Quarter 1 2010 Trading Results

Nice to end the month and the quarter in the green. May the recent trend continue.

March Trading Summary

Net breakdown:
ZS $4697, GCL $1079, ES $172

RESULTS FOR MARCH
Contracts:	174
Net $P/L:	5948
Wins:	25
Losses:	27
Win%:	48
Avg$Win:	563
Avg$Loss:	-301

Thurs.

11:30am CDT - Stopped by 2 @&%#* cents in my short crude trade just after the factory orders report! After the inventory report a half hour later, it easily went down to target. This is the frustrating part of trading and you must roll with the punches. My "oh so close" $1450 in crude profit was not meant to be today and because of 2 ticks, it was meant to be an $1100 loser instead. OK, done venting.

Beans were ON FIRE (for first few minutes anyways)! Gapping down more than 20 cents and falling another 22 after that. I caught a tiny 4 cent chunk after losing 1.5 cents on an earlier long probe.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $688(12), GCL -$1138(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	16
Net $P/L:	-449
Wins:	1
Losses:	2
Win%:	33
Avg$Win:	1169
Avg$Loss:	-809

Day Traders 2.0

10:30am CDT - Short bean trade worked nicely and hit target and I am done for the day.

Good that our profession gets a little mainstream press! See: Day Traders 2.0: Wired, Angry and Loving It, in last Friday's New York Times. I wonder if that chat room service mentioned in the article had to pay the NYTimes anything??

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $1169(6)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	6
Net $P/L:	1169
Wins:	1
Losses:	0
Win%:	100
Avg$Win:	1169
Avg$Loss:	0

Mon.

2:00pm CDT - Tried an initial bean short after the opening spike up but that didn't work so my system gave me a buy signal which I could have squeezed another 5 cents out of but I can't complain.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $538(12)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	12
Net $P/L:	538
Wins:	1
Losses:	1
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	569
Avg$Loss:	-31

Fri.

11:45am CDT - No crude trades and a couple small ZS winners. In spite of yesterday's slow free fall, ZS still seems dead!

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $613(12)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	12
Net $P/L:	613
Wins:	2
Losses:	0
Win%:	100
Avg$Win:	307
Avg$Loss:	0

For the week, I lost ~$400 on crude and made ~$2100 on beans.

Thurs. ZS like watching paint dry

10:45am CDT - I couldn't take it anymore! ZS is just plain dead. First position stopped out, 2nd position (short) had a target of 9.61 but I just couldn't sit through it waiting for it to get there. Of course just 12 min. after I scaled out it trades through 9.61 "costing" me over $500 in missed profits. I understand why I gave up but my system performance will under perform if I keep having to put asterisks next to my lesser actual results. At least crude finally paid me today.

1:15pm EDIT - Great feeling (insert sarcastic tone) to see ZS grind, spurt, and close down more than 20 cents below where I bailed.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $163(12), GCL $1302(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	16
Net $P/L:	1466
Wins:	2
Losses:	1
Win%:	67
Avg$Win:	973
Avg$Loss:	-481

Wed.

1:30pm CDT - 2 losers in choppy ZS.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$962(12)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	12
Net $P/L:	-962
Wins:	0
Losses:	2
Win%:	0
Avg$Win:	0
Avg$Loss:	-481

Tues.

1:00pm CDT - 3rd day in a row with a loss in crude system. That happens but today was very frustrating and profits would have been $2000 higher had crude traded down just 1 more cent to 80.96 to fill my limit order. My system does not allow for moving a stop but I did anyways because I knew I would be not be a happy camper if I took a loss after so nearly being filled. But when price didn't move all the way up to stop, I shorted again and later got stopped.

I am fully aware of the argument that I risked 53 cents to make 1 additional cent. But I know that I can find a much greater number of cases where that risk pays off. It boils down to the trailing stop argument, to trail or not to trail...

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $1182(6), GCL -$795(8)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	14
Net $P/L:	386
Wins:	2
Losses:	1
Win%:	67
Avg$Win:	602
Avg$Loss:	-818

Mon.

1:45pm CDT - Same as Friday with crude losing and beans gaining. The early crude trade long was stopped out by just 3cents before going in the intended direction by more than $2.30. I hate when that happens. I upped size slightly on ZS by adding ZS trades to my IRA account so it was nice to have a winner there.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $1094(6), GCL -$938(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	10
Net $P/L:	156
Wins:	1
Losses:	1
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	1094
Avg$Loss:	-938

Fri.

1:45pm CDT - Zero sum game today with crude losing and beans gaining.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $517(4), GCL -$498(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	8
Net $P/L:	19
Wins:	2
Losses:	1
Win%:	67
Avg$Win:	259
Avg$Loss:	-498

For the week, it was a scratch with a very choppy P/L...

Charts and Webinar!

1:15pm CDT - I've been lazy with charts lately so you get THREE today! No CL Trades today (although take a look at the Doji that worked beautifully on a 5-min. chart). Two ZS trades today and I show the "winner" below that I didn't follow my plan on and it cost me $250. Slap me! Of course the key is to be consistent - trailing stops can work just fine and would have minimized my ZS losses earlier this week.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $4(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	4
Net $P/L:	4
Wins:	1
Losses:	1
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	139
Avg$Loss:	-135

Sat in on a Forex fib webinar today and took a few screenshots. I thought I'd pass it on since it was free. Always good to see what "gurus" are teaching. I can't imagine these strats backtest very well but who am I to judge. Take it for what it's worth and/or what I paid for the info!

Risk:Reward

1:15pm CDT - Caught a nice early short in Crude but ZS chopped me again.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$321(4), GCL $702(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	8
Net $P/L:	382
Wins:	1
Losses:	2
Win%:	33
Avg$Win:	702
Avg$Loss:	-160

Risk:Reward ratios are all the talk on trading sites and blogs. I agree they are good to look at but they aren't what makes you profitable (IMHO). Take my ZS trades this month so far, 7 winners, 16 losers or 30% win rate. Total net gain on winners was $2203, total net loss on losers was -$2514 (so I'm down on month on ZS). I risk 1.5 cents and my reward is 4 cents (both fixed). Although I haven't specifically looked at each trade, I'd be willing to bet that if my risk had been 4 cents for a reward of 1.5 cents, my win% would be ~70% and I'd still be net the same dollars month to date. Bottom line, don't be fooled into thinking you can be profitable by simply targeting a better risk:reward ratio. It ain't that simple.

Tues.

2:30pm CDT - Once again ZS chopped me around. No signals in CL system again. But ES lured me into a short, double top trade after FOMC at 1153.25 for an adequate 3.5 pts. And talk about a dead FOMC announcement, yawn....

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$221(4), ES $172(1)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	5
Net $P/L:	-48
Wins:	1
Losses:	2
Win%:	33
Avg$Win:	172
Avg$Loss:	-110

Mon.

2:45pm CDT - 2 losers in ZS which just didn't want to run today. No signals in CL system (although I wish I had had an early short signal!)

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$246(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	4
Net $P/L:	-246
Wins:	0
Losses:	2
Win%:	0
Avg$Win:	0
Avg$Loss:	-123

Fri. and CL System Backtest

3:15pm CST - Another good day (but only caught 15 cents of the $2.50 day's range in CL!!).

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $229(4), GCL $582(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	8
Net $P/L:	812
Wins:	2
Losses:	1
Win%:	67
Avg$Win:	486
Avg$Loss:	-160

For the week, very happy with this. Not having any losing crude system trades this week certainly helped. I should note, that most of the crude trades have been in my IRA trading account which I have not traded prior to this week in a very long time.

Finished backtesting my latest CL system that I posted about on Monday. Imagine how much higher my confidence would be if I had not gone back any earlier than mid-Aug. '08? But I did look at all data back to March '07 so now I have to figure out if the market has changed since Aug. '08 and I should continue trading this or if I'm being fooled by randomness yet again. You might recall I've been down this road a few month ago. Something for me to think about over the weekend. Any feedback welcome!

Thurs.

11:15am CST - Crude was good to me again, not so much with ZS since I missed the down move.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$321(4), GCL $822(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	8
Net $P/L:	502
Wins:	2
Losses:	1
Win%:	67
Avg$Win:	419
Avg$Loss:	-335

Wed.

11:00am CST - Nice day to start trading my crude system. However, I got 8 cents slippage on the entry just after inventory release! That loss of $320 to Mr. Market wasn't very nice. I only accounted for average of 1/2 cent slippage per trade in my backtest! Anyways, I got less than a quarter of the morning range in CL and ZS but I'm okay with that as I traded per my plan.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $390(2), GCL $1182(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	6
Net $P/L:	1572
Wins:	2
Losses:	0
Win%:	100
Avg$Win:	786
Avg$Loss:	0

Tues.

2:30pm CST -

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $229(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	4
Net $P/L:	229
Wins:	1
Losses:	1
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	315
Avg$Loss:	-85

Backtesting continues on new CL system and it looks okay back through Fall '08. I'm going to start trading it to feel out any execution issues and go from there. The max drawdown experienced did increase from yesterday's reported 163 ticks to 324 ticks which occurred Oct/Nov. '08 due to increased volatility. I am going to tweak things to trade 1-2 contracts when risk is high and additional contracts when risk is lower. This will smooth out the equity curve a bit. Currently OEC's day trading margin for GCL is $2700/contract and I will get nowhere close to this. QM was considered but volume is just too thin...

Mon. and CL System

2:30pm CST - 3 losers. Not the start to the week I would have liked.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$321(4), GCL -$144(1)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	5
Net $P/L:	-465
Wins:	0
Losses:	3
Win%:	0
Avg$Win:	0
Avg$Loss:	-155

Although way too early to be counting on me taming crude oil, below is the start of a new system I've been backtesting and the hypothetical results had I been trading 1 lots in it for past 11 months. I plan to continue to backtest it at least back through the Fall '08 wild ride! It's got potential I think but I'm not about to jump up and down yet.

Fri.

2:30pm CST - 2 losers to close out the week. Missed the initial ZS selloff and gap fill. After that it was nothing but chop.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$321(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	4
Net $P/L:	-321
Wins:	0
Losses:	2
Win%:	0
Avg$Win:	0
Avg$Loss:	-160

For the week, pretty choppy with a teeny tiny uptrend...

Thurs.

1:15pm CST - One ZS trade today executed per plan.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $365(2)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	2
Net $P/L:	365
Wins:	1
Losses:	0
Win%:	100
Avg$Win:	365
Avg$Loss:	0

Wed.

2:20pm CST - 2 losers, stopped to the tick on each before they went 3 cents in favor later.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS -$321(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	4
Net $P/L:	-321
Wins:	1
Losses:	1
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	0
Avg$Loss:	-160

Tues.

1:30pm CST - Feeling short on words lately. I'm sure you don't mind.
Here's a webinar on a few basic candle patterns that isn't too bad. Not sure how long the link will stay active...

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $204(4)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	4
Net $P/L:	204
Wins:	1
Losses:	1
Win%:	50
Avg$Win:	390
Avg$Loss:	-186

Mon.

1:45pm CST - One long ZS trade today that I managed to plan except that I moved my target in one tick when it looked like it wasn't going to fill which cost me $25. Of course it traded through the higher target right after that...

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ZS $340(2)

RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:	2
Net $P/L:	340
Wins:	1
Losses:	0
Win%:	100
Avg$Win:	340
Avg$Loss:	0