Trades (6B, 6E, NQ & UUP) 10/20 - Tues

Pre- Market (2nd trade, about 10 hours after the 6B trade):

6E 200-Ticks

After US Market Open:

1) NQ 233-Ticks

2) UUP 133-Ticks (Power Shares DB US DOLLAR Index BULLISH)

PnL (Net): + USD 179

D was amused that I bought UUP (he bought financials and the thing was moving like a maniac). He asked why. To which I replied coz everything has gone so high up, and the dollar has sunk so low, and when looking at the TWS, everything that's not GOLD or BOND is starting to turn or has turned red.

Half an hour into my trade, I was as amused as D was. The darn thing just doesn't move! D suggested that I get out at breakeven and buy the DX or bond instead. I had him take a look at the charts of DX and the ZF, ZT, ZN and ZB, and he shut up. Price on those charts had totally skyrocketed while I was waiting for UUP to move! If I were to go in then, I would be chasing.

So, I stuck with UUP.

It moved finally. Not much in terms of absolute dollar amount.

But I'm happy.

It's not the money!

E7 & 6B Trades 10/19 (Mon)

PnL (Net): + USD 183.85

6B trade was a scratch. Just didn't feel that price was ready to reverse. It's been a pretty slow day. Many charts were plain ugly. A rather typical Monday. Will be watching mostly index futures and ETFs later today.

6B 200-Ticks

D had Oanda re-installed and I'm going to be spending some time getting re-acquainted with the platform (the last time I touched it was a year ago if I remember correctly - and was pleasantly surprised to see INTEREST paid to me!) while arranging for additional funds to be wired to Oanda (I hardly used leverage back then, but was trading micro lots, so the account had always been pretty darn small).

I'm sure it's going to be confusion all over again over pip values.

Will be trading mini lot size of $10K, and trading off the 4-hourly or hourly chart. These are timeframes I hardly use for entries, and it's going to be a real test of my patience (how do you do it, Gav?? And Lonely?? 8-hourly is such a pain to watch...). Again, won't be using any leverage. Will trade one pair at a time.

I wonder if I ever mentioned that Forex was the first instrument I traded...

De'Trader reminded me some time back that when I was still part of their community, I used to share how I traded FX: LET LOSSES RUN, take profit whenever I feel like it.

It worked for me, seriously. There was really no skills involved/needed. And I would trade multiple pairs simultaneously. It was actually rather fun. Those were the days...

E7 Trade 10/19 (Mon)

E7: Emini-EUR Futures
Follows the 6E almost exactly. Volume's really NOT fantastic. Trades like the TF during globex (forget min-charts). Smooth movement. Tick value's half that of 6E's. Commission is significantly lower than 6E's.

E7 89-Tick

6E & 6B Trades 10/14 (Wed)

6B 377-Tick

6E 200-Tick

Net PnL: + USD 120.40

Pretty crazy day, but I still get my fills each time.

For my 2nd 6B trade, price was going back and forth and I placed a limit order to cover my long when 6B started turning back down after nearly hitting the HOD. When market was trading at 5 ticks below where I had placed my order to exit, my order was matched by bids at the price I had wanted to get out at.

Since going back to IB on Monday, I've had no surprises, getting in and out at my desired price levels. I've even started using stop orders to get in (something I stopped doing on AT coz after my stop is hit, I almost always get filled at a price that's ticks away from stop!) and have had no issue with slippage/spread.

Today's definitely not the best day to trade (lots of news on Europe's side, and FOMC later today) - price movement's erratic. I'll likely stay on the sideline for the rest of the day, unless some really decent setups turn up on 10min charts (index futures).

6B & TF Trades 10/13 (Tues) - Wrap Up

Long TF: 30min OR hit a mere 6.7 points suggesting that a 2nd leg is unlikely(on trending days, TF usually hits about 10 points within 30min after market opens, and a 2nd leg usually follows). Price closed briefly below OR and reversed back up, failing a bear flag.

Covered at Fib Ret 38.2. I had aimed for Fib Ret 50 initially, but didn't like the wait of nearly 10mins.

D said it's a good time to call it a day.

I keep needing someone to remind me to GO SLOW.

TF 10min

Net PnL: +USD 199.50

6B Trade 10/13 (Tues)

Long 1 6B contract

6B 377-Ticks

Just one trade for now. Missed my 6E long coz D wanted to go out for a smoke! Came back and saw that 6E had hit my targeted exit. Didn't want to chase and took a look at 6B instead. Saw exactly what I have been waiting for (piercing of support and then turning strongly back up, failing an "M" pattern). I was a little late still, but it's better than chasing what's already at the peak (6E).

After I covered my 6B trade, D apologized profusely over my missed 6E trade. I had wanted to exit at Fib Ext 161.8 (see chart below) and the trade would have yielded a very nice 1.9 point. D's sorry coz I would have had 2 winning trades, according to him. I was amused. Truth is, had I gotten 19 ticks from 6E, I would've had taken a break rather than take another trade immediately after.

6E 200-Tick

D traded the TF instead. Brave (globex hours, there isn't much to see on the chart). Unlike me when I traded the TF during globex hours, he couldn't sit on a retracement and got out at + 2 ticks. D asked how I managed to get my 1, 2, 3 and 4 points on TF during such odd hours. I said coz I sat on 1, 2, 3 and 4 point paper loss first (TF seldom break out pre-market, trading in a range for hours). On a few of those occasions, I had glanced at the PnL column from time to time, and would close my trade once I saw a decent profit. I'm still wondering if being that relaxed is good.

6E, 6B & TF Trades 10/12 (Mon) - Wrap Up

TF 233-ticks & 10 min

Started with 233-tick chart, got in on a scalp setup but bailed when there was no momentum (I've gotten used to 3-tick scalp profits - but this time, I got out exactly where I wanted to).

Switched to 10min and took a trade at the close of the 2nd candle.

What I'm doing is really scanning different instruments and different timeframes (depending on the time of the day and the type of day ie ranging, trending, choppy) for something I recognize. I've studied all the charts over the weekend and drawn in key S & R for 23 charts. So I'm playing levels. Timeframe and type of charts don't matter to me. All of them have been studied for patterns that are fairly reliable in the most recent months. I recognize that at some point in the future (hopefully not too near) these patterns will stop working on their respective timeframes. I will adapt.

IB is good with fills. Although it did die on me from 9:30 to 9:35. But it's something I know that happens CONSISTENTLY. That's why I waited for it to die and come to before I entered my first trade.

I had AT placed right next to IB's booktrader. I attempted to take a trade on AT. I just wasn't able to coz AT wouldn't stop skipping prices. Booktrader was stable and traded through every price. I was able to tape-read again.

I have not decided on what to do with my IF account. I will keep it coz I need it to trade commodities, whenever I'm ready to go live.

I like wheat and soybean.

And, I like Anthony very much.

Today's Trades:

Net PnL : + USD 159

6E & 6B Trades 10/12 (Mon) - On IB

These are live trades on IB's booktrader. No problem with fills at all. For my 6E trades, I had scratched the first trade by hitting offer to cover a long, and I got out in a second. For the 2nd trade, I decided to cover at 2 ticks above market price (I was selling to cover long). There was already a queue of 67 contracts. I got out in under a minute.

I'm still clumsy on the platform given that I've not used it for months, and I'm seeing unfamiliar features but I'll get around that.

The 6E trades were definitely not managed properly. I ought to have used a 2-point stop, but I was in no mood to hold my trades. Just wanted to give the platform a try-out. There's no point testing on SIM. What I want to find out is how the live-platform performs in terms of fills and such.

Trade logs should be read bottom-up.

All longs today. I might trade tonight (US session) if I see what I want to see.

6E 200-ticks

6B 377-ticks

6E & TF Trades 10/8 (Thurs)

Nothing much happened today as far as trading's concerned.

I traded in a 2-point chop zone for hours and decided to call it a day after my 8th trade and before my PnL got ugly (9 ticks in the red then). Then just when I was having dinner, 6E MOVED. 8:30 news.

6E 10min

I was not happy, and decided I want my money back. Switched to a tick chart and faded that move. Got my 9 ticks back.

6E 200-tick

I didn't even bother with 1-min chart for TF. Used a tick chart instead and took a scalp. Entered at market. Not the perfect way to enter, but stop entry is just as bad. Took my 5 ticks. Now I'm happy. That's more than enough to pay Anthony. Ha ha.

TF 233-tick

The other time-frames I was watching along with 233-tick:

TF 10 & 3min

Total: USD 50

Today's a bad day to trade. It's not the market. There are just too many distractions. Not even going to talk about my chronic migraine.

A very good friend of mine from Hong Kong (I met him in Canada. I was 16 and he was 21. I used to climb up his 2nd story apartment and enter through his WINDOW - never used the lift, regardless of season. I nearly killed him on one occasion when I drove off before he got into HIS car. He was the one who taught me to play mahjong and speak proper Cantonese, and kept me company when I was pregnant - NO, NOT his child - and strandled at home - it was winter in Edmonton) is finally getting married! He called and asked if I would attend his wedding in late Nov.

Nov's autumn in Hong Kong. Of course I'm going!

So, I'm officially taking a real break next month.

Coincidentally, my neighbour's holding his wedding ceremony too, and asked if he could engage my cleaning lady for a day. Then we began chatting about other things. He noticed I sleep late. I told him I sleep early - usually at 3 to 4 am, after I finish work. He had question marks all over his face. I said I trade the US market. He looked relieved.

WHAT WAS HE THINKING???

Anyway, that was a long interruption. And I just couldn't trade anymore. Yes, I'm still having my migraine. And just terribly relieved that my aunt actually remembered my Tylenol! I had my last pill in the bottle and was really distraught. And she called to tell me she's back from Vegas and flying out again tomorrow but she's left the pills at home with her housekeepers. I'M HAPPY!!!!

6E & TF Trades 10/7 (Wed)

6E 10min

TF 1min

Total: USD 212.50

3 Trades: Long 6E, Short TF, Long TF

I'm too tired to write. Woke up early this morning - too early, but I had no choice coz 6E charts were haunting me in my dreams!

Continued to study more charts (and hoping they'll stop visiting me in my sleep) and read more e-books and then 8 hours later, I began watching 6E. Stayed with it from 3am EDT all the way to 9:30am EDT when I switched over to TF.

I don't know how many hours I've been looking at my screen but my eyes are telling me to stop.

So I'm just going to spend the rest of the night listening to D boss everyone around on his 4-hour conference call (which really feels like nothing now after his 40-hour marathon call just 5 days ago on Sat & Sun - I'm not kidding, D had to charge his phone twice, and after he was finally done, he had wanted to clean the air-con unit. I gently told him he's hyper and out of his mind and suggested a massage session from me instead. D's crazy. Really crazy).

6E & TF Trades 10/6 (Tues)

6E 10min

TF 1min

D couldn't understand why I wouldn't take my 1.6 point profit on my first 6E trade (which got stopped out eventually). After all, my risk was just 8 ticks. I said I was aiming for 4759 (purple lines were drawn before europe session opened). I know, that's really stretching it given my stop loss. Anyway, 6E got there, 6 hours later.

That's about the only thing worth mentioning today.

Oh, I kind of dozed off watching 6E's 10 min chart. Actually, I zoned out for a good 30 min. Am sure it will get better...

D fixed my snipping tool (realized it didn't work this morning when I wanted to do my captures for yesterday's trades, and D my IT guru was at work.) But right after he went in for his shower, it failed on me again. So no capture of the fib ext 132.8 target at 4742 that I was supposed to have gotten out at (which I didn't of course, coz I was aiming for a prior support at 4759).

Snipping tool fixed, here's the chart:

TF - Messy

It's:
post-trend day
post-FOMC day
2 consecutive days with home sales data release
FRIDAY

Experience told me to stay away. And I'm glad I did.

Sim traded instead. Was all over the place:

TF - Posting Of PnL

TF Sim Trading

TF 3min

Giving up 6J and all the other forex futures for now. I like to trade something that I can trade almost everyday and forex futures are just not in that category.

So I'm back trading TF, and have finally settled on a method of trading it. The method is still highly discretionary, but I'm comfortable coz I know TF and am working within a familiar structure. There are certain rules that I observe now and setups that I stick to. I'll trade a few of my preferred setups once the context allows me to trade them, and am giving up the ones that call for wider stops.

It's been a long break for me. Much of it I spent doing some meaningless soul-searching (biggest achievement: buying USD 100k of URE at 4.80 for my aunt, and selling it 2 weeks later ie. last Thurs right at market open, at 6.66 helping her earn more than USD 32k - URE follows TF's trend and is easy for me to monitor - before market started to go into a range, and this had D suggesting that maybe I should really swing trade coz I tend to get a sense of where market's going....ha ha). Some good came out of it though. I shan't say more. Let's say I finally decided that NOW is the time that I quit berating myself for a past that I cannot change, and start doing what's necessary to move on.

I owe a big THANK YOU to those in my circle of trust (just a handful of you and you know who you are). It's strange that while I find cyberspace a highly dangerous place, I've shared with my trading/blogging community the most intimate details of what's been eating me. For the first time, I have 3rd opinions, and I am receptive (SURPRISE!). I haven't the slightest clue on how I'm going to go about expressing my gratitude now. But I'll know what to do when the time comes.

Thank you Ed, Cory, PT, EJ, JK, James, MVW, Jack (J), MM, Solfest, JE, Jimmy, De'Trader, UF (I know you really meant to say something LOL!), Sage, Lonely, Leon, Daytrader, Jaya, my coach Michael, my broker Anthony, for having listened to my rants for the past days/weeks/months and given me a shoulder to cry on.

JE, have you gone private?

I'm posting my TF results (live trading) starting tmrw.

6J Trades 9/16 (Wed) & Decapitated Hanbok

Total: + USD 237

6J 5min

6J 5min (close-up)

Everything Else That I Look At:

Posting resumes today. I will be posting monthly or bi-monthly statements beginning Oct (details of trades available in monthly statements).

That said, I'm not trading the 6J everyday.

A precious lesson that I've learned in the past few months of trading forex futures is that I can't trade them the way I trade index futures.

In a month, there're only 8 to 10 days that FX futures are nice to trade.

That's probably coz I've not figured out the "structure" for trading the 6J, 6E, and 6B on an intraday basis, which I did for the TF (and to a certain extent, the ES).

Seabloke got her twins some Korean dolls when they attended Pilot's wedding in Korea. The younger twin insisted that Sea take a picture of her doll to show D (she brought the doll along when they dropped by mine yesterday), and insisted on beheading the doll. She attempted to get the older twin to do the same, but the latter refused (whether she was appalled I have no idea - nothing really freaks my family out).

The picture that totally cracked D up (D adores all things evil):

6J Trades 8/19 (Wed) - Finale

I was extremely near to shutdown mode today.

Half way into salvaging my trade, I wrote MVW. That tells me I was truly desperate. I usually don't do anything else when I'm in trade. But since I was sitting on a 1k loss, I didn't think my taking a few minutes to write would make too much difference.

I was short 6J (definitely a bias - I've been wanting to short it back down to 10400 for the longest time), but of course yen was up, up, up all the way, while the indices were sliding down throughout (yes, negative correlation back again , perfectly in sync - one goes up , the other one goes down seconds later and vice-versa). I had pinned a lot of HOPE on the various resistance levels to stop 6J, and then I realized that the 6J was just going to keep breaking out coz it was in a perfect uptrend!

I decided to cut my loss.

Took me 4 winning trades to recover 40% of the USD 965 loss.

And then, like one of those days that I kept waking up from a nightmare only to realize that I was still in the same nightmare that I was dying to wake up from, I had to hit "sell" twice when I was covering my winning long, effectively selling something that was SHOOTING UP.

It was the most terrible feeling I've had to endure ever. Having a gun pointed in my face didn't feel half as bad. It was a tough enough battle to have to go in 5 times after taking a near 1k loss (which I sat on from 8am til 5pm just staring at those candles and the DOM!!! At one point, I found myself PRAYING to God, and then felt absolutely dumb! Coz really, if everyone's praying, who is God going to respond to??), and just when I could reduce a near 8 point loss to a 4 point loss, I had to hit the wrong price on the DOM, and hit it TWICE.

The only thing on my mind after that was to keep VERY, VERY calm and wait for price to do its usual on the 2nd huge candle after a breakout (going up and down wildly). Saw the absolute lowest that 6J hit and I hit the bid a tick above. Got out at 3 tick loss. 6J continued moving up for 3 points without turning back. That's what I would call a near death experience.

I'm asking myself too why I had refused to scratch my losing trade, or cut loss at 1 point (by then I already knew that 6J was not ready to plunge - I just had no idea it would break above multiple resistances!).

My guess is that it's pride.

Today's the day that I was at my absolute worst and my absolute best (I called gremlins in the middle of my losing trade to wish them a happy birthday, and chatted with them for a while, and that had made me happy - never mind that they didn't sound all that thrilled...I had interrupted their play time...hur...hur..hur).

Today is also the day that I finally know without a doubt what trading is all about TO ME.

From now on, I'll work with NO daily profit target (and I will go in anytime throughout the day when I see something ie. I'm not setting a limit to the number of trades I take per day), and instead of having a daily loss limit, I'm scratching my trades the moment that price doesn't do what I expected it to do. For my 5 post-1k-loss trades (one was a scratch at 4 ticks loss), I had gone in each time totally ready for market to do the opposite of what I thought it would do. And those were some of my best trades!

No more reporting on my PnL (Not even to D. And I told D that he's NOT capping my profit and loss anymore). No more 5k project. No more fixed schedules and constraints. I'm absolutely going to get the maximum that I can get from the market each day. And whenever I double my account, I'll see what I'll do then. If I feel that I'm good enough to double my contracts, I will do that.

I will from now on trade according to who I am, and what I believe in - and I really don't care if everyone else thinks it's idiotic, willful or suicidal.

For the last time:

Total: - USD 600

6J Trades 8/18 (Tues)

Total: USD 162.50

4 Trades: 1 loser (long), 1 scratch @ breakevn (short), 2 winners (both long)

On chart above: Red double arrow shows losing trade; Blue for winning; Pink for scratch

The 1st trade was an attempt to take a scalp (judging by the steepness of the trendline, I was not expecting price to do a really decent pullback) - then I regretted entering a long just coz I missed that plunge down (to get that kind of breakout trades, I have to be up at 5am to go over my charts, and then wait for market to open at 6:30am - I was up at 7am today coz D stayed up last night, and then a 2am call from his men woke us!!!), and covered at 8 ticks loss when I couldn't focus on what price was doing.

The 2nd trade was an attempt to recover my loss. Again, couldn't focus, and scratched my trade when price stalled.

The 3rd trade was attempt #2 to get my money back! Covered near resistance, and when tape showed that buyers were no longer interested in chasing price up.

4th trade was an attempt at trading my signals properly. But I guess I don't know my indicator all that well, and it was only after I bailed at + 5 ticks (I'd call that a scratch - I had expected the strong bull candle to break at least 2 trendline resistance (blue dotted line) but that didn't happen) that I noticed what I had overlooked initially. Well, I can't possibly see everything there is to see, and make a decision based on what I see, all in a matter of minutes. Fortunately for me, I've gotten used to the crazy tape, which has been saving my trades (for weeks now, the indices have been a really good contrarian indicator...but since last night, the negative correlation between the 6J and the indices is GONE...so I was kind of groping my way in and out of trades a little today).

Experience tells me that now's the time to stop.

I've been watching the ES, and was going to take a short at 986, until I saw the tape. J and I were talking about how 2 persons can trade the ES at the same time and at the same level - with one of them going long, the other going short, both aiming for a point, and both will get their one point (yes it did happen either last night or the night before). That is what most will call "forgiving". I simply call that robots trading or blackbox trading. I prefer to trade with humans.

Another reason that I have to give up ES for now is that my R:R ratio for the ES is extremely unappealing in the current market. I was looking at my ES trades in the past, and noticed that most of my winning trades were those that came with a wide stop - the kind of stop that I cannot give to a single ES trade now if I were to take the "5K" startup into consideration.

I'm playing by the rules for once.

I deserve a pat on my back.

D, you know what to do!!!

My charts and trading log are both up coz I don't know how else to blog about my day. I'm sure I'll come up with something...along the way...

6J & TF Trades 8/17 (Mon)

Total: USD 195

NQ 5min, TF 5min, 6J 5min

Am definitely making an effort to post my daily PnL and charts only at the end of the week.

Daily postings tend to make me feel like I should trade everyday, and that I should only have GREEN days.

Posting everyday also makes it difficult for me to hang on to winning trades (I did give up holding my first 6J trade today - and ended up scratching after price went 2 points in my favor only to go back temporarily to my entry point - I was aiming for support way below, a very decent 2.5R profit target), and I'm thinking that it's possible and very probable that it's a habit I've cultivated when I was serving in the public sector (complete a perfect report/paper way before deadline, move on to the next assignment, finish the entire year's work way before the end of the year, and bombard my superior with new and impractical ideas).

Today's 6J chart and tape are not any better than last week's (specifically, on the 2 FOMC days). I should have stayed out. But I chose not to. Yes, I am stubborn, and since that's the way I like myself, I'll live with it, and change the way I trade instead. Among the things I did differently was the managing of my stops. I was not as uptight about stop losses as I was last week, and that makes my life a whole lot easier. When I used a 2.5 point stop today, it was a choice I made right at the beginning, and was prepared to part with my money. Last week, I was most reluctant to give a 2.5 point stop (once I hit D's weekly profit target - and D's kinder to me than I am to myself - my stops are no longer a percentage of my capital, but a percentage of my winning for the week) until I was stopped out at a few TICKS so many times, I got fed-up and finally allowed my trade the room it needed - AT THE WRONG TIME.

Having said that, I'm still not risking more than a specific percentage of my 5k capital for each trading DAY.

No posting of charts and PnL for the rest of the week, until the end of the week. Am really curious about how that's going to affect my trading.

TF Trades

After speaking with Michael (refer to previous post here), I decided to take a look at my old friend, the TF. It's just amazingly clear to me what it was doing. I could buy, and I could sell. Market in, market out, and no pondering on exactly where to enter and where to get out. Just the way I used to trade it. All in a few SECONDS work - and I wasn't even intending to trade the US market today. I don't know what to say anymore. A major paradigm shift is in order - back to the previous model!! We'll see.

I'm happy with my private blog. Yes, finally happy. It's a small community - I've invited 50 - I know who they are (based on what they tell me - I choose to be trusting for now), and I think I'm going to be comfortable sharing everything about my "5k project". And those who were too shy to comment before are now starting to talk, and they are GOOD people. I'm a sucker for good people.

In the emails that I've received, some claimed that it took them a while and a lot of courage to hit the "send" button. I understand that in certain cultures, writing to a stranger is...well...a strange thing to do. But I'm no stranger. If you've been reading my blog for a while now, then you know me. If you are REALLY curious about what I'm going to be doing, please drop me an email (julianatse@gmail.com). I might not have the time to reply during this period, but if I don't feel that you're some kind of spy, or that you have ill intentions, and if you are a trader (or someone who's very interested in getting started), I'll send you an invite.