ZS & 6E (SIM) Trades 12/18 (Fri) - Sell Everything Day

ZS 2min

6E 2min

ZS - same old same old. Just go with the trend. Not something I'm used to doing. Moving average helps.

6E - just a crazy fight to figure out where it was going after a round of data releases. Delayed response almost a norm on Fri for FX futures. Everyone was waiting for US market to open I gather. Chart above shows only the final trade.

Sim trading on both AT and IB platforms til Jan. Am looking for a simpler way to enter and exit volatile instruments like CL. With IB, I get really clumsy with bracket orders (I'm dumb, IB's for smart people).

I really like ZS and CL's clean moves. Totally addictive.

Soybean Trades

The ZS (Soybean) is a very nice instrument to trade. I've sim traded it for a while (as I did with CL before trading live), paying close attention to its movement compared with CL. Still watching and learning.

IB's Booktrader showing my ZS sim trade (Highlighted in blue is the HOD and that's my targeted exit for an opened position. 1 tick or 0.0025 cent = USD 12.50):

Chart below shows my 2 ZS entries. With the first, I haven't done anything too different except that I held it overnight (I really doubt that I'll do the same for live trades. As a matter of fact, I don't think I will ever hold a futures trade overnight. I won't be able to sleep. That's the difference between sim and real money trading.). Just prior to the start of the trading session yesterday, I was already in the 300 - 400 profit zone. Holding contract to target added another 700. Nice daily range.

ZS 200-Tick

Not trading live at all for the rest of Dec. Will take the time to study grains and energy futures, possibly gold too.

Update
2nd ZS trade closed:

6J, 6B, 6E, TF Trades 12/14 (Mon) - BAD Tobacco

Total : - USD 156

6B 5min

Missed the above 6B trade, and totally lost my cool after that.

I blame nicotine.

It was shortly after I came out of my 6J trade when I spotted the 6B trade.

Put in a buy order and waited.

Then I got listless coz I haven't had my morning nic fix.

Pulled the order and went out for a quick smoke break.

Came back in to see price soaring towards my entry price.

Went in at market right at where I had initially placed my stop order, not realizing that I had unarmed the DOM before I stepped away from my workstation (Keish loves to do her catwalk on my keyboard), and so the order didn't go through.

Decided not to chase. I refused to go in at a lousy price.

My 4-point target was hit - took just three 5-min candles.

When D got home, I told him I am quitting smoking for good, coz cigarettes are really bad for trading.

I've stayed away from cigarettes for a good 6 years before picking it up again in early May 2008 - exactly when I started blogging and trading (one of the darkest periods in my life, NOT coz of trading of course) - so I'm sure I can do this without the help of drugs that make me puke.

I'm going to miss nic breaks with D. We don't talk to each other a lot inside our cave coz we are always too engrossed by work, and smoke breaks are the only time that we have our casual chats. They are always fun. We would hold hands and enjoy the cool evening breeze. Sometimes we stare at the moon and marvel at clouds, stars and lightning bolts. Most times we check out strange looking insects and gigantic moths, and joke about "smoked grasshoppers" for Alberto.

Targeting for next week to quit. I still want to trade this week (I'm prepared to get really edgy during the cold turkey period so I'll halt all trading for 2 weeks - probably the best time to take a break anyway).

Just one of those losing days that makes no sense.

CL Trades 12/10 (Thurs) - Stopped, Stopped, Bingo

Total: + USD 208

CL 200-Ticks

I can't help it. $70 is a bargain - for now at least.

I've used rather tight stops for the first 2 entries (red arrows). After all, price hasn't broken beneath a bear channel that started at the most recent peak (71.20), and so I wasn't sure...

3rd Shot (Blue Arrow)
70.44 was the upper range of a zone support, and also where price had hit a bear wolfe target (an overshoot in fact). Most importantly, price has overshot the black bull channel (I love overshoots), and I was betting on price to bounce off 70.44 on a strong bull reversal.

Stop was at 70.39, and subsequently moved to 70.71. No breakeven stop for this trade.

Target was wherever price hit the bottom of the pink wedge (connecting point 1 to 4 of the wedge is the thick pink trendline along which lies the target for a wolfe setup short from 71.20).

I'll stop for the day. Taking a break before I start losing perspective.

6E, 6B & CL Trades 12/9 (Wed) - Screwed by FX, Saved by Oil

Total : - USD 88

6E 200- Ticks

6B 200-Ticks
CL 200-Ticks

I remember, rather vaguely, telling D rather recently, that I wasn't ever going to trade FX futures (in particular, 6E & 6J) on WEDNESDAY again.

I forgot today's Wednesday.

AUDUSD LONG position
Looking better. Holding. Definitely holding for +150 pips.

6B & CL Trades 12/8 (Tues) - Crude Oil Is Mad

Just 1 scratched 6B trade, and 1 CL trade from globex hour:

Total for Dec 8th 's 6B & CL trades : + USD 188

CL 200-Ticks (+ 2 Points)

I must have waited for 5 hours to buy oil. Then, as we were having dinner and watching star trek, I spotted my entry. Got in and got out in under 1 min. Then I tapped D's shoulder. D turned around, saw my trade, and was amazed by how stealth I've become.

I had him press his ear against my chest.

D said no more crude for me for the rest of the week, and imposed a quota of 2 CL trades per week.

Trading ETFs after US market opens. They are just better for the heart.

Trades 12/7 (Mon) - I LOVE CRUDE!

Total: + USD 320

CL 200-Ticks

Waited for a trendline break. CL broke out. Waited for pull back. CL pulled back to touch red downtrend line for the 3rd time. Lovely! 3rd touch! Now what else do I need? A profit target. Lo and behold, a Wolfe appeared!

Went in with a stop at the low of the pattern. It was the first time I was trading crude oil LIVE. Heart was racing. Moved stop to break even. Heart was still racing. D asked why breakeven. Why not a tick above. I told him to shut up. Then I decided that a good experience with crude should be my target. Exited after taking 11 cents. My hand was still shaking and it totally cracked D up.

DIG and DUG - Totally D's. He bought DIG when I was long CL. He bought DUG when I told him CL totally hit my Wolfe target. I teased him. He agreed that he has no views of his own. D's pissed. Muahahaha!!!

I'm done with futures for the day and helping D to move his portfolio.

TF account's going to idle for as long as there's no clear direction on indices.

Update: WOLFE pattern showing the wave counts (For more details on Wolfe, do check out Todd's blog. He has a wealth of info on Wolfe and other patterns that appear often on futures and stocks charts.):

CL 200-Tick

TF Trades 12/4 (Fri) - FINAL

TF 200-Tick

Total: + 3 Points

Really calling it a day now.

TF Trades 12/4 (Fri) - Wrap Up

Total: + 1.9 Points

TF 200-tick

I am officially very sick of TF's min charts. Was checking out its tick chart shortly after getting out of my globex hour trade, and noticed that it was nice. That run up before market open was crazy but not unexpected. Had I switched to a tick chart earlier, I wouldn't have gotten out of my scratched position.

But I don't look back, so all's good.

US Session
I had been focusing on the bull flag and for price to break on the upside and didn't even realize that market has opened. When price indeed broke above and didn't look like it was pulling back just yet, I put in a buy stop order to get in at 602.8.

Order was filled when D got back to his workstation. He asked to take over, so I let him. Told him to set a limit order to sell at 605 (target was determined much earlier before trade was entered - I went with Fib 211.8 but chose 605 coz it's a whole number and it's a "5"). When TF got to 604, I told him to move stop to breakeven. The next second, I heard "SHIT".

"ok, good, we got 1 point right?" I figured D had ACCIDENTALLY closed my trade.

"We got 1.1" A very, very remorseful D replied, as we both watched price shoot pass 605.

"YAY!!! SMOKE BREAK!" Like I said, I don't look back.

Even Alberto sensed that D was upset, and came running to console him. I told D that it was alright, that I make mistakes much more often than he does (and my mistakes usually cost us big time). D promises that he will start to get used to using the BookTrader instead. But he was still mad with himself. So I had to tell him that actually I wasn't sure that moving stop to breakeven was such a great idea, and would have probably bailed at 604 anyway.

D's now HAPPY.

Men.

Update: I totally forgot about non-farm until I read Paul's post! But then again, had I gone with tick-chart, I would still have bought a breakout on the upside on both the globex trade and the post-market open trade. It was actually the min chart that got me in too early on the globex trade. Great, I just blamed my chart. Soon I'll be blaming my cat. He wants food and massage everytime I sit on a losing trade.

WOLFE

TF 1min

Was just talking with Todd. He pointed out a bearish wolfe on Wed's chart, and I thought it'd be interesting to show just how common wolfe patterns are.

There's another bearish one from yesterday that hasn't touched the pink wolfe target line. I'm now really starting to worry about my long position.

USDJPY Trades 11/27 (Fri)

USDJPY 1min

USDJPY 15min

Total: +43 pips

The last trade was tormenting. I had a hunch the pair would make it to my trendline target, so I decided to put up with that extremely long sideway move. When the smallest candles were forming, I literally felt like throwing up and couldn't get out of my chair coz I was fainting. I lost sensation in my fingers, and kept asking D for water that I didn't really need (coz I was really wanting to puke). Once the market started moving again an hour later, I totally recovered from what felt almost like morning sickness. I have no idea still what that was about.

I haven't the time to wait for price to hit trendline (who knows what route it's going to take to get there!) and covered when bull candles started to weaken again at the peak.

I finally figured out where that hunch came from. It was from a 600 bucks lesson (lost 1k in 1 trade, took back 400 in several scalps) from months ago. 6J just kept going up regardless of all the bearish candles that formed along the way. Lower lows and lower highs formed within what I understood later to be corrective waves - all part of a healthy uptrend.

Time to visit Little one.

TF Trade 11/25 (Wed)

TF 1min

TF : + 1.1 Point

Great reset.

D got home really late. US session had begun, and we were having dinner and catching a movie. Well, D was watching the movie. I was busy making notes. It was good that D wasn't paying attention to the market. I had all the time I needed to let market make its move before I made mine.

The best part: D was finally willing to exit where I wanted him to. No more running after 3 ticks. GIRL POWER.

Done for today. We are both tired.

TF 11/20 (Fri)

TF 1min

Day 2.

Day 1 (Thurs) was NOT good. D took calls from his office, from his mum, and couldn't stop checking his blackberry, and his office laptop for emails. Extremely frustrating for me coz I like QUIET, FULL COMMITMENT & COOPERATION and UNDIVIDED ATTENTION.

Day 2 was better, albeit a tad comical. D was argumentative (D's always right...). We got our entries, but none of the targeted profits. D was extremely reluctant to stay in trade and would run with his few ticks each time. Drives me nuts.

Will keep doing this during US session.

Am still trading 6E during globex hours, but will slowly switch to Forex.

Jules Is A Mule (Part 3??!)

6E 15min

Yesterday was an interesting day - not just because I gave away 1k in a single trade again - so thought I'll talk about it.

I Shorted the 6E rather early in the morning (my morning and around 8pm NY time) coz, well, I was convinced 6E was going back down to test the spike low (see chart above). As with other days that I refused to think straight, I held on to the trade until I realized I couldn't be sure if price was going to stop going against me before the day ended. And as with all those other days that I was convinced that price would go to a certain place, price eventually did start going in my direction, or totally hit my target, either a few hours after my exit or 24 hours later.

All these days had been Wednesdays.

After I cut my loss, I had gone into my personal library to dig out some material I came across before, and to take a closer look at something that I never really took into account when I trade the futures: market participants (who they are - farmers/merchants/banks, speculators, hedge fund managers etc, and WHEN they operate).

My hypothesis about why the chart did what it did and why I kept hanging on to my biased view was confirmed when I traded the TF later in the evening (US morning of course) - when a wolfe pattern failed during lunch hour (learning very quickly from my 6E experience just hours before, I told D to refrain from buying a breakout - which is needed for price to get to wolfe target).

In any case, a hard stop would have saved me from myself. I had a lot of conviction, which was why I didn't want a stop to get in the way (what an irony). Extremely stupid, looking back. But then of course everything always appears obvious with the benefit of hindsight. It takes a hell lot of discipline and UNCOMMON SENSE to immediately recognize and stop a stupid act that's about to happen. I have neither discipline nor uncommon sense.

But I have an endless supply of energy. Maybe that's exactly what makes things worse. Instead of taking a hiatus after that 1k loss (6J took it!) from 2 weeks ago, I went right back to work after a 2-day break....

And after yesterday's 1k blunder, I went right back in to intervene in D's trading.

I had started off by telling D I would stop trading altogether for a while, and share with him about Wolfe Waves instead. After US market opened, D traded the account, taking his usual 1 to 3 ticks (since I said I wouldn't trade) before I spotted the wolfe pattern.

When I told him to go long at 595, he hesitated but went with it anyway. BUT he got out after 3 ticks instead of holding and moving his stops til we see the 3rd target (see chart below). When TF hit 600 in a parabolic move up, he blamed himself for not having persuaded me to take the trade myself.

As if things hadn't been bad enough up to that point, D had to sell at a place that I would buy, after TF pulled back from 600.

I hit the bid column on booktrader, covering his short.

D yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!!" (I know, someone who has lost 1k just moments ago really shouldn't be meddling in the trade of another who has a record of zero to one losing day out of 20 on average) .

I was stunned, but only for seconds. Then I hit bid once more to get in on a long trade, at 3 ticks higher than where I had covered D's short (where I covered his short was exactly where I had wanted to go long - in other words, I had wanted to flip his trade - but D shocked me, and I was late hitting bid a second time as a result).

After I covered my long at +9 ticks, D thanked me for stopping his short at minimal damage, and for the rest of the day, we were in consultative mode (until I went in for my shower when D quietly took some "lunch time" trades).

It was fun - trading with D. And we might just do it again. I'm tempted to let D execute all the trades I identify. D doesn't lift stops - which means I can say goodbye to 2.5% drawdowns in a single trade forever.

On TWS - Red arrow shows where D entered on wolfe pattern, Blue arrow shows D's short that that I covered, Green arrow shows where I went long after covering D's short

TF 1min (my apologies for the blur - program was going to shut down, and I hadn't saved the chart, so needed to do a capture immediately - click to get a better view)

D's 3-Tick Rule (Update)

Target of 598.3, 599.5 and 600 hit!

D's crying. HAHAHAHA!!!

Chart above shows Wolfe pattern from yesterday (include price from the day before).

D's 3-Tick Rule

TF 1 min

Was teaching D to trade a Wolfe pattern that I learned from Todd. Told D to buy at 595 (blue arrow), and place a 3 tick stop. Target was anywhere along target line. I projected 598.3, 599.5 and 600.

D took 3 ticks and happily exited.

Sigh.

WASTED.

There was a wolfe pattern yesterday too. Will post later. But find your own first just for the fun of it.

For the record, D has only 1 losing day since beginning of the month. So, maybe his 3-tick rule isn't so bad after all. Ha ha.

Update: 6B & FX (CHF/JPY) Trades 10/29 (Thurs)

Update on CHF/JPY trade:

There, my technical exit - a gigantic candle:

Total : +82 pips

From earlier today:

CHF/JPY 15min

Holding trade for now. Using technical exit - whatever that means (will be moving stop up to trail...Oanda has no trailing feature, which is great for me, coz I've never really learned how to set trailing stops. Finally a platform that doesn't make me feel stupid).

6B 15min

I quit 6B's 89-tick chart for now. It's so noisy I can't read my candles properly. 15min is good. Hourly is even better. But I haven't the patience....


D's going to love this: all blues on index futures and all red on DX and treasuries and bonds! He's holding bull ETFs....

Am watching CHF and JPY and really wanting to see the latter turn red again (6J has completed a "V" shape bull reversal on the 4-hourly).

Mark: Always had EEM on my watchlist, and added EDZ and EDC. Thanks! :-)

FX Trade (EUR/AUD) 10/28 (Wed)

EUR/AUD 15min

Entered on Bullish Harami. Exited at target (a resistance on the 4-hourly chart - see chart near the end of this post).

Total: +95 pips

Not accustomed to a 5 pip spread, and was staring hard at Oanda's platform, wondering if bid was ever going to hit my target as it hovered around 2 to 3 pips below. Was about to close my trade at market when price shot up to hit my target. As always, I'm happy I got what I wanted, and am not going to return to look at EUR/AUD for the rest of the day. Looking back always (well, not always, just LATELY) makes me feel like an idiot for getting out too soon.

Target was based on EUR/AUD's 4-hourly chart (not a timeframe that I can trade for now):

This is my 2nd day back on Oanda's platform.

I was in there yesterday and had put on 8 positions simultaneously (1k each, non-leveraged).

Basically, I was buying EUR, CHF and JPY, and selling GBP, AUD and CAD. That was early in the morning before I put on my 6E and 6B trades.

About an hour into my FX trades, I realized that yen was going to PLUNGE. I had 3 pairs of yen longs and yen looked like it was going to nose-dive! Just perfect. I was going crazy managing 9 trades (8 forex plus 6E), and decided to close all my FX positions at a combined loss of under 30 bucks (my EUR/GBP and EUR/CAD covered part of my loss from buying yen).

So, no more trading more than ONE pair at one go for me. I forgot I have a mind that can only focus on ONE THING AT A TIME.

FX trade today was opened a few hours after I closed my 6B trade from earlier this morning.

I was checking out reviews on Oanda and kept seeing the word "SCAM". On that list with a few dozen brokers, more than 50% are rated as "SCAMS". I'm paranoid now, and am visiting NFA's site for FACTS.