SniperDaytrader's journal

[SniperDaytrader]

March 13, 2015

I rolled over and traded the new contract month today.


I missed the first opportunity for long at 8:34 from my preplanned zone in NQ (point A). After that I kept waiting for some nice setup. (T1) That came after the market pulled back and looked like it is going to bounce off the MID. I forgot the report comming out and jumped in as I saw weak bears trying to push quickly down. My $85 profit target was filled in 15 seconds.

T2 Another good opportunity arose at 9:08 when the market reacted to my preplanned support level again. I waited until the orderflow showed me that bears are not interrested to push lower anymore and I went long for a very nice price. I didn't want to risk anymore so I opted for quick $45 after the market lost the primary momentum.

Suma summarum I reached my perfect daily profit (range $80 - $120) in first half an hour of trading. Keeping in mind that it is friday and rollover period I simply stopped trading and dedicated my time to other activities.

 

[options-george]

Hey SDT, how are you getting on? Are you hanging in there?

G

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Hello OG,

I am currently +/- break even which is good sign for the beginning I think. I was on a ski trip this week so I was not trading since monday. I am looking forward for today´s trading session

How is your trading?

SDT

 

[options-george]

Hello OG,

I am currently +/- break even which is good sign for the beginning I think. I was on a ski trip this week so I was not trading since monday. I am looking forward for today´s trading session

How is your trading?

SDT

LOL

I have been on the slopes too. So was away for 7 trading sessions. Got back into the office on Tuesday - very few setups so far for me this week.

Good luck for today.

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Nice Where have you been?

Few pics from my ski trip - High Tatras, Slovakia.




They also had a stable at the hotel where I stayed. So it was ski/horse riding trip :cheesy:

 

[SniperDaytrader]

March 24, 2015


I was done for today after initial 50min. I reached my PDP (perfect daily target), so I was reluctant to trade more. I took first long near the low of the market and as you can see, it was also a good lesson why to take your first profit target quickly. The market fell littlebit lower to rebounce and move higher.


I took short position after I saw the agony of premature longs (simple traders). First, the market makers created a situation where they ''advertised'' long situation for the simple trader. And they catched a lot of them this time. Simple traders kept buying and buying and market makers ate their market orders with their sell limits (to prevent the market to move higher) resulting in a situation which I call ''the trap''. Now we see lot of simple traders already in the position wondering why the market doesn't move. They cannot get out and they keep hoping that the market will eventually rise. Market makers wait until they see they have trapped enough of them. They enable market to move just littlebit higher so the last latecomers will join in. After few minutes of agony they let the market fall with one objective in mind: to feed on the poor simple trader's stop limits, which are in fact sell orders so they help the market to fall even lower. Of course I joined the market makers in their filthy game and took quick profit. I will take a shower after I am done here

 

[SniperDaytrader]

When I started my blog I promised to share the good but also the bad. And there is always lot of bad days in trading. Even the best traders have bad days from time to time. For traders the bad day usually means that he lost a lot o money. And since I promised to share everything, here it is – the biggest loss per day since I started this round of live trading:


T1 was very premature and I was not able to close it sooner.
T2 another premature entry, this time even worse than the previous
T3 I catched this one very high and of course the following stop run hit my (widened) stop loss
T4 long in YM, quite good, but I couldn’t withstand the market noise. My profit target was exactly at 17910 where the market eventually climbed
T5 and T6 were ok trades, but I took them too prematurely and I again couldn’t withstand the market noise so I closed both
T7 stupid
T8 stupid
T9 and T10 both prematurely
From the beginning I saw that the markets are falling and not behaving normaly. In that case (if you are not already in the market from the top) the best position is to sit on your hands and wait until the market callms down. My stubborness costed me dearly. $309 to be exact. Expensive lesson, I hope I will learn from it. What is even worse I broke my money management rule (max. daily loss $150).


So what do I do now? Nothing. I will continue to trade as if nothing happened. It may sound stupid at first, but if your trading plan is solid (and mine is, which was proven by SIM period), than the only thing you can do is nothing. I wouln’t try to cut the drawdown because it would make me more aggressive and that is something you don’t want to do if you are losing. Quite the opposite I will try to take just the best setups and trade with more caution.

 

[Forexmospherian]

Sorry to hear whats happened SDT - you have dealt with it and I am sure you will learn from it.

It reminds me of my first day I had 7 consecutive losses after I had been compounding up for a few months.

It knocked my confidence back - Big Time - in fact never been back to the stake levels I was on - and it was over 5 years ago. - but nowadays after 3 consecutive losses I have 30 min or an hour out - and start again.

What was the time gap between first trade and last just out of interest ???


Regards


F

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Thanx F,

the whole day was my fault. There is nobody else to blame for it. Well, of course it hurts but I had worse losses in the past so I know I can handle it. The thing which pisses me most is that I let myself lure into the markets after the initial losses even if I know it is not worth it. I should have stopped trading after -$150 which I can make back in 1-2 days. This will take 1 - 1,5 weeks to come back from.

The most important thing for me now is not to overtrade to make it back in 1-2 days, because that creates even bigger losses.

The time difference between the first and last trade is 1 hour and 15min.

SDT

 

[Forexmospherian]

Thanx F,

the whole day was my fault. There is nobody else to blame for it. Well, of course it hurts but I had worse losses in the past so I know I can handle it. The thing which pisses me most is that I let myself lure into the markets after the initial losses even if I know it is not worth it. I should have stopped trading after -$150 which I can make back in 1-2 days. This will take 1 - 1,5 weeks to come back from.

The most important thing for me now is not to overtrade to make it back in 1-2 days, because that creates even bigger losses.

The time difference between the first and last trade is 1 hour and 15min.

SDT

Its good you know and accept thats it your fault and you can handle it

Many traders try to blame everything possible other than themselves

See for me my trading session is anything from 8 -12 hrs - so if i have a bad hour or two - not the end of the day. Some days I have made my daily target in under 2 hrs - other days I might need over 10 hrs and 20 trades to get there

With you looking at what a 2 -3 hr total session - i can understand that anything over say 4 + bad trades - and too much to claw back in the time - unless losses are super tight at just a few pips or points down.

As you say - don't try and get it all back in 2 days - stay calm and accept its all part of the learning curve and stick and fine tune your strategy so that you are able to not let it happen again

You will get there - 100% confident of that

GL

Regards

F

 

[SniperDaytrader]

You will get there - 100% confident of that

GL

Regards

F

Thank you very much! It means a lot
Good luck to you as well,

SDT

 

[tokyojoe]

Thank you very much! It means a lot
Good luck to you as well,

SDT

Hi SDt, I've had a couple of hum dingers, real car crashes, it smashes confidence, but after the initial inertia & shock, I can honestly say it's given me new focus, especially this year.

As F points out, time is a big factor, no matter what people say, if like me you trade the Dax during normal market hours, then time decay can be a big problem if you miss a couple of runners towards the end of the day, or take a couple of small hits.

Nowadays if I'm out of sync I just think "tomorrow"

The inducement & the chase is the account killer IMHO.

Good luck mate

 

[options-george]

hey SDT, I hadn't realised that you had a bad day last week. Sorry to hear that.

How have things been going since then?

Are you also working on the psychology component of trading, to go hand in hand with the technical aspects?

 

[SniperDaytrader]

March 30, 2015

I am slowly regaining confidence after last week's fiasco. Today, I reached my perfect daily target after 30min of trading.


T1 was a mistake. I took the trade too early. After I realized that, I quickly closed the position at BE+1
T2 I picked the highest high 6 ticks from high. I didn't want to risk anything and took quick +9 ticks
T3 I went long after I saw struggle of bears to push the market lower. +10

 

[SniperDaytrader]

tokyojoe: I totally agree. This is my achilles heel. If I make few good trades from the beginning everything is fine. What I need to learn is to close the charts after small loss. If I don´t I always create even bigger one. Chasing profits is for amateurs, pros just control risk and let the profits come to them. It is pitty I don´t listen to my own advices more often

Options-George: Wednesday was the worst day since the beginning of this year. -$300 loss. I deepened the drawdown on Thursday with additional -$120. I couldn´t take a single trade on Friday even when I saw good opportunities. It seems I regained some of my confidence back today. Will see how it goes

 

[options-george]

Options-George: Wednesday was the worst day since the beginning of this year. -$300 loss. I deepened the drawdown on Thursday with additional -$120. I couldn´t take a single trade on Friday even when I saw good opportunities. It seems I regained some of my confidence back today. Will see how it goes

Good to hear!

FYI, I didn't trade today but spent the day at the office working on trading psychology. (I had taken yesterday off, hence why I decided to work on the bank holiday). In case you are interested, I put a huge post on my blog about all the psychology stuff I am currently working on - very practical slant.

 

[SniperDaytrader]

April 9, 2015

Today, market was testing my patience... and I succeeded. There have been literally just couple of good opportunities. I missed one of them because I couldn´t react quickly enough and then I didn´t want to chase the market so I let it go. I ended up with a single trade.


T1 After I saw that I am not able to enter the market with limit order efficiently I opened this long with market order. Very quick trade (30 secs) with 2 ticks heat. +12

 

[Konviction]

I wish I had some clue to what all that meant on your charts. It looks like a total mind f--k, lol. But hey if it works, more power to you.

 

[SniperDaytrader]

I wish I had some clue to what all that meant on your charts. It looks like a total mind f--k, lol. But hey if it works, more power to you.

...and that is just 1/4 of 1 of 3 screens I use I get that a lot. I know that some guys trade just by watching PA and are successful too. My setup makes a lot of sence to me and it is quite easy after you understand it

 

[SniperDaytrader]

April 10, 2015


Very low volume and almost dead market today. The whole day was again about patience.

T1 Even when I was expecting the market to move higher and thus having a long bias, this short came from my preplanned zone after I saw buyers fading out. I picked the local high pretty good but because of low volume in general I also didn´t see enough sellers comming in. I decided to close the position at BE+1

T2 This was again few ticks from local low. I had just 2 ticks heat. MID and low provided barrier to hide my stop loss behind. Soon after my entry the market rallied. Having the low volume in mind I aimed just for the closest logical target which was 9 ticks away in this case.