Friday, January 29, 2016

January Trading Summary

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
ES $3075(89), NQ -$580(13) CL -$534(9), 6E -$622(5)
RESULTS FOR JANUARY
Contracts:116
Net $P/L:1339
Wins:27
Losses:24
Win%:53
$Commissions:366
Avg$Win:411
Avg$Loss:-407

Fri. 1/29

12:55pm CST - Good end to the month but I messed up a tiny bit on exit after watching the trade go no where for so long I bailed a point earlier than plan. And then of course it goes a mile more than that! Oh well.  For the week +$3315 net. YTD +4.6%.
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:3
Net $P/L: 666
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 666
Avg$Loss: 0

In other news, there are so many things wrong with this story I had to post it.  Like does Fortune or Reuters have a clue what HFT is?  I guess headlines grab readers.  The whole story is really just an ad for Quantopian or Cloud9Trader, neither of which I had heard of so I guess the story succeeded in that regard.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Thurs. 1/28

3:10pm CST -
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:3
Net $P/L: 854
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 854
Avg$Loss: 0

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Wed. 1/27

2:45pm CST - FOMC day always adds some movement. Had a few signals after announcement two of which worked beautifully but I had already had my daily fill so I sat on my hands as per plan.
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:3
Net $P/L: 741
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 741
Avg$Loss: 0

In other news, most all of these quotes will likely speak to you as well as they did me! (Source: tradeciety.com)
Jesse Livermore talks a lot about the importance of respecting your rules and learning from failures:
1 – What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game. …there is the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time.
2 – The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street among the professionals who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for a regular wage.
3 – It never was my thinking that made me the big money for me. It always was my sitting.
4 – It is almost as important to know what not to do as to know what should be done.
5 – A man must believe in himself and his judgment if he expects to make a living at this game. That’s why I don’t believe in tips.
6 – Without faith in his own judgment no man can go very far in this game.
7 – Courage in a speculator is merely confidence to act on the decision of his mind.
8 – A man can excuse his mistakes only by capitalizing them to his subsequent profit.
9 – The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare the rod while teaching.
10 – If I hadn’t made money some of the time I might have acquired market wisdom quicker.
11 – I had been studying trying to locate the exact trouble with my system that had been responsible for my defeat.
12 – There is nothing like losing all you have in the world for teaching you what not to do. And when you know what not to do in order not to lose money, you begin to learn what to do in order to win.
13 – A man will risk half his fortune in the stock market with less reflection than he devotes to the selection of a medium-priced automobile.
14 – I was convinced whatever was wrong was wrong with me and not with the market.
15 – I never argue with the tape. Getting sore at the market does not get you anywhere.
16 – A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss, that is what does the damage to the pocketbook and to the soul.
17 – Stocks are never too high to buy or too low to sell.
18 – One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth or the first. These are the two most expensive eighths in the world.
19 – Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss must develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Tues. 1/26

3:35pm CST -
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:8
Net $P/L: 265
Wins: 1
Losses: 1
Win%:50
Avg$Win: 739
Avg$Loss: -474

Monday, January 25, 2016

Mon. 1/25

1:55pm CST -
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:4
Net $P/L: 788
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 788
Avg$Loss: 0

Friday, January 22, 2016

Fri. 1/22

12:45pm CST - For the week, net +$2194.  YTD -7%.
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:3
Net $P/L: 629
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 629
Avg$Loss: 0

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Thurs. 1/21

2:40pm CST - A couple Euro system trades today. The new "half-ticks" don't seem to be a problem for my execution.  And as usual, lots of movement in the indexes.
Net breakdown (contracts traded):
6E $637(3), ES $460(1)
RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:4
Net $P/L: 1097
Wins: 3
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 366
Avg$Loss: 0

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Wed. 1/20

1:05pm CST - Thanks for comments on last post. I appreciate them all. Thought I'd touch on some of them here.  First, I realize many readers often wonder if I have a method to my madness.  Generally I hate to write much (not good for a blogger) and some of my entries/exits may appear random unless you are in my head. Sure I'm human and occasionally go "off plan" but for the most part there's a reason for every single trade.

As for why I didn't stick to my CL method that seemed to pull $300 out of market most days for a nice stretch there? Simple, it was not sustainable based on further backtesting and actual results toward the end of that run that made me question things more.

Did I jump into ES with bigger size without a system or reasoning as one commenter suggests?  Of course not.  But readers can think anything they would like, or not read at all for that matter.  It's a free country! :)  This blog has never been about sharing system details and rationale for every trade. If it was, it would have burned me out and this blog would have folded up shop years ago.

Latest ES method which I started trading today is a tweak of what I was doing the past couple weeks and looks to take just a trade or two a day.  I still want to backtest further back but it should allow me to pull 6-7 pts. out of the market each week per contract based on data so far.  Hope to improve that but that will be more than adequate if it can be produced consistently.
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:2
Net $P/L: 468
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 468
Avg$Loss: 0

In other news, 37% of forex traders were profitable in Q4.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Fri. 1/15

10:15am CST - Well I gave it a shot, coming out swinging in the new year and trading some bigger size on a mostly mechanical ES system. Followed the plan pretty well until the 2nd and 3rd trades today when revenge crept in.  In hindsight I should not have mixed larger size with the extreme volatility we've had this year. Or had a better plan to deal with it! 4 point fixed stops in ES are just not enough right now.  This continues to be a game of inches, or thousandths of an inch. There are so many times, like my 1st trade today when a single tick would have made all the difference. Any edge anybody may proclaim to have is razor thin which is part of the challenge.  I'll have some time over the long weekend to reflect on things and figure out the plan ahead. For the week, net -$2945. YTD down 14%.
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:12
Net $P/L: -2239
Wins: 0
Losses: 3
Win%:0
Avg$Win: 0
Avg$Loss: -746

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Thurs. 1/14

1:30pm CST - Gave back 2 days of gains.
Net breakdown (contracts traded):
CL $9(3), ES -$1721(14)
RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:17
Net $P/L: -1712
Wins: 3
Losses: 6
Win%:33
Avg$Win: 135
Avg$Loss: -353

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Wed. 1/13

2:45pm CST - Tons of opportunity everywhere yet again.  Still hard to be happy hitting singles when I see grand-slams all over the place when reviewing charts after the fact.  My early 4-lot ES short could have earned an extra $10k+ if held into the mid-afternoon lows.  But obviously 60 pt. days in ES are not the norm so one must be content following the plan.
Net breakdown (contracts traded):
CL $102(2), ES $930(6)
RESULTS FOR DAY
Contracts:8
Net $P/L: 1033
Wins: 5
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 207
Avg$Loss: 0

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Tues. 1/12

2:50pm CST - Tons of opportunity today everywhere!
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:4
Net $P/L: 787
Wins: 1
Losses: 0
Win%:100
Avg$Win: 787
Avg$Loss: 0

Monday, January 11, 2016

Mon. 1/11

2:10pm CST -
RESULTS FOR DAY
ES Contracts:4
Net $P/L: -813
Wins: 0
Losses: 1
Win%:0
Avg$Win: 0
Avg$Loss: -813

Friday, January 8, 2016

Week of 1/04 - 1/08

3:00pm CST - Thought I'd try posting at the end of the week just to shake things up a bit.  I'll likely resume posting daily.  The trade plan is still in a state of flux and I'm still wrestling with the best way for me to make some gains this year.  I'd like ES to get back into the mix due to its scale-ability so I started live testing in that this week.  Mon. and Tues. didn't go so well. Stopped by 2 ticks, then 4 ticks on 4-lots before price hit targets without me.
Wed. and Thurs. were positive but gave some back with CL and NQ.  I like the granularity of NQ but quickly remembered how fast it can rip up or down 20+ ticks in the blink of an eye.  Guess I picked one of the most volatile days on Thurs. to test trading in that symbol. We'll see if I give it another chance.


Friday went well if you exclude the 6E system trade (no chart) that shorted 2-lot after the Jobs Report and price rallied to take me out at a full stop loss. That hurt.  A reminder that starting next week, 6E futures go to half-ticks (like the 6J did last year). This will equate to current depth of market at any given price being cut in half so I would expect more slippage. Not sure what this will do to my 6E system.
For the week, each day was: -$811, -$811, +$335, +282, -$221 = net loss -$1226.  Would have been a BE week if not for 6E trade.

Net breakdown (contracts traded):
CL -$645(4), ES $1258(22), NQ -$580(13), 6E -$1259(2)
RESULTS FOR WEEK
Contracts:41
Net $P/L: -1226
Wins: 8
Losses: 13
Win%:38
Avg$Win: 363
Avg$Loss: -318

I've updated my $Range spreadsheet to see how the same 2-hour time period has changed in 2015. Click here if you want the Excel file with all the data. Most interesting was how 2015 compares to the 1st week this year with the crazy volatility! NQ and ES were equal to CL!