. Of those, 29 were winning days and 10 were losing (not bad!). However, it was the degree to which Iost is what made the difference, as I had quite a few large losing days. In fact, I was up for the year until the last day I traded, which sent me into the red.

Now that 2012 is here, I’m going to try to build on the winning days that I did have last year. I’ve been getting reacquainted with my charts over the past couple weeks. I have made some slight adjustments because the volume has been low and the market has been choppy in the mornings. Mainly, I’m setting my expectations lower on choppy volume and shooting for half the daily profit (I only have time to trade the first 30 min). I’ve also changed my main trading chart from a 20 tick to a 1 Range chart, as this does a better job at filtering out the noise. It also allows me to see stalls a little better. As such, I’ve switched my main chart to OHLC instead of line on close.

Just today, I took a look at the ES for a 1 range chart and it looks pretty tradable. I may keep an eye on it as and alternative to the TF since the market has been so choppy. I did trade this morning though, took 6 trades for a +5 net.

9/2/2011 6:50 AM

Mark — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:52:25 +0000

Pretty bad day today. The market was heavily bearish before the open but really chopped around for the first 15-20 min or so and I got killed trying to trade around the chop. Five trades all in all, not a single winner, -5, -4, -6, -6, -7. I’m going to have to do a lot better than this…

9/1/2011 6:35 AM

Mark — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:40:27 +0000

Yesterday was a tough day but I managed to squeeze out a tiny profit (+1 after comms). My trades were -9, +3, -4, +11,+1, and +2. The +3 trade was a bit of a disappointment because I had about +10 in the trade but I got greedy and tried for more. I exited at +3 when the market started to turn against me. The final +2 trade was only to put be in the black for the day.

Today was much nicer, a quick one-and-done at the open. The market showed no bias so I was looking for either shorts or longs. After moving down a bit, the market pulled back a little, then stalled out. I took a short entry and made a quick +10.

8/30/2011 6:42 AM

Mark — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:44:49 +0000

Much better day today. The market was bearish and I was looking primarily for shorts. I got a nice stall at the open and took +10 off the move.

I did watch the market a little more to see about trying to recoup more of yesterday’s losses but I didn’t see anything else that I felt comfortable with, so I called it a day.

8/29/2011 7:33 PM

Mark — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:39:19 +0000

Wow, pretty bad day today. These are the kind of days I need to eliminate if I’m ever going to have any sort of consistency in this business. The market was bullish before the open, but for some reason I thought I’d try to take shorts. Because of all of the negativity in the markets lately, my preconceived bias tainted my ability to make good trades because I’ve been doing so well with shorts. There are too many bad trades to post screenshots, but I’ll just summarize with 7 trades, 6 losers and 1 tiny winner to end the day -38 net.

On the positive side, I’m still ahead since I’ve been back to trading. I also learned that I need to throw my prejudice away at the door and trade what is in front of me. Had I been focused on trading with the trend, I am certain I would have had a better day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better…

8/26/2011 10:43 AM

Mark — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:40:48 +0000

I decided to take the day off from trading today so instead, I’ll post an updated summary of my progress so far. I’ve been back to trading for a month and it’s been a good month:

That includes missing several days in the first couple weeks, as well as a week-long vacation last week. It’s interesting to see that I’ve had more losers than winners, but I keep my losers small and have had some decent size winners.

8/25/2011 6:38 AM

Mark — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:39:22 +0000

Nice quick one and done day today.

+10

8/24/2011 8:42 PM

Mark — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 03:47:52 +0000

Nice day today. Got short right after the open but didn’t get my target set in time so I was only able to get about +6 instead of +10. I decided I wanted a few more ticks so I waited for another nice setup and took +2 to end the day +7 after comms.

+6 and +2

I’m going to start using bracket orders again tomorrow since I’ve missed a couple good +10 trades due to not being able to get my target in quick enough.

8/23/2011 6:37 AM

Mark — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:40:48 +0000

Much better day today. The market was up pretty big in overnight trading but had been working it’s way down in pre-market, so I was looking for shorts. I missed the entry I wanted but ended up taking a nice pullback good for +10 and I’m done for the day, 4 minutes after the open.

8/22/2011 8:51 PM

Mark — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:03:16 +0000

I’m back from vacation and had a pretty crazy day today. The market was bullish at the open so I was looking for longs. I should have been a bit more hesitant with all of the negativity in the markets lately (and the big gap over the weekend) because the market tanked at the open and dropped about 15 points in the first 40 minutes or so.

However, since I was looking for longs, I was fighting the market and started off with four losers (-5, -1, -5, and -2). I then started looking for shorts and took a +10 and -3. I took a few more trades (2 longs and 3 shorts) for +8, -4, -5, +10, and finally +4 to put me ahead (barely) for the day.

Since I had been fighting the market and going back and forth, I decided to call it quits with a small profit. I took 11 trades in the first 15 minutes of the market (way more that I like). Once again though, I was down a bit (about 15 ticks) and was able to come back and not have a losing day.