SniperDaytrader's journal

[SniperDaytrader]

Feb, 10th, 2015 trading results

I was doing lot of changes in my chart settings so I spent some time from the beginning by adjusting to the new look.

I was waiting patiently from the beginning for a good setup.

T1 I saw the first opportunity almost one hour after the opening. I entered long, but the market hit my stop loss dead on. -9

T2 This was mistake. Too aggressive. -7

T3 I didn´t want to take the bottom because all the other markets were falling, so I waited for retest and jumped in. The market was strong and I knew that it will test the high with high probability, so I left the market little room for play. +42

 

[SniperDaytrader]

February 11, 2015

It was clear after my premarket preparation that the markets will try to continue in uptrend. So, right from the beginning I was looking for some opportunity for long entry.

T1 I tried the first long, but failed to take 16 ticks of profit. I was too greedy, which didn´t pay off as usual. This was not a strong position so I didn´t want to risk more than necessary. I placed the SL at BE+1 where I was hit. +1

T2 Too aggressive. I tought the market is already climbing. Didn´t work so I took small loss. -5

T3 This is controversial trade. I was greedy again and didn´t take the first momentum profit (15ticks). Then I saw how the market is trying very hard to push down without any luck which was for me a signal I am on the right sight. I had to withstand 10 ticks heat. But even when the TICK was at -640 the market couldn’t fall. After 36 min. of pain, I took my $160 gain. No pain, no gain. Arnold would be proud +32

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Today was very tough day for me. It doesn’t matter what type of trader are you, we all need moves in order to make some profits. No moves = no profit. Low volume means low volatility (moves). And that is what happened today. Lack of opportunity is not the only drawback of low volume. The lower the volume, the easier for market makers and quants to move the market. The easier it gets, the more of unexpected moves we can expect (what a sentence).


T1 I saw the willingness to rise in the markets, so I decided to try quick long. Market decided to test lower levels however. I decided the risk is too much to bear so I opted for quick +3 ticks.
T2 Nice entry but I pulled my stop loss to close and got hit. -6
T3 Again, littlebit more aggressive and it payed off this time. +12
T4 This was again quite ok trade but taken too early. I had to cancel in according to my trade management rules. +1
T5 This was the best entry today. Very nice setup, the market trapped a lot of bears inside and I managed to jump in opposite direction at nice price level. I saw the profit potential to POC but decided to take sure +12.

 

[Forexmospherian]

Hi SDT

How many hours approximately do you trade every day ?

Regards


F

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Hi SDT

How many hours approximately do you trade every day ?

Regards


F

I trade only the US morning session usually. So 2 - 2.5 hours daily. I cannot concentrate for both sessions usually.

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Weekly results: 7th week of 2015

I saw big improvement in trading during this week. I traded much calmer, took less trades and this all resulted in very nice statistics for the whole week. I had the highest weekly profit since the beginning of this year. 75% win ratio and just 16 trades.

 

[options-george]

I saw big improvement in trading during this week. I traded much calmer, took less trades and this all resulted in very nice statistics for the whole week. I had the highest weekly profit since the beginning of this year. 75% win ratio and just 16 trades.

Fantastic to hear. I also find this often to be the case. A more relaxed state, fewer trades leading to better results! And you burn less emotional capital throughout the day.

I see your profit ratio for the week was 1.4. Even with a 50% win rate, a ratio of 1.4 implies a huge edge!

Good work Mr Sniper :clap:

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Fantastic to hear. I also find this often to be the case. A more relaxed state, fewer trades leading to better results! And you burn less emotional capital throughout the day.

I couldn´t agree more. Thank you

 

[Forexmospherian]

I trade only the US morning session usually. So 2 - 2.5 hours daily. I cannot concentrate for both sessions usually.

Hi SDT

Although we are trading different instruments - I can share some of my own stats based on time management and trade efficiency.

When I first got involved in FX trading - I was long term and ideally wanted to take just one or two trades a week and ideally net over 100 pips so that I could look at an average of around 400 pips per month.

That soon went out the window after a few years - maybe 3 yrs before I went full time as I found out that the markets are totally fluid and dynamic and even if you had a 70% win ratio - you could still in certain periods have 7 or 10 or even more consecutive losses.

So that meant - I could easily have 2 months of losses - even if I had had 3 or 4 months of wins etc - ie totally inefficient.

I then got into scalping about 9 -10 yrs ago and was at that time still part time but taking between 4 and 7 scalp trades on average per hour. That was my big step forward - I was suddenly understanding how price moved and how PA could assist me more .

Trouble is when I tried it then on some days off when I had say a 10 - 12 h session available - it was too tiring taking 40 - 50 trades in that period - even if some trades only lasted 2 mins or less.

That lead to cherry picking - and more study.

Now after 17000 live trades - I have enough stats and info to analyse my trading performance in detail. I have been full time approx 7 yrs and works between 180 and 215 trading days per annum.

For the last 3 yrs I have average now approx 14 trades a day over a 9 -12 hr session.

On lazy days - when I only have say 5 -7 hrs available - ( only say 2 -3 hrs actually at my computer trading ) I might only take 9 or 10 trades.

On active days when I am in the zone and the FX markets are busy - I might take up to 25 trades - either to try and make over treble my daily target - or purely because I have had early losses - say 3 or 4 in a row and therefore need to take more trades to make my daily 50 pip target.

I am comfortable at 10 -20 trades over a full European session.

I am not glued to my screen all the time - on average 15 -30 mins per hour and have at least 3 breaks a day from 15 mins to even 90 mins if I have had a busy and good early session and are on target.

I now only average 2 to 3 trades per hour - and for a short term intraday trader that is very comfortable - well it is for me.

So I would say for you if you have just 2-3 hr a day available - then maximum say 7 trades and minimum say 4 trades. Ok if your first 2 trades of the day both make great returns - then you might hit your daily target - and say - that's it - i can stop i am happy.

But

If you have 2 or 3 losses - dont stop - surely your stats say you can still make it a positive day and say 2 losses of 10 points can easily be overcome with 1 win of 35 points etc .

I average between 62 and 87% win ratios on batches of 100 trades.

So if I have a really bad am session and have say 5 losses on a row - I know I may need to do another 7 to 10 trades to turn it around and make it a winning day.

My losses are kept super tight - ie from minus 2 pips to minus 7 max. My wins might be only 7 pips or even 200 or 1000 pips if I leave part stake on with stops in profit etc.

Psychologically - stress reduces after you have done over a few thousand live trades. After 5000 live trades - ( I was not compounding then ) I realised I could treat my live account like a demo - emotions had been overcome - losses are just part of the costs of doing business - ie like normal business overheads.

After 25 + years in various businesses - both working for multi national companies at Director level and in my own business - I was used to 55 -80 hr weeks and even working weekends.

For me - at the age of 61 now - working say 30 -50 hrs a week at my own pace - some days just 5 hrs only other longer is like a walk in the park - and keeps me active.

In breaks -I walk the dog ( power walk nowadays after 20+ yrs of jogging ) - go swimming - relax reading the papers and watching tv news etc and think how lucky I am that if i want 2 hours or 2 days or even 2 weeks off - i can just take it

Its a pity you cannot stretch to a 4 or 6 hr session window - you still might only need to take say 5 trades - to make money day in day out 90% of the time - but the pressure would be off you if you needed a 30 or 45 min break in between.

I like following your journey and wish you well with how it develops

All the best

Regards


F

 

[Fugazsy]

I saw big improvement in trading during this week. I traded much calmer, took less trades and this all resulted in very nice statistics for the whole week. I had the highest weekly profit since the beginning of this year. 75% win ratio and just 16 trades.

Hi S

Just to give you a different prospective I traded 4 hours per day and Friday I only took one trade, sometime I take 4, rarely more than that.

I have learnt a while ago how to be engaged with the market without having a trade, a trade is only a consequence of my reading.

in my view there are only a few high probability trades per my session and I only take those, I also came to term that trading is highly addictive and overtrading is a consequence of that addiction, I have decided to trade to make money while enjoying with a calm state of mind, I will increase volume but not trades ...

I really appreciate your frankness and I know you will do well.

F

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Hi SDT

Although we are trading different instruments - I can share some of my own stats based on time management and trade efficiency.

When I first got involved in FX trading - I was long term and ideally wanted to take just one or two trades a week and ideally net over 100 pips so that I could look at an average of around 400 pips per month.

That soon went out the window after a few years - maybe 3 yrs before I went full time as I found out that the markets are totally fluid and dynamic and even if you had a 70% win ratio - you could still in certain periods have 7 or 10 or even more consecutive losses.

So that meant - I could easily have 2 months of losses - even if I had had 3 or 4 months of wins etc - ie totally inefficient.

I then got into scalping about 9 -10 yrs ago and was at that time still part time but taking between 4 and 7 scalp trades on average per hour. That was my big step forward - I was suddenly understanding how price moved and how PA could assist me more .

Trouble is when I tried it then on some days off when I had say a 10 - 12 h session available - it was too tiring taking 40 - 50 trades in that period - even if some trades only lasted 2 mins or less.

That lead to cherry picking - and more study.

Now after 17000 live trades - I have enough stats and info to analyse my trading performance in detail. I have been full time approx 7 yrs and works between 180 and 215 trading days per annum.

For the last 3 yrs I have average now approx 14 trades a day over a 9 -12 hr session.

On lazy days - when I only have say 5 -7 hrs available - ( only say 2 -3 hrs actually at my computer trading ) I might only take 9 or 10 trades.

On active days when I am in the zone and the FX markets are busy - I might take up to 25 trades - either to try and make over treble my daily target - or purely because I have had early losses - say 3 or 4 in a row and therefore need to take more trades to make my daily 50 pip target.

I am comfortable at 10 -20 trades over a full European session.

I am not glued to my screen all the time - on average 15 -30 mins per hour and have at least 3 breaks a day from 15 mins to even 90 mins if I have had a busy and good early session and are on target.

I now only average 2 to 3 trades per hour - and for a short term intraday trader that is very comfortable - well it is for me.

So I would say for you if you have just 2-3 hr a day available - then maximum say 7 trades and minimum say 4 trades. Ok if your first 2 trades of the day both make great returns - then you might hit your daily target - and say - that's it - i can stop i am happy.

But

If you have 2 or 3 losses - dont stop - surely your stats say you can still make it a positive day and say 2 losses of 10 points can easily be overcome with 1 win of 35 points etc .

I average between 62 and 87% win ratios on batches of 100 trades.

So if I have a really bad am session and have say 5 losses on a row - I know I may need to do another 7 to 10 trades to turn it around and make it a winning day.

My losses are kept super tight - ie from minus 2 pips to minus 7 max. My wins might be only 7 pips or even 200 or 1000 pips if I leave part stake on with stops in profit etc.

Psychologically - stress reduces after you have done over a few thousand live trades. After 5000 live trades - ( I was not compounding then ) I realised I could treat my live account like a demo - emotions had been overcome - losses are just part of the costs of doing business - ie like normal business overheads.

After 25 + years in various businesses - both working for multi national companies at Director level and in my own business - I was used to 55 -80 hr weeks and even working weekends.

For me - at the age of 61 now - working say 30 -50 hrs a week at my own pace - some days just 5 hrs only other longer is like a walk in the park - and keeps me active.

In breaks -I walk the dog ( power walk nowadays after 20+ yrs of jogging ) - go swimming - relax reading the papers and watching tv news etc and think how lucky I am that if i want 2 hours or 2 days or even 2 weeks off - i can just take it

Its a pity you cannot stretch to a 4 or 6 hr session window - you still might only need to take say 5 trades - to make money day in day out 90% of the time - but the pressure would be off you if you needed a 30 or 45 min break in between.

I like following your journey and wish you well with how it develops

All the best

Regards


F

Thank you for your comment F,

I find it always very interesting to read about someone elses trading aproach, because we all trade differently. This is one of the most interesting aspects of trading. We can take totally different paths, but we both can still profit.

I have no experience with FX whatsoever (I made just couple of trades on 6E which is future derivate of EUR/USD pair). Never traded it, was never drawn to it and have my reservations about the whole FX market. But I can see that you are successful trading it. And that is fine.

The same goes for your approach. It make sense but it is not really for me. I tend to be very hot headed and have to fight the urge to trade frequently. If I don´t it looks always the same - couple of good days, followed by one blackout where I erease everything I gained.

That is why I trade much less now and you can see it also in my statistics. The less I trade, the better the results. So now I aim at 2-4 trades per day. I totally agree with what Fugazsy wrote below, that there are just few high probability oppportunities per session and I try to take those. This is exactly what I want to accomplish.

Thanx again and good luck to you

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Hi S

Just to give you a different prospective I traded 4 hours per day and Friday I only took one trade, sometime I take 4, rarely more than that.

I have learnt a while ago how to be engaged with the market without having a trade, a trade is only a consequence of my reading.

in my view there are only a few high probability trades per my session and I only take those, I also came to term that trading is highly addictive and overtrading is a consequence of that addiction, I have decided to trade to make money while enjoying with a calm state of mind, I will increase volume but not trades ...

I really appreciate your frankness and I know you will do well.

F

Hi F,

I totally agree with what have you written. This is exactly how I see it as well. And even when I am not really there yet, I am getting closer and closer.

Thank you for your kind words and I wish you all the best

 

[SniperDaytrader]

February 17, 2015 That’s the way I like it

Today was very short trading day for me. I was done after first 30min since opening. Took two trades, picked bottom and top and reached my daily profit target.

T1 I took the first long after I saw no interest of bears to push down. I had 3 ticks heat for approx. 2 seconds. I took the first momentum. +10
T2 I was trying to go short 2 ticks higher. The market touched my limit order but I was not filled, so I chased the market a little at still acceptable price level but that was the lowest price I was willing to accept. If the market wouldn´t fill my order I would miss this one. I took the primary momentum again. +9

After these two trades I reached my perfect daily profit and quit trading.

And how would I best describe today´s trading? Probably with this song

 

[SniperDaytrader]

February 18, 2015 Sitting on my hands

On days like today, you have to ask yourself a simple question: ¨Do you really have to trade?'' If your answer is yes, you are in a wrong business. We have FOMC (Federal Open Market Cometee) meeting at 13:00 US CST. That means everybody is playing World War I, sitting in their trenches doing nothing and waiting for the enemy to do the first step. This results in low volume and volatility. Low volume enviroment is the realm of market makers and quants and their algorithms. It is much easier for them to move the market wherever they want because they don't have to fight so many traders. This means higher risk for us - retail traders. On the other hand the volatility is also lower, which means low potential for each trade. Summa summarum it means you have to risk more for lesser profit. The best position in such a market is sitting on your hands.

I was well aware of the situation so my approach was to take only low-risk trades. If I was not able to get into a trade by risking 4 or 5 ticks I would simply let it go.

T1 When I see low volume I try to concentrate more on the market structure. This was a perfect example. I entered in fade with my limit order waiting below the market. It resulted in low-risk trade with 2 ticks heat. In this volatility I am happy even for +9 ticks.

T2 I tweeted 5min before that 4376.50 is interesting price level for me to go long. Market went down, touched exactly this price level and I saw bears trying to push lower without any luck. So I went long. After few secs I saw that bulls have no interest in pushing the market higher so I killed the position at +3

Then I almost felt asleep by watching the market so I decided to stop trading for today. I reached just 50% of my PDP (perfect daily target) today, but I am satisfied.

 

[paszkman]

Hi Sniper, I enjoy your journal. What is your twitter handle?

 

[SniperDaytrader]

Hi Sniper, I enjoy your journal. What is your twitter handle?

Hi, thank you. Link: https://twitter.com/SniperDaytrader

 

[Fugazsy]

Today was very short trading day for me. I was done after first 30min since opening. Took two trades, picked bottom and top and reached my daily profit target.

T1 I took the first long after I saw no interest of bears to push down. I had 3 ticks heat for approx. 2 seconds. I took the first momentum. +10
T2 I was trying to go short 2 ticks higher. The market touched my limit order but I was not filled, so I chased the market a little at still acceptable price level but that was the lowest price I was willing to accept. If the market wouldn´t fill my order I would miss this one. I took the primary momentum again. +9

After these two trades I reached my perfect daily profit and quit trading.

And how would I best describe today´s trading? Probably with this song

 

[SniperDaytrader]

The ultimate challenge

For the last couple of weeks I kept testing my trading strategy on the SIM account. I was tweaking the settings, changing the software setups, testing different entry timing tactics and trade management rules. But most importantly I was trying to become confident while trading. My trading become more and more calm, resulting in less trades with higher win% ratio.

I started the final testing stage on January 7, 2015. This is the final statistics and equity since then:

The red marks indicate end of the week, the black ones the daily outcome. Just from a quick look at the equity you can see an uptrend but also improvement since the last 2 weeks ($1.190,92 mark). Drawdowns are more shallow, there are less losers and less trades in general resulting in steeper equity.

I challenged myself to reach 80% win ratio with 20 trades before I go live. Today I fulfilled it. Statistics of the last 20 trades attached.

In addition I feel very confident and... well I would like to write ready, but I am not sure I would ever feel 100% ready for live trading. But I feel as ready as possible. So, starting from tomorrow I will trade from my live account trying to fulfill my ultimate challenge.

Conditions
Starting capital: $6.533
Instruments: e-mini Nasdaq, e-mini DowJones
Max. contracts: 1
Timeframe: no limit, but I expect to reach the goal in 6-8 weeks
Goal 1: $8.000 cumulative profit ($1.467 profit), which equals 22.46% ROI
Max. drawdown: $1.000 (reaching it would mean fail in this challenge)

After fulfilling the first goal I am planning to start trading with multiple contracts for higher profits.

By the end of this challenge I should be able to answer these questions:

1. Is it possible to start trading with relatively small trading account and become consistantly profitable?
2. How long does it take to become consistantly profitable?
3. How great is the psychological influence on trading while transition from SIM to LIVE account? (by comparing the LIVE and SIM results)

For the record - this is not my firts transition from SIM to LIVE so I already have some experience with LIVE trading. If you are transitioning from SIM to LIVE for the first time, your experience might differ from mine.

I pledge to publish all of my results here with all profits or losses plus everything what I will learned on the way. I hope I will be able to post daily, but even if I don't I will make full disclosure results overview with all great but also bad trades at least on weekly basis.

Let the journey begin

 

[Forexmospherian]

For the last couple of weeks I kept testing my trading strategy on the SIM account. I was tweaking the settings, changing the software setups, testing different entry timing tactics and trade management rules. But most importantly I was trying to become confident while trading. My trading become more and more calm, resulting in less trades with higher win% ratio.

I started the final testing stage on January 7, 2015. This is the final statistics and equity since then:

...............................


..........................................



By the end of this challenge I should be able to answer these questions:

1. Is it possible to start trading with relatively small trading account and become consistantly profitable?
2. How long does it take to become consistantly profitable?
3. How great is the psychological influence on trading while transition from SIM to LIVE account? (by comparing the LIVE and SIM results)

For the record - this is not my firts transition from SIM to LIVE so I already have some experience with LIVE trading. If you are transitioning from SIM to LIVE for the first time, your experience might differ from mine.

Let the journey begin

Hi SDT

I wish you well and Good luck.

I am pleased its not the first time you are going from sim to live money - as you will know the emotions you will go through - they can be massive with your first 25 - 50 live trades - but after a few hundred + then you hopefully can start to relax and get to a position that you can treat your live account with the same calmness as you do with a Sim / demo.

Sod's law for me was in the first 3 months whilst compounding and going well - I had reached my highest exposure and lot size and I had 7 bad consecutive trades and it really took the wind out my sail. Took me about another 3 -6 months to regain my confidence and get back to at least a size I felt confident with - and then after that year - I never compounded again and just withdrew profits on a regular basis - and have done for last 5 - 6 yrs.

Good Trading

Regards


F

 

[Fugazsy]

For the last couple of weeks I kept testing my trading strategy on the SIM account. I was tweaking the settings, changing the software setups, testing different entry timing tactics and trade management rules. But most importantly I was trying to become confident while trading. My trading become more and more calm, resulting in less trades with higher win% ratio.

I started the final testing stage on January 7, 2015. This is the final statistics and equity since then:

The red marks indicate end of the week, the black ones the daily outcome. Just from a quick look at the equity you can see an uptrend but also improvement since the last 2 weeks ($1.190,92 mark). Drawdowns are more shallow, there are less losers and less trades in general resulting in steeper equity.

I challenged myself to reach 80% win ratio with 20 trades before I go live. Today I fulfilled it. Statistics of the last 20 trades attached.

In addition I feel very confident and... well I would like to write ready, but I am not sure I would ever feel 100% ready for live trading. But I feel as ready as possible. So, starting from tomorrow I will trade from my live account trying to fulfill my ultimate challenge.

Conditions
Starting capital: $6.533
Instruments: e-mini Nasdaq, e-mini DowJones
Max. contracts: 1
Timeframe: no limit, but I expect to reach the goal in 6-8 weeks
Goal 1: $8.000 cumulative profit ($1.467 profit), which equals 22.46% ROI
Max. drawdown: $1.000 (reaching it would mean fail in this challenge)

After fulfilling the first goal I am planning to start trading with multiple contracts for higher profits.

By the end of this challenge I should be able to answer these questions:

1. Is it possible to start trading with relatively small trading account and become consistantly profitable?
2. How long does it take to become consistantly profitable?
3. How great is the psychological influence on trading while transition from SIM to LIVE account? (by comparing the LIVE and SIM results)

For the record - this is not my firts transition from SIM to LIVE so I already have some experience with LIVE trading. If you are transitioning from SIM to LIVE for the first time, your experience might differ from mine.

I pledge to publish all of my results here with all profits or losses plus everything what I will learned on the way. I hope I will be able to post daily, but even if I don't I will make full disclosure results overview with all great but also bad trades at least on weekly basis.

Let the journey begin

good post Sniper.

I am going to pass to you my experience....this is only mine and I am not saying it will work for you or others, but I think you can make use to it by reading it and seeing how others how develop it.

when I started with a live account, I was only risking 0.25% per trade, after 10 trading days if my curve was up I moved to 0.5%, then 1%, 2% and so on every two weeks, it worked for me because it gave me confidence in my approach, that confidence was necessary to shake off the losing trades and perceive my trading as an all and not as a consequence of a few trades.

Trading a live account is a completely game, mr ego will come to play and he will make difficult to you as much as he can, but knowing he is there you will have an edge over him, he will have not any chances in your presence..

Remember this is a never ending leaning curve, every day after your session go back and see what you could have done better, nobody can teach you more then yourself....

I am doing mine at the moment and I will post it on my thread what I could have done better....