My journey to long term consistency

Plan Demo Account including my new findings:

1) Deciding whether to trade or not
-before deciding to trade look if any major economic events are up in the current trading day if yes then we DO NOT TRADE unless after 1 hour of occurence
-before deciding to trade: check yahoo finances whether something big is up or not. If it is DO NOT TRADE


2) Find potential trades
- Wait at LEAST 1 hour after trading has opened before taking up a position
- Wait at LEAST 1 hour after the occurence of a major economical event or indicator (1)
- Look at the S&P500 and the stocks in your watchlist. Watch if most of them are in the plus or in the min. Dont go long if in the min and dont go short if in the plus.
- scan american stocks and look for clean charts (up or down determinded in previous point). Clean is a steady rise or decline for at least 3 trading days on a 2 hour chart (2)
- do not include stocks that gapped in those 3 trading days
- do not include stocks that require me to take stop losses wider than 2% of my equity
- the last three bars (2h) should go with the trendline, else dont take it



3) Taking positions
- look for the trend and 66% of the highest difference in opposite direction of the entire trend is where I place my stop loss
- I am not going to risk more than 2 % on each trade



4) Once in a position
- Make it a trailing stop loss
- Exit only if stop loss hits
- document every trade carefully in journal (with charts) saying what you did and what I should have done

Since the system changed again I will evaluate after 40 trades (or sooner if it seems totally worthless like I did many times already)

(1) If this is the case I am allowed to look at the 15min charts to check whether trend continues or not

(2) how can I quantify this? I looked into this but cant find anything suitable at the moment. For now Ill leave this at my discretion but of course it is visible if a chart goes up or down in a steady fashion, the more it resembles a straight line the better, only need to measure that objectively and put a number on it
 
Demo account

Long Accenture
100 Shares
Reason of closure: stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 116.13
Opening time: 3/30/2016 5:10 PM

Close rate: 114.53
Close time: 4/1/2016 3:31 PM

Amount risked: around € 140

Net P/L: €‪-142.39‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 1 hour chart for a change. I included the longer term chart at the bottom to show that the trend was in fact up, only its wierd my stop loss was so tight, looks like a calculation error at first sight, although it did not fluctuate THAT much (downwards) it could be possible but it still seems a strange trade looking at the chart.
AccentureOneHourChart.jpg





Personal notes
Very strange trade. I will have to look deeper into it. Im supposed to be looking for clean charts, this isnt very clean... at least on shorter term.Maybe something to add to the plan, making sure that it looks clean on short term too?
 
Demo account

Short Aqua America
500 Shares
Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 31.54
Opening time: 4/5/2016 7:40 PM

Close rate: 31.61
Close time: 4/7/2016 3:49 PM

Amount risked: around € 122

Net P/L: €‪-32.71‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
AquaAmericaChart.JPG


Personal notes
My profits were almost times 1 my stop loss but then it started going against me. Another "rule" I could implement is to tighten the stop loss IF I have a certain profit and IF at the end of a trading day. I have touched this topic before but I have not included this yet to see if potential tremendous gains due to not tightening would more than cancel out the profits I dont take or losses I do take. More and more I am starting to think the answer to this is no. Lets just continue a bit more like this to have a good view on this.
 
Thus, your stop loss should be set at a point where you think your trade is "wrong" in relation to the time frame you are trading.
Yes, it might have turned around again before your stop was reached but that would have owed more to luck than anything else.

These two quotes got me thinking. Currently in my system I identify a trend. Lets say the trend is downwards and 5 days going on. I will look for the highest difference in price in those 5 days against my position and take 66% of that to determine my stop loss. However in some cases the trend isnt clean and temporarily goes into the other direction, but then continues to go down again. I realise to view this as one trend is wrong. If viewed as one trend the temporarily going in the opposite direction will result in too wide of a stop loss according to my system. Why too wide? Because if you take into account that big of a difference of price going against you, you cant possibly know if its a new trend up or if it will go down again (as it did before but its not part of the trend). Thus I would be relying on luck for that as mentioned in the second quote.

The only thing left to do is to define what deviation from the trend constitutes as a new trend. Which is already mentioned in my trading plan that I should look into that, haha funny how that comes biting me in the ass again :)

...... --> this means some time has passed but I am only posting now :p

After some thinking and testing I am going to use the 10 period weighted moving average to determine this from now on. If it goes against its own trend (for even one period) or it stays the same for 3 consecutive periods then the trend is broken and if the global trend continues this is to be considered a new trend. I took my last trade Aqua America as an example for that.
 
Plan Demo Account including new findings:

1) Deciding whether to trade or not
-before deciding to trade look if any major economic events are up in the current trading day if yes then we DO NOT TRADE unless after 1 hour of occurence
-before deciding to trade: check yahoo finances whether something big is up or not. If it is DO NOT TRADE


2) Find potential trades
- Wait at LEAST 1 hour after trading has opened before taking up a position
- Wait at LEAST 1 hour after the occurence of a major economical event or indicator (1)
- Look at the S&P500 and the stocks in your watchlist. Watch if most of them are in the plus or in the min. Dont go long if in the min and dont go short if in the plus.
- scan american stocks and look for clean charts (whether up or down determinded in previous point). Clean is a rising or falling 10 period WMA with no interruptions for at least 3 trading days (2)
- do not include stocks that gapped in those 3 trading days
- do not include stocks that require me to take stop losses wider than 2% of my equity
- the last three bars (2h) should go with the trendline, else dont take it



3) Taking positions
- look for the trend and 66% of the highest difference in opposite direction of the entire trend is where I place my stop loss
- I am not going to risk more than 2 % on each trade



4) Once in a position
- Make it a trailing stop loss
- Exit only if stop loss hits
- document every trade carefully in journal (with charts) saying what you did and what I should have done

Since the system changed again I will evaluate after 40 trades (or sooner if it seems totally worthless like I did many times already)

(1) If this is the case I am allowed to look at the 15min charts to check whether trend continues or not

(2) if the 10 period WMA goes against its own trend (for even one period) or it stays the same for 3 consecutive periods then the trend is broken
 
Demo account

Long CONSOL Energy
450 Shares
Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 12.37
Opening time: 4/11/2016 6:14 PM

Close rate: 13.3
Close time: 4/13/2016 3:33 PM

Amount risked: around € 120

Net P/L: €‪369.12‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
CONSOLEnergyChart.jpg


Personal notes
Took the trade according to the system and it worked in my favour. Plain and simple :)
 
REAL ACCOUNT

Long BHP
550 Shares
Reason of closure: Decided I didn't want to hold my profitable position overnight

Opening rate: 806.29
Opening time: 4/12/2016 10:47 AM

Close rate: 870.12
Close time: 4/13/2016 4:28 PM

Amount risked: around € 98

Net P/L: +€‪442.09‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart. End of chart is where it closes for the day.
BHPchart.jpg


Personal notes
Best trade ever since my "decent" tradging system on my real account. These big winners also count cause once in a while they are going to happen. As long as you cut your losses short you can really benefit of trades like this. I sold because no way in hell do I want to hold those profits overnight.

Current equity: €5168,25
 
Demo account

Long Alexandria
100 Shares
Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 90.65
Opening time: 3/30/2016 5:27 PM

Close rate: 91.12
Close time: 4/14/2016 4:19 PM

Amount risked: around € 120

Net P/L: €‪31.16‬ (held it for a long time so also had to pay Premium €‪-10.55‬.)

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 2 hour chart for a change. This because it was a very long term trend
AlexandriaChart2h.jpg


Personal notes
Took the trade according to the system. Alas I just got stopped out right before a big rally. This is inevitable to happen sometimes though.


I got suggested to also monitor trades I wanted to take but do not take according to the conditions I set for my trading plan so I can see if those conditions are still valid. I will try to do that to the best of my abilities
 
Demo account

Long Genpact
750 Shares
Reason of closure: stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 28.42
Opening time: 4/19/2016 4:34 PM

Close rate: 28.2
Close time: 4/19/2016 5:52 PM

Amount risked: around € 145.09

Net P/L: €‪-145.09‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
Genpact.jpg



Personal notes
Took the trade according to the system. On 15 min chart it was visible it was going against the trend but not on the 2h chart as my system says to look at, maybe I should adapt that I should look on smaller time frames for that... sounds logical at least, will take it into consideration

I also have to make sure that next time I deliberately monitor atleast one trade that does not match one of my conditions so I can start evaluating the usefulness of them
 
Demo account

Long Lululemon Athletica
200 Shares
Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 66.37
Opening time: 4/19/2016 7:16 PM

Close rate: 66.83
Close time: 4/20/2016 4:30 PM

Amount risked: forgot to record but going from all the date Id say around € 120

Net P/L: €‪80.19‬
Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
LululemonChart.jpg



Personal notes
After the big rally up there was a counter reaction and that caused my trailing stop loss to get hit. Two possible corrections for this: Either widen your stop loss so it doesnt get hit, but then you would rely on luck cause you dont know if its a reversal of the trend or just a reaction to the rally. So only correct solution is to tighten your stop loss so you can maximize your profit and re-enter the position once established that current trend indeed continues. I believe I mentioned this once more in this journal. This is something I am considering to put into the system.
 
Took a demo trade McGraw-Hill that does not meet all the conditions of my plan to monitor. This stock is to be excluded from my evaluation if I do it.
I also took a demo trade according to system
 
Demo account

I took on a trade against the rules of my system to make sure my rules are still valid. Im not going to go into much detail there though. I went long instead of short what my system said to do. The result is this:

Loss call McGraw-Hill €‪-145.58‬

The trade went against me pretty much as soon as I entered. Next time I will not put the trade in place with my demo account. I will just mention a starting price, where my stop loss would be and an exit price. Then look how the trade would do. Dont want to pollute the data in my demo account too much.
 
REAL ACCOUNT

Long BHP
200 Shares
Reason of closure: Adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 989.03
Opening time: 4/20/2016 1:51 PM

Close rate: 1000.86
Close time: 4/21/2016 12:09 PM

Amount risked: around € 75

Net P/L: +€‪29.85‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
BHPchart.jpg



Personal notes
Missed out on a lot with this stock. Already made a 440 profit but could have been almost double that. But of course a perfect trade is nice but not realistic, better to reduce risks than to strive for that perfect trade and NOT get greedy. This is the reason I missed out. I was afraid of becoming greedy, when I'm winning big I tend to let greed affect me.




Also stupid as I am I took on a wrong trade. I thought I was on my demo account but I was not. Luckily I was able to get out near break even= €‪-7.97‬

Current equity: €5190,14
 
Demo account

Short RC Cruises
200 Shares
Reason of closure: Adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 77.32
Opening time: 4/21/2016 5:02 PM

Close rate: 74.64
Close time: 4/25/2016 3:36 PM

Amount risked: € 177.07

Net P/L: +€‪472.52‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
RC_Cruises_Chart15min.jpg

I also included a 2h chart so that the long term trend is more visible:
RC_Cruises_Chart2hour.JPG


Personal notes
Nice trade. What I notice again is that when there is virtually no retracement after a gap or rally (up or down) the trend is very strong and the likelihood of the trend continueing is great. Did what I had to do, held it over the weekend cause system doesnt say anything about that but got stopped out nonetheless. I do expect this stock to go down even further though.
 
Took a trade Alaska Air on demo account which did not match my system criteria of last three bars should go with the trend line. Also there was a slight gap, but I havent defined "gap" yet and it was not that big of a gap .... anyway this is left open to interpretation so I should define it as well. This is why I am testing, to test if its profitable and to test if there are points open for interpretation or not.

So far with the current edition of the system it is profitable. If it will remain sufficiently profitable only time will tell.
 
Demo account

Short Vale
750 Shares
Reason of closure: stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 5.04
Opening time: 4/25/2016 4:53 PM

Close rate: 5.26
Close time:4/26/2016 5:27 PM

Amount risked: €‪ 145.88‬

Net P/L: €‪-146.10‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
ValeChart.jpg



Personal notes
Followed my system. Trade didnt work out. Again there is a slight gap visible but nothing major. Something I did not define yet properly.
 
Demo account

Short Alaska Air
200 Shares
Reason of closure: stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 73.5
Opening time: 4/26/2016 4:37 PM

Close rate: 74.51
Close time:4/26/2016 6:29 PM

Amount risked: €‪ 178.65‬

Net P/L: €‪-178.65‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
AlaskaAirChart.jpg




Personal notes
This is the wrong trade I took because I traded right after a gap occurred. Trade went wrong because it recovered enough after the gap to hit my stop loss. Afterwards the trend seems to continue. Also the last three bars on the 2h chart were not all in direction of the trend. I can probably be more forgiving on that rule but I am pretty sure the gap rule is a good one. Especially because on my last losing trade there was also a gap. THIS ONE I SHOULD NOT INCLUDE IN MY EVALUATION (i said I would not actually take the trade anymore but write the data down but I was lacking time and this was faster so I took the trade anyway)
 
Demo account

Long Palo Alto Networks
100 Shares
Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 154.88
Opening time: 4/27/2016 8:53 PM

Close rate: 154.40
Close time: 4/28/2016 6:48 PM

Amount risked: €‪ 190

Net P/L: €‪-43.55‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
PaloAltoNetworksChart.jpg






Personal notes

Was making some good profits, then the trend reversed and hit my trailing stop loss. Again this comes down to do I tighten my stop loss and risk missing out on bigger profits OR do I leave it but risk losing my profits if trend reverses. What I notice is that whenever big profits are made it goes up or down very smoothly and tightening my SL would not have resulted in being stopped out. (Only two cases so far but still) I think the benefits of tightening outweigh the disadvantages so I am going to incorporate it into my strategy. I made the decision. The strategy seems to become better with every iteration, I quite like this process :)
 
Demo account

Short Southwest Airlines
250 Shares
Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit

Opening rate: 44
Opening time: 4/29/2016 4:39 PM

Close rate: 44.1
Close time: 4/29/2016 6:16 PM

Amount risked: €‪ 126

Net P/L: €‪-21.85‬

Chart
Green arrow is where I opened position and red arrow is where it got closed. Chart is a 15 min chart.
SouthwestAirlinesChart.jpg






Personal notes
Similar trade as last time. Was making very good money fast but then the trend reversed and hit the stop loss at a small loss. In my last post I said I would incorporate a tightening of SL in my trading plan, this trade again confirms it so my next post will be an update of the trading plan.
 
Plan Demo Account including new findings:

1) Deciding whether to trade or not
-before deciding to trade look if any major economic events are up in the current trading day if yes then we DO NOT TRADE unless after 1 hour of occurence
-before deciding to trade: check yahoo finances whether something big is up or not. If it is DO NOT TRADE


2) Find potential trades

- Wait at LEAST 1 hour after trading has opened before taking up a position
- Wait at LEAST 1 hour after the occurence of a major economical event or indicator (1)
- Look at the S&P500 and the stocks in your watchlist. Watch if most of them are in the plus or in the min. Dont go long if in the min and dont go short if in the plus.
- scan american stocks and look for clean charts (whether up or down determinded in previous point). Clean is a rising or falling 10 period WMA with no interruptions for at least 3 trading days (2)
- do not include stocks that gapped in those 3 trading days
- do not include stocks that require me to take stop losses wider than 2% of my equity
- the last three bars (2h) should go with the trendline, else dont take it



3) Taking positions
- look for the trend and 66% of the highest difference in opposite direction of the entire trend is where I place my stop loss
- I am not going to risk more than 2 % on each trade



4) Once in a position
- Make it a trailing stop loss
- Once the trade reaches 75% profit of amount risked move the SL to break even.
- Once the trade reaches 100% profit of amount risked move the SL to 50% profit

- Exit only if stop loss hits
- document every trade carefully in journal (with charts) saying what you did and what I should have done

Since the system changed again I will evaluate after 40 trades (or sooner if it seems totally worthless like I did many times already)

(1) If this is the case I am allowed to look at the 15min charts to check whether trend continues or not

(2) if the 10 period WMA goes against its own trend (for even one period) or it stays the same for 3 consecutive periods then the trend is broken


----------------------------------------------
I will probably need to calibrate those percentages I added in green and see what works best
 
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