ES May Trading Summary

RESULTS FOR MAY
Contracts:	342
Net $P/L:	-9889
Wins:	75
Losses:	82
Win%:	48
Avg$Win:	65
Avg$Loss:	-180

Slow Friday

3:10pm CDT - I cleaned my trading house last night and trimmed many of my strategies from my arsenal since they've been misfiring so much lately. Of course this is due more to me executing them improperly than to the technicals themselves! June will be much less volume and I am focusing on just 1 or 2 setups that I think have the most potential. We'll see how that goes.

Today I had just 1 setup which I traded flawlessly. Too bad it was a loss.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	1
Net $P/L:	-191
Wins:	0
Losses:	1
Win%:	0
Avg$Win:	0
Avg$Loss:	-191

Escape from May

3:00pm CDT - Escaped a few major rapes but lost focus and put some questionable trades on that met criteria but got in by chasing the entry price. What a newb I am. Someday I will learn, I swear! It was a tough trading day with 4 or 6 major swings depending on how you define them. At this point, I don't look forward to reporting my May P/L tomorrow but am glad this month is nearly over.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	61
Net $P/L:	-333
Wins:	14
Losses:	12
Win%:	54
Avg$Win:	94
Avg$Loss:	-138

Scratch Trades Don't Really Exist

3:05pm CDT - Happy with end of day despite no gain. Was down $100 in morning after a couple trades. Missed shorting the double top at 912.75 which was picture perfect to the tick. But of course I tried to play the potential double bottom at 904.75 and stopped out for a point. Spent the afternoon reading the DOM and scalping for a tick or two and exiting for same when things didn't go well. I used to do this a lot a few years ago but got away from it because it requires so much effort and concentration.

By the way, I never report any scratch or break-even trades. They are all either wins or losses in my book. If I exit a trade at same price I entered, it is a loser since I did not cover my commission. If I get out for a tick, it is a winner since I netted 2/3 of a tick or so after commission.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	15
Net $P/L:	11
Wins:	8
Losses:	5
Win%:	62
Avg$Win:	25
Avg$Loss:	-38

Restart

3:20pm CDT - I felt good going into the day but my signals probed the short side most of day and didn't do well as is obvious from the charts. Not the restart I was looking for after not trading for a week but then again I'm not a beginner (although many days it feels like it) so beginner's luck does not apply unfortunately. I'll have to look at filtering signals a bit on days like today as I was not trading the longer term trend.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	6
Net $P/L:	-466
Wins:	1
Losses:	5
Win%:	17
Avg$Win:	9
Avg$Loss:	-95

Focus

Thought I'd update on my hiatus status. I was glad I did not place a single trade this week. That shows a spark of discipline, right? I have been lacking that lately. It was actually a good break and I worked all week on backtesting and tweaking various methods. I know for a fact that if I have specific rules for every entry and exit that covers all market conditions, I can stick to a system without wavering. My focus was just lacking the past few weeks and I'm determined to get it back.

I'll likely start trading again Tuesday depending on how much work I do this weekend.

I had to laugh at a recent comment, "most people like to see failure. it's fun. you follow some blogs that are likely filled with scam artists. Short-term trading is not fulfilling nor rewarding. Try something else. gl."

GL, if you don't think short-term trading is fulfilling/rewarding, why are you wasting your time on trading blogs? Just because you can't do it doesn't mean everyone else can't!

Have a good long weekend everyone!

Dennis Bolze

Some of this may be old news to many readers...

Don't believe everything you read on blogs! I used to follow this blog written by Dennis Bolze and I just happened to check it for an update over the weekend and found out this sad story of fraud. This guy traded the index futures and seemed very charitable and a good all-around guy. It was fun to follow his blog a year or two ago as he built his mansion in the hills of Tennessee.

But that's all history now and he sits in jail. Many more details here and here.

Self-imposed Hiatus

1:00pm CDT - Today I decided to go back to higher frequency micro-scalping for 2 ticks or so per trade and was doing okay until I then decided to increase leverage and a deficit began and then mushroomed. No excuses - my head is just not in the right place lately! This spell I've been in has to end eventually. But today was my last straw. I'm forcing myself to take at least a week off from live trading. Will do some paper trading and work things out.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	69
Net $P/L:	-3792
Wins:	18
Losses:	16
Win%:	53
Avg$Win:	28
Avg$Loss:	-268

Swap Buttons

3:00pm CDT - I'm going to swap my buy and sell buttons soon and not tell my brain! Nearly all my losers were in the green by 1 or 2 ticks only to reverse to stops. It sure didn't feel like we had a 15 pt. range day in the ES but I guess we did.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	18
Net $P/L:	-334
Wins:	6
Losses:	6
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	60
Avg$Loss:	-116

Afternoon Chop

3:10pm CDT - Couldn't get anything going today and bounced back and forth from positive to negative.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	14
Net $P/L:	51
Wins:	4
Losses:	5
Win%:	44
Avg$Win:	77
Avg$Loss:	-51

Catch 22

3:00pm CDT - Not bad considering the 4 losers were all in a row this morning. My only mild regret was taking a long trade off at 903.75 around 1:50pm CDT. Neither my 5 min. or 1 min. charts showed any bars with lower lows so the up trend was clearly in tact. This is something I always wrestle with - to let profits run or to take the money and run! Most times when I stay in, a pullback occurs and a trailing stop gets hit below where I would have exited. Such is trading... a never ending Catch 22!

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	7
Net $P/L:	44
Wins:	2
Losses:	4
Win%:	33
Avg$Win:	84
Avg$Loss:	-31

Stopped Out to the TICK

3:10pm CDT - Is it Monday? This last trade I made with 4 contracts long tells the story pretty well how my day went (see chart). We've all had this happen so many times we begin to believe that the market knows exactly where we have our stop. This trade meandered for a bit before deciding to test support and trigger my stop (which I thought was set far enough below support that a little noise wouldn't hurt me). It didn't trade 1 tick lower before proceeding up 6.5+ pts. to my target.

These things happen. At least I stopped for the day after that.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	28
Net $P/L:	-1248
Wins:	2
Losses:	7
Win%:	22
Avg$Win:	98
Avg$Loss:	-206

Scratch

Testing the waters...

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	9
Net $P/L:	2
Wins:	5
Losses:	3
Win%:	63
Avg$Win:	52
Avg$Loss:	-86

Backtesting

Finished up backtesting today of a system that I had hoped would look better than the results actually show. Simulated P/L curve attached...

Backtesting is somewhat useless many argue since it's all history and doesn't guarantee anything going forward. However I have found that if results are good for a statistically significant period of time in varying market conditions, it helps in trading that system as you have much more confidence and are less likely to deviate from the rules or change things on the fly.

Needless to say, this system doesn't hold much promise. Back to the drawing board.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	0

Drawdown continues...

3:30pm CDT - Started bad trying to fade the premarket ADP report, ended bad gambling near the close. Lack of discipline continues! Obviously I need to fix this sooner rather than later.

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	60
Net $P/L:	-2006
Wins:	5
Losses:	9
Win%:	36
Avg$Win:	175
Avg$Loss:	-320

Slow Tuesday

3:10pm CDT - Quiet day today. I could be wrong but after a quick glance of the daily charts I think we haven't had this small of a range day (less than 12 pts.) since Christmas!

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	5
Net $P/L:	49
Wins:	3
Losses:	2
Win%:	60
Avg$Win:	64
Avg$Loss:	-71

May Sprouts

3:20pm CDT - Lots of chart backtesting this weekend looking at my setups and still more work to do there. I am also backtesting some other variations of my system to see how they would have performed in the past. This is something I'm always doing it seems, tweaking things and looking for the proverbial non-existent holy grail!

Traded lightly today and had a good morale boost with 4 for 4, albeit not much of a monetary bounce back. I'm in no hurry though...

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	5
Net $P/L:	175
Wins:	4
Losses:	0
Win%:	100
Avg$Win:	44
Avg$Loss:	0

Friday Blues

1:45pm CDT - I typically have problems after a down day and today was no exception. I'm stopping early due partly to tripping my circuit breaker and partly due to getting pissed at this market action and breaking my rules. Trading pissed is never smart. I plan to do some number crunching this weekend and reset/refine rules that were working well most of last month. Good weekend to all. Go Bulls!

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	44
Net $P/L:	-1852
Wins:	3
Losses:	7
Win%:	30
Avg$Win:	108
Avg$Loss:	-311