My journey to long term consistency

[DrSafari]

Preparation for 24-11-2016


Took one trade and it worked out fine but not sure if I'm going to document it. Price broke out of the range and I thought a trend was forming because price retraced but then continued upwards, so I took a long position. I was right but my feeling is that this was just gambling... was there any reason to believe price would continue to go up or was there just as much chance of it going down? Not sure, my knowledge of trends is still limited

Okay just a crude result then on the 5m chart:

I did not tighten stoploss so it resulted in a 0.14 point profit. Green arrow is where previous chart ends.

I just noticed a triple top and that was probably a sign to tighten the SL

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation for 25-11-2016

I drew the orange line just because I noticed the wave going higher and higher, not sure if it means anything...

 

[DrSafari]

Short S&P500

Net P/L -0.49 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2206.94
Close Rate 2207.43

Open Time 11/25/2016 4:06 PM
Close Time 11/25/2016 4:25 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 5m chart




Reason of closure:trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
First I thought this was a legitimate trade that didn't work out but I disagree with myself! Resistence had clearly become support here so my short was a bit optimistic here. There are way better opportunities than this, and it's better to err on the side of being too selective than vice versa...

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation week



Preparation 28-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Short S&P500

Net P/L +2.64 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2207.44
Close Rate 2204.8

Open Time 11/28/2016 4:34 PM
Close Time 11/28/2016 4:42 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.65 point

Entry and exit 1m chart




Reason of closure: adjusted tightened trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
Good trade. After I saw this trade was working out well I tightened the SL. But looking at where the support level is I did it too soon. I should have done it somewhere around the orange dot, closer to the support level, that would have given me even more profit. Part of this is being "overwhelmed" by what is happening and because you have to act fast you make these mistakes, that's where a plan helps.

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation 29-11-2016


No trades.

 

[bosun2016]

Hopefully you don't mind me making a suggestion?

Have you considered that your %-risk per trade should not be driven by the volatility of the instrument that you are trading? You could consider a fixed percentage for each of your trades. For the volatile instruments you will most likely need a wider stop (in points/pips) thus the lot size for your trade should decrease. But your percentage risk should stay the same.

You might find out that your system works better for low-volatility instruments and worse for high vol instruments. If that would be the case you would generally lose 2% on the bad trades and gain 1% on the good trades. Not a good combo!



Ps Also seeing that you have 5k in your account, you might be fine to risk no more than 1% (50 euros) per trade. If you are with a broker that caters well for retail traders, then you should be able to arrive at the right trade risk regardless of stop size in pips. CMC would be broker where this would work well depending on what instruments you like to trade.

I agree with you. Your percentage risk should stay the same.

 

[DrSafari]

I agree with you. Your percentage risk should stay the same.

Yes, but this has been discussed a long time ago. However I am only in the phase where I am experimenting and take notes to come up with a system. For simplicity sake I am only always trading one contract and basing Stop loss levels on techinals. In real life once I have established that I can calculate how many contracts I want to buy to keep my risk % constant.

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation 30-11-2016


Update at 3:58 pm


I made two trades but both losers.. Im afraid I was too late in getting detailed chart info and that info is lost.

 

[DrSafari]

Long S&P500

Net P/L -0.86 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2190.56
Close Rate 2189.7

Open Time 12/2/2016 2:22 PM
Close Time 12/2/2016 2:25 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 1m chart




Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
I thought price had convincingly broken through the 2189.00 resistence level so tried to ride the wave going long. I was mistaken. This "tactic" differs from what I usually do so I will likely not base my upcoming system on this.

 

[DrSafari]

Short S&P500

Net P/L +0.09 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2189.94
Close Rate 2189.85

Open Time 12/2/2016 2:26 PM
Close Time 12/2/2016 2:30 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.50 point

Entry and exit 1m chart





Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
This IS a trade I would normally take and would have worked out if I hadn't been taken out by volatility. However it's a very small profit.

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation monthly december


Preperation weekly


Preparation 5-12-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Short S&P500

Net P/L -1.36 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2199.2
Close Rate 2200.56

Open Time 12/5/2016 1:51 PM
Close Time 12/5/2016 2:03 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 1m chart





Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
Also an experimental trade. On the 1m chart after the rally down you see a straight line and price does not seem to go higher than that. My reasoning was that price was trying to push through but didn't succeed so chances are it will go down. However I totally neglected my support line there and that is what I am basing everything on so bad trade. It pleases me that whenever I deviate from what I usually do it results in bad trades.

Oh yeah, another reason I took this trade was because after the rally down price stayed horizontal, I have seen situations like that before that price plunges down further afterwards, not sure how valid this assumption is and not sure if there were any S&R levels inbetween that, but Im sure I can look it up, should be somewhere in this journal.

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation for 06-12-2016



===============================================

Long S&P500

Net P/L -1.86 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2208.8
Close Rate 2206.94

Open Time 12/6/2016 2:44 PM
Close Time 12/6/2016 2:52 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.40 point

Entry and exit 1m chart


Additional more long term chart




Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
This would have been a good trade if it weren't for the fact that price just touched a weekly resistence level right when I was about to go long (really obvious on second chart). I also used to go short in these situations even if there was no higher resistance level. Im making different trades to test different situations obviously but as I mentioned in last post, when I deviate from it, I make bad trades. If I shorted the profit wouln't have been huge but there would have been a decent profit. I think the time has come to review my journal in detail and come up with a system I can follow step by step.

 

[DrSafari]

Based on my own comments in previous post it is only logical I went short here:



Short S&P500

Net P/L +4.38 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2207.44
Close Rate 2203.06

Open Time 12/6/2016 2:59 PM
Close Time 12/6/2016 3:38 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 1m chart





Reason of closure: adjusted trailing stop loss got hit.

Comments
So yeah after my analysis of previous trade it was obvious I had to go short here. Price was moving sideways when I opened then touched the 2207.94 resistence and then plumeted down. I tightened the SL at the 2205.70 level but price went right through it. At the 2202.70 level price stopped going down and moved sideways where I got taken out rightfully so by my tight SL. Price begins to behave more and more according to my predefined S&R levels. Okay it went right through 2205.70 but that was a sign sellers were strong. You can't be right about the strongness of every S&R level but I see I am right most of the time and that is good enough. I feel like I am ready to take this to the next level, the only thing I have to avoid is doing the stupid trades which is why I need a system.

 

[DrSafari]

Preperation 07-12-2016




Long S&P500

Net P/L +0.88 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2208.06
Close Rate 2208.94

Open Time 12/7/2016 2:39 PM
Close Time 12/7/2016 3:25 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 1m chart





Reason of closure: Manually closed the position because near opening of US market and price seemed to go down.

Comments
Good trade. The only thing with these kind of trades is do you let it run through the opening of US market or do you just tighten SL and let it run or do you close? This time I chose close, last time I let it run (because I already had enough profit that even with trailing SL I would still be in the green when being stopped out) with pretty big profit but that involves risking being stopped out due to volatility in which I was lucky last time cause there wasnt that much (in the wrong direction anyway). For this to survive the turmoil I had to use a trailing stop of 2.00 points or more. Or just use a fixed stop for the time being. I guess experience will show me what will be the favourable thing to do in the future. But most importantly the idea was good, if I can get some consistency in my trades I just need to put it into a system and use good money management and I'm good to go.

In theory if my idea is good price will go there eventually, just with temporarily more volatility so in theory a widening of the stop first hour after market opening is advisable (or close and take profit or avoid these things altogether to reduce risk ... it never is easy)

 

[DrSafari]

Price rallied to 2240.00 in the hours after I closed the position which would have meant a positive net of 32.00 points... roughly 32 times the risk I normally take. Ouch, if you can ride this one out you can afford yourself a looooong time without any winners lol. Ah well you cannot catch them all.



Preparation 08-12-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Long S&P500

Net P/L +0.14 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2240.06
Close Rate 2240.20

Open Time 12/8/2016 3:13 PM
Close Time 12/8/2016 3:24 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 1m chart





Reason of closure: Manually closed the position because near opening of US market.

Comments
Looked like an uptrend had established and that the retracement down ended. Also the 2138.18 level looked to have become support so I thought going long was a good probability of success, eventhough I didn't have much time until US market opened. I closed with very small profit because it failed to make a higher high and US market was about to open.

 

[DrSafari]

Long S&P500

Net P/L +0.64 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2237.43
Close Rate 2238.07

Open Time 12/8/2016 4:13 PM
Close Time 12/8/2016 4:16 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 1.00 point

Entry and exit 1m chart





Reason of closure: Manually closed the position because I acted under the assumption that this was an upward retracement of a downtrend, in that case this would be the point to exit.


Comments
I thought it was a downtrend because it had breached support level by more than 1.00 point. It could also have bouned off of the 2138.18 level again so good exit point. Entry point was chosen by carefully watching the 1m chart and seeing that the down movement had ended. The orange lines indicate the trend upon I was acting. After I closed the position you can see price moves sideways for a while until it starts going up again. If I did not take trends in account this could have been a trade I took because it bounced off of support. In that case I would of course not have closed it where I did now. A lot of potential profit not taken

I am not ready for trends yet I think

 

[DrSafari]

Prepation 09-12-2016