Thursday 5/3/2007 ES Futures
How today went
A couple of things had me off my game today from very early on. The biggest item was troubles with my data feeds, both for my charts and Ninja order entry. Usually I can depend on the Ninja Dome to “tell me what” is really going on. Well I’m not sure, but I hope today was a fluke and not related to my upgrade last night to the production release of version 6. I had been running Beta 8 without issues up to now. Hmmmm.
Or was I up too late last night starting a Blog. :-)
Anyway, I spent too much time after the reports came out comparing the Charts to the Dome trying to figure out what was happening. Or more importantly, what was accurate price action when I should have been watching my signals closer. When I realized I had a signal, it took too long to evaluate the signal and comparethe Dome to the Prices on the chart. I missed several good moves after the ISM reports came out. The trades ran away from me while I scrambled to verify.
I never felt “in-synch” with the market today. I was overly cautious from the reports until the end of the day.
Trade Log of My Trades.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
1A Long 1503 1504 5/3/2007 8:49 5/3/2007 8:53 +1
1B Long 1503 1504 5/3/2007 8:49 5/3/2007 9:01 +1
Good Entry – One of my "Need to take" entry signals. Took the first half off early since I had yet to decide if this was the start of a trend change or just a counter trend teasing me by looking like it will work. This was were the first occurrence of my data feed issues started. Shortly after the reports came out, Ninja Dome froze. It made me press the stop at just the wrong time. The early stages of the report price movement knocked me out at +1 point. Prior to that, my stop was at break even and I had the possibility of getting 2 – 3 points if I pressed the stop at the right time.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
2A Long 1504.75 1506.75 5/3/2007 9:39 5/3/2007 9:44 -2
2B Long 1504.75 1506.75 5/3/2007 9:39 5/3/2007 9:44 -2
Not a good idea – Bad read, bad hold, just a bad trade all the way around. While this could have turned into a “Lower High,” price also just put in a “Higher Low” just before this possible entry. I think I was leaning short after the report release. While there was a large “Buy Volume” spike in the 9:01 CT candle, it had been 40 minutes now without strong signs of continuing this up trend. There was a small clue at 9:28 and 9:29 that should have also kept me out of this trade. See it? Well… “Hope” killed this trade, or should I say my P&L. I felt I was in trouble when price popped up to 1506. The picture was becoming clearer, but I was already in this trade. What do I do. Price pressed back down and I could have closed out for less than a 1 point loss. “Hope” springs eternal, but not in trading. I could not hope hard enough to make the market actually go down. :-( I should have tightened the stop some at a minimum. Err.. Mistakes... mistakes on mistakes.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
M1A Long 1504 ? 5/3/2007 9:37 ? 2 or more
M1B Long 1504 ? 5/3/2007 9:37 ? 3 – 4
Missed trade – Frankly, I should have bought the “Higher Low” before even trying this short. Then I would be holding a Long and "letting it work" for me and not taking the prior short trade. Makes for a bad P&L swing. This trade should have profited even more than the last trade lost.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
3A Long 1507 1508 5/3/2007 9:47 5/3/2007 9:58 +1
3B Long 1507 1508 5/3/2007 9:47 5/3/2007 9:58 +1
Better get Long – Not my preferred entry setup, but the longs entries of late have not been pulling back and giving me an “ideal” entry setup. But the market has had no troubles going up lately. I have decided I have to take what I can get and not be so picky on the entries. I covered this trade when I had a strong short signal and at the same time we were up against a Market Profile level at 1509.
I'd like to think some day I'll actually reverse my position at these signals, but for now I need to eliminate mistakes and not introduce more by reversing my position. Too many bad memories of failed counter trend trades come to mind.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
4A Long 1507 1508 5/3/2007 10:05 5/3/2007 10:25 +1
4B Long 1507 1508 5/3/2007 10:05 5/3/2007 10:25 +1
Lets try that again – Well, it looks like we want to make another run at the 1509 level to try and get through. Long again. :-) We went up on really light volume, when I did not see big volume that I felt could press us through 1509, I protected again.
Pass – Decided I was not trading at top form today so I should pass on some trades as I had to leave soon to pick up my daughter from pre-school.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
5A Short 1505.25 1506.25 5/3/2007 11:51 5/3/2007 11:54 -1
5B Short 1505.25 1506.25 5/3/2007 11:51 5/3/2007 11:54 -1
What is the Rush – Well… right when I got back I wanted to know what I had missed. (I had missed too much already) The short trades I considered before I had to leave had worked. I missed out… so I felt. So lets dream a reason to be short and get into a short trade before this market keeps going without us. Wait… That usually does not work. Click… I’m in a trade. Not good. :-( It did not take long again to figure out I entered at a bad price and really did no have a entry signal. I just wanted to (already) be short.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
6A Short 1506.5 1505.5 5/3/2007 11:56 5/3/2007 12:24 +1
6B Short 1506.5 1505.5 5/3/2007 11:56 5/3/2007 12:24 +1
Revenge is bitter sweet – My next trade probably needs to be labeled a “revenge trade” as I jumped too quick again wanting to get my prior loss back. I have a valid entry signal, I tried to wait and feel confident about the signal, then jumped on as price looked like the trade was going to move lower. What I did was jump on the head fake before the stop run that made the swing high. This last push higher would have also provided me the entry price I was targeting at 1507 – 1507.25. When we started forming a long signal I pressed the stop and harvested 1 point. There was not much more in that trade. Just a couple more ticks.
Trade Pos. Entry Exit Entry Time Exit Time Result
7A Long 1506.75 1508.75 5/3/2007 13:38 5/3/2007 14:00 +2
7B Long 1506.75 1508.75 5/3/2007 13:38 5/3/2007 14:31 +2
One more – One more setup to take. Look at that nice stop run to get long off of. I jumped back in too fast. Needed to use my Volume Delta to judge when to get in. There were two pushes down and I’m ended up getting long at the hesitation or the end of the first push. Price moved a point lower on the second push. I took the first half off at 2 points. I wanted to let it run more. I thought if we break 1509, it could be "off to the races" and lets go with all our contracts. :-) But when it looked like price was coming back I was not going to get less than 2 on my first half. Need to lock in some profits to make up for earlier mistakes. Hoped (again) that the second half could ride a push through 1509. No go. After 15 minutes of knocking on the 1509 door, I decided I had enough. Pressed my stop to +1 and placed the target at +2 to see which would win. +2 it is.
Had enough roller coaster ride for today.
Thoughts About Today
The market certainly did its job today. That is to trick me and as many other traders as possible in order to extract the greatest amount of cash. Maybe it is just me, or did others have a harder day today as well. I need to take more of my signals and let the chips fall. This could have worked quite well today, up to the points where I started chasing or forcing trades.
Lessons Learned - Or still needing to reinforce
Well, I did gross 6 points per contract. I know… sort of per contract as I enter with a full position risk and will exit half of the trade early and try to hold the second half for more gains. Most of today’s profits are from my final trade.
My problem today is that I missed more profitable trades than I captured. These days seem to turn into my worst days as I start feeling like “I’m missing out” and my trade selection standards seem to drop and I start "forcing trades" that I should not take. Today I gave back half of my profits to the market on trades that I should have had no problem filtering out.
I truly hope that I don’t need to post this lesson again, but I'd have to say that this is on my top 10 list of things I need to correct in my trading.
Trade Well, Trade Wise
John
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