6J & ES Trades 7/24 (Fri) - Revolting Market

6J 2500V

ES 5min

I'm tired.

Beat.

Utterly DAMAGED!!!!

ES Trades 7/21 (Tues) - Ouch, Ouch, OUCH!!!

(Big THANK YOU to all who have left a note. I will respond after I get some sleep...I've had only 2 hours in like 48 hours....so am really in a daze now...
CORY: You're 48?! We have to talk! :-) )

Brain freeze day - Bought a PARTIAL RISE (!!!) and set my stop 7 points away (!!!)

I have to stop trading 1 contract. Given that all my blowups have been single contract trades, I thought I would have learned something. I haven't, apparently.

I'm tired. Am going to stick to trading very selective setups until I recover every single cent that I gave away this month.

Ok, that sounds really negative...

D just interrupted my train of thoughts.

He said he wanted to tell me something that would REALLY piss me off (yes, D's cute)...

"Uncle Ben just spoke..."

Totally cracked me up.

I've hit my daily loss limit, so am calling it a day.

I'm going to have to start putting up signs around the house to remind me that I'M A SCALPER.

ES Trade 7/20 (Mon) - Very BAD ES

This market really stumps me.

Got in on a trade before 10am, but missed my BEAUTIFUL 3rd TOUCH AGAIN. Utterly hate missing 3rd touches.

Am back to trading 1 contract. Until I can figure out where this crazy thing's going, I'm sticking to single contract.

D got in on the same trade, but was filled at a tick higher, coz he had gone in with a limit order. We had no idea what the other was doing until he got out with a 1-tick gain (the initial 4-tick paper loss scared him a little). He took a peek at what I was doing, and was shocked to see that I had set a 3-point target.

Anyway, I wasn't expecting ES to break OR high, and bailed 1 tick below it.

D went,"why just 1 contract??!"

To which I replied,"CAPITAL PRESERVATION!! I'm buying high! I'm not even sure I should be buying!"

D went,"Now that's what I'm talking about. That's the right mindset. Good job!"

D tickles me.

His toxic assets are making money, and he's having a lot of fun buying and writing options (yes, like JE). Futures' just not his cup of tea.

I have a chat buddy! J's a God-sent.

I just gotta stop wanting to fade him.

Yes, I'm an ungrateful creature. Am definitely working on being nice.

ES Trades 7/17 (Fri) - BAD ES

That's all the ES for me today.

The thing that didn't work for me today is my stop. But since I've chosen a 2-point fixed stop for this week, I'm not going to complain.

Moving forward, I'm going to be using a flexible stop (hard stop has never really worked for me). If a trade needs a stop that is wider than what I'm comfortable with, I'll just have to pass, no matter how enticing the potential reward is.

I'm up for the week still - albeit barely - so I'll wrap up.

I'm going to get a good rest, put everything unpleasant and uninspiring behind me, and start next week FRESH.

I've really gotten very rusty with ES, and am giving up 6E for good so I can focus on ES again. Trading 6E during the globex hours drains me of the energy I need to trade the ES (I usually start looking at 6E from 7am and trade it to around 5pm my time) .

It sucks to have to give up 6E, coz, honestly, I much prefer the 6E.

Actually, there's no comparison.

I suspect I actually HATE the ES.

I hate anything that doesn't move up or down DECISIVELY. I love UNFORGIVING instruments. And 6E is definitely unforgiving.

So why the hell am I choosing ES over 6E?

I don't know yet. Except that I intend to trade very huge contracts in the not-so-near future. And ES meets the criteria.

Or perhaps ES is what keeps me connected with the others.

Hardly anyone I know trades the 6E.

Will someone please trade 6E???

ES Trade 7/16 (Thurs) - Whacked

ES 40k V

ok, so I had umpteen plans and ideas today. I drew lines, I counted my candles, I put in stop orders after stop orders that didn't get filled - which was a good thing (I would hate to be trapped at price top!) - then I put in an order to buy a BEAUTIFUL "3rd touch" (see chart above) setup (which would have been a very profitable trade HAD I TAKEN IT!!) - only to end up buying a "bears trapped in, bulls trapped out" setup.

So, yes, I'm a little upset.

But that's not why I'm calling it a day.

It's 3am my time - that's an hour away from market close - and ES has hit 937.5 resistance ie. I'm just being realistic.

If price wants to probe higher, that's not my concern. It's D's. He just sold some shares. He hates leaving profits on the table.

To all who have left comments: I'll reply in a few hours...I just really need to get some sleep first...my apologies...

Daytrader: THANKS (though I haven't checked out your post...but THANKS!!)

ES Trade 7/15 (Wed)

ES 40k V

Seems to me there's going to be another leg down from here.

Trending days are not my days, I'm a little distracted, D just got home, it's lunch time, and FOMC minutes coming out less than 2 hours from now.

So, definitely calling it a day.

Volume-candle is good so far. But we'll see.

Pre-Market SELF-Analysis: To Trade or Not To Trade...

Am checking my mental state to see if I should be taking any ES trades less than 3 hours from now.....

Given that I have - in a single 6E trade - exceeded my daily profit target for a FED week, every cell in my body is feeling an EXTREME reluctance in giving back even ONE dollar of what I've earned today.

A very probable scenario if I were to enter an ES trade : I would lift my stop.

In fact, I am absolutely sure that I would most certainly cancel my stop should price start to go against me.

So, perhaps I should really sit on my hands and just watch the market like I've been doing for the past 3 days....

BUT, if I continue to do that, I will get rusty with executing ES trades.

The 6E has a vastly different rhythm...that's what I feel...being on the 6E for too long without touching the ES makes me a clumsy ES trader, which is unthinkable coz ES is going to be my bread & butter in the long run (you can't put size on the 6E).

Solution: SIM trade!!!

Now I can start thinking about dinner.

6E & ES Trades 6/19 (Fri) - Typical Friday

6E

ES

Losing day to end the week. Textbook.

At 1:30am local time (1:30pm NY), D reported excitedly - as I was coming out from e shower - that ES was finally getting back up. I looked at my chart and told him that's still his market. It's a wave 4, bear broadening wedge, doesn't matter what you call it, it's what sellers live for.

If there's anything I can feel happy about the week/month, it's that POMPOUS D, MY disciple, has had a month of NIL losing day! Yes, 100% winning days with just 1 losing trade. I wish he'd let profits run for more than 3 ticks though. Even with a bear outside bar signal on a strong down day, he would not hold his position. But, he's doing better than me. So I'll shut up just for this week.

AAR

Had I waited til after 2pm to enter the 1st trade of the day (where I'd still have my USD 400 chips to play!):

6E & ES Trades 6/18 (Thurs) - Crazy Day

Cutting a long story short:

D got home at 930am N.Y. time SHARP. We exchanged stories about our day, and coz of that I missed my favorite setup. I don't know why I did it, but I chased (one of those things I don't normally do), right at the point where ES hit major resistance. Covered at 6 ticks loss. And then I did the unthinkable: clicking more than once on "sell". Realized that immediately and bailed at breakeven. Then I entered long right when ES was moving back up to the same resistance level!! Then I double-click on "sell" AGAIN!!! This time I wasn't so lucky. I simply couldn't hold a short at a place where I won't SELL (it's where both bulls and bears can get trapped). So I covered at 6 ticks loss.

Total disaster.

Recovered 200 of the 300 I lost in the next 2 trades.

Total for the day: + USD 87

What a day.

ES Trades 6/16 (Tues) - Wrap Up

2nd trade is based on very similar setup....the tape is a little more chaotic during the active hours of course. Price is still struggling to break above opening range...should it break below instead, I'd be very tempted to sell. And then I'd most probably kick myself for not sticking to my plan of trading just that 1 or 2 setups - at least until I'm back on my footing.

So I'm calling it a day. There's always tomorrow. I don't even need the market to go up to buy, so there's really no hurry to RECOVER MY LOSSES FROM THE PAST 2 DAYS. $%*$%&***!!

The most important task for me now is to regain my composure.

When I'm cool, I can trade.

ES Trade 6/16 (Tues)

One of the 2 setups that I trade (when I'm disciplined).

I'm not sure we're going up just yet. I keep seeing a 3rd leg down, and support at 900 - 910.

Original plan was to avoid globex-hour trades, but I just really needed something to cheer me up.

ES 6/15 - After Action Review

On a day that's trending down, I scalp "wave 4"s, which can be either up or down sloping channels. I'll buy towards a MSH (usually the 2nd - can be a lower or higher swing high - the 3rd, if it's a lower swing high than the 2nd, would be a nice H&S for bears).

The mistakes I made yesterday are found in the following list (by no means an exhaustive one) :

1) Scalping during the globex session - price forms miniature legs during the quieter hours, and because of that, I tend to be unwilling to enter at 1 tick above signal, reason being that I don't want to be caught in buying the 2nd MSH (where bears sell, and I become the trapped bull). I tend to buy 1 tick above an outside bar (instead of the inside), which can be 3 or 4 ticks above my signal candle. In scalping, every tick counts. I enter at a lousy price, and that's fine as long as I'm realistic about my exit. Sometimes I get carried away and overstay.

2) Assuming that market's reversing after a significant move down - which causes me to overstay when I buy the 2nd MSH of a wave 4. I get into trouble when I target my exit at a point that's higher than the previous MSH (I don't do that if I assume that what I'm seeing is NOT a truncated wave 5 - but the risk-taker in me tend to see truncated wave 5s....and I had no basis to assume a truncated wave 5 yesterday since it really wasn't a day that bears were desperate to cover).

3) Stop loss was too LOOSE. Even a 6 tick stop is a loose one on a day that I fade a strong trend, let alone a 9 to 10 tick stop.

All in all, I should have stayed away on a down trending day. I could still scalp what I mentioned above, but if I choose to do that, I would do well to heed my inner voice that's always telling me to get out before the bears are done taking profit.

Interestingly, D had sold yesterday (well, he always sells anyway), but always got out too soon, taking barely 3 ticks each time.

When I asked about his setup, he said he would sell when price had touched the upper channel. I told him that's technically not a setup. A setup is one that gives him an edge. If he's selling, his best shots are those where price has broken out of a downward sloping channel - that's because on a day with strong downward momentum, the first 2 or even 3 breakouts are mostly fake breakouts, and bears would take over once bulls stop buying. That means that his best shorts are the ones where price has overshot a trendline (it's where lots of scalpers that buy a breakout find themselves in a market without a follow-through, which will send them covering immediately).

D's best entry yesterday was a few candles after I exited my long. It was the textbook "2nd-Entry" short that I've shown him before (and told him to just trade that setup until he can hold his trades for at least 6 to 8 ticks). The signal candle was beautifully small, so selling 1 tick below would still give him a nice scalp profit of at least 6 ticks.

D used to wonder why I don't sell when I recognize sell signals better than buy signals. I think he finally figured out that I'm playing defence here. Since I know the onset of a PLUNGE, I'm better off buying. I'm not good at reading WHEN selling stops - and since I have a tendency to get carried away, I get caught in selling at a point where market's stop plunging. I find buying better suited to my personality, coz the market's always making an effort to go up. My only problem with buying is that of overstaying, but I rarely get caught in a situation where I get in and the market immediately turns against me.

On the chart above, I have shown only my last 2 entries. The first 2 entries were based on similar premise, except that they were globex-hour trades. After those 2 trades, I had stopped buying once the time was up for a wave 5 down (I was buying a failed wave 5, yes, but wave 5 didn't fail, so I gladly took my loss). In hindsight, I should have just totally stayed away ie. give up all down trending days. But I have a more enterprising spirit than that ie. it will take me a LONG time to learn to be conservative. Only time will tell if insisting on being who I am will pay off.

ES Trades 6/15 (Mon) - Nothing New

Definitely should have waited til at least after 2pm to buy. Impatience got the better of me AGAIN.

Nothing to cry over. Just need to stop being myself.

I'm still NOT going to sell. Not selling is a huge part of my strategy, and I'm not going to change it just because I'm pigheaded enough to keeping buying on a fierce down day.

No chart - there isn't any notes on it (yes, I had forced all my trades).

To all who have asked about my comment section, it's been inactivated. Will turn it back on when I feel less glum. Just don't want to be rude (I don't do anything other than sleep and stare at my charts now, and overlook everything else. Yes I still read emails, just haven't gotten down to responding).

ES 6/12 (Fri) - Notes

Good setups that were passed (daily loss limit hit before start of US session).

Lesson:
Save chips for good setups, especially at end of week, especially after consecutive winning days

ES Trade 6/11 (Thurs) - Wrap Up

Been out the entire day, spending some quality time with Carrie. Carrie's not well, and no words can describe my feelings about what happened to her. All I want now is to get to where I want to be as quickly as I can, so that I can see her on a regular basis. During her short stay here, she had told me a number of times that there are more important things in life than work - and that she had realized that only after the episode that she had gone through. My response was that I had heard that too many times, and that I had made up my mind, chosen my path, and am all prepared to live with whatever that life decides to throw at me as a result of my choice.

Saw Carrie off and got home 1 hour before the US market opened. Had a quick bite before taking a look at what the ES has been doing in the past 18 hours. D has been having a nagging headache, so I was targeting for a one shot one kill sniper style trade that will allow me to wrap up before midnight. If I didn't see one, I was prepared to not trade at all today.

Started with a clean chart (deleted all S/R and trendlines), and ended up with the following, 5 mins before market opened:

After market opened :

SPY & SPX charts, and P&L for the day:

D has been the sweetest - rescheduled his meetings so he could see Carrie off too. Am calling it a day so he can have an early night.

Emini-Player:
I enter on market mostly, sometimes on stop (like today). Hardly (almost never) on limit.

Thanks again to all for your comments. I'll really get down to responding to each one of you tmrw.

6E & ES Trades 6/10 (Wed) - Wrap Up

Total: USD 375

Not a fun day in general. First the morning scare, then the extremely distressing counter-trend longs during the US session.

Not staying up for market reversal (if any!). Visiting Aunt early in the morning before she leaves for JKT.

Thanks to friends & family for having left comments - my apologies to all for not having responded. I will do that tmrw.

Emini-Player: 3-tick is enough to tell me if my setup has been invalidated. I skip anything that takes more than 3-tick, unless the upside is worth my throwing in more chips :-)

6E & ES Trades 6/9 (Tues) - Wrap Up

Total: USD 437

One shot, one kill. Don't even want to hold for the next candle that's aiming for downtrendline. Got to be up tmrw at 6am. Carrie's taking a ferry to a nice little island nearby.

6E Trades 6/9 (Tues) & ES Trades 6/8 (Mon) & CARRIE!!!

ES Trade 6/8 (Mon): USD 25

Euro Futures (6E) Trades 6/9 (Tues):

Carrie arrived at 1130am at Changi Airport yesterday. I was there at 930am with Al Brooks (couldn't leave home without him), walked around Terminal 3, took some pictures, smoked a few cigarettes, had a wholesome (whatever for I really have no idea) breakfast - mango muffin and green tea - while reading Brooks, and it was one of my happiest days in months. I hadn't seen Carrie for 3 years, and the thought of having her for a few days had kept me happy over the weekends.

Carrie brought 6 bottles of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts! She's simply the loveliest. I repaid her by making her walk with me for a good half hour coz I couldn't find my car (Sea, stop laughing already!!). Finally, it was Carrie who figured out that there were 2 exits out to the carpark and I was at the wrong end. What would I do without D, Seabloke, and my friends??

Carrie is the one person who knows my deepest, darkest secrets. Seabloke knows 90% - the rest she would have to catch up (we were separated for the bulk of our teenage years). But Sea can always purchase the info - I take cookies & ice-cream!! LOL!!!

Carrie and I spent the most part of yesterday just talking and doing other forms of lung exercise...We went to my favorite hangouts, then to Sea's, then we picked D up from his office and went to the Esplanade to get our favorite cookies from The Cookie Museum, and had dinner there. After that, we walked around doing what we always do whenever the 4 of us are together - take turns to crack sick jokes.

By the time we got home, it was passed midnight. Carrie turned in, D checked how his toxic assets were doing, I opened my charts. I did what I always do on Mondays - mess up my entries and exits. Took 24 ticks in loss in 2 trades. That's 100% loss and that was not acceptable to me. It was the kind of day that I shouldn't have to lose money. Sent D to bed, took a shower, and came back to my workstation. Waited til 3:10pm and finally saw something that failed - a failed 3rd lower peak. Went in, and covered at the close of the 3:15pm candle. I didn't have the focus and energy to figure out the next resistance. I would have held til I see the first bearish candle (given that ES just left base, I would expect 2 to 3 push ups from breakout) had this been the first trade of the day (why can't the first one ever be good????!). But as far as yesterday was concerned, I just wanted my money back coz I didn't think the market deserve to take it - not yesterday at least. I did better than break even. I took 26 ticks (13 ticks/contract) for that trade, so I was up USD 25 for yesterday. Ha Ha!

I didn't manage to get a screenshot - I couldn't do a posting after closing my trade (typing would wake both Carrie and D up) and when I woke up this morning, I found myself shut out of all my applications and had to log back on. So no captures. Might post chart when I get a chance to. Carrie had gone riding with an old friend, so I had some time to trade the Euro Futures (will be trading both Euro & ES from now on - Euro doesn't intimidate me anymore coz I got it figured out ie. I've learned how to contain damages in Euro trades).

I've had 2 hours' sleep in 35 hours, and am taking a nap now so I can show Carrie around town when she returns in a while.

Don't think I'll trade tonight. D's right, I shouldn't even have traded last night. He actually made me promise that I won't trade at all this week so I can focus on my friend. And he really didn't think I could focus on 2 things simultaneously. He's right.

ES Trade 6/5 (Fri) - Happy

Was watching 24 when I was waiting for my setup. D asked if that's prudent. I said I needed distraction so I won't jump in prematurely. During one of the most exciting scenes, my setup and signal appeared. I went in at market, only to realize that the DOM wasn't moving, and I was already in trade. My heart nearly stopped. D was too focused on Jack Bauer to notice that I was in kind of a bad situation. I shut down the AT platform, and logged back on. Took me just under 1 minute. Thank goodness (it was a while later that I realized that all I needed to do to get back on was simply to hit one of the buttons on the properties window to open a new DOM).

Held on to my position for 1 more candle and exited. I don't take the 3rd candle unless I intend to let my trade ride.

I'm not sure that the downtrendline's going to be pierced. Even if ES does breakout, it will likely cause a fiercer move down. This looks like the first leg of a down move. I'll be happy if it stops at the low of the day, which will be a double bottom play for me.

But it's Friday, I've had a scare, and I want this to be a good week since it's the first week I'm back trading live.

So I'm calling it a day.

Next week will be a more aggressive play.

Oh, I forgot. My best friend's visiting, and staying at mine for a week. So I might even have to stop trading for a week.

I met Carrie during my first year at the UofA. We were in the same chemistry lab. She noticed me when I nearly burned down the lab. That was 18 years ago. Time flies.

I'M HAPPY!!!! She's bringing Planter's Dry Roasted Peanuts (can't find them in Singapore anymore!!)!!! And we've lots of police stories to exchange!!!!

Cups & Pills

SPX & DOW


NDX & RUT


At this point, NDX looks like the only one that has not reached its full potential - what with the huge cup and a tiny cup in the making.

All the other 3 are not looking so good in the long run. For now, cup should bring price to fib 261.8

Again, the above's purely for my own amusement. I have no idea what the broader market is doing, and I've totally stopped watching/reading/listening to news. Nothing in this world feels real. But since I've chosen the blue pill, I shan't complain. But I'm not listening to anymore BS.