Jan 2011 stats

yep thats an ugly start

1-31

-FLAT

AHH!! cant seem to get out of my own way.  Wasn't on screen much in the morning.  Had to prep the house for a major winter storm on the way.  The afternoon was slow but i was able to get a read.  At the time the NQ look like the best R:R but once in it i got shook out.  

1-28 review

The Market finally gave up some to bears as the bulls ran out of steam  at the highs.  For the market to recover from 2008 the way it has done still leaves me in shock.  This past week the market traded in a tight range and I got pushed around .  Of course I would pick the worst market conditions to go live in, but hey I’ve done this before.  Last  September –October of 2010 I went live and entered the market when the S&P testing 1200 and considered extended.  Market traded tight sideways with jerky intra-day price action and I got ate up and spit out.  After days of review and picking myself back off  the floor I realized I learned a lot about the condition the market was in and excepted the outcome and if it happened again I would maybe understand better.  Well just a few months later  we here were at 1300 level and I’m stuck almost at the same situation.  Going live and the market is crappy dead at the next major level.   Learning from my mistakes in Sept-Oct 2010  I review notes and tried more zone level buying vs  continuations  this time.  Nice try but no cigar.  This market left little room to make up for mistakes and I for sure made some.  My reads were good this week  but timing was off hitting these levels.    I ended down 300 with commissions for the week .  I felt that was a good stopping point as the market just didn’t seem to agree with my ideas J so who would have thought today would have been any different?  Although I wasn’t profitable this week I do feel good about the way I was executing.  I fired off 12 trades for the week which is  a good start for me.  This shows my skin getting more thick. Keep pushing forward

Two charts of the ES overview of market conditions  at major levels for when the next we get here even if it’s a 100 years from now I’ll have notes.  The first chart shows the market at both major levels on a daily chart with the major trend.  The second chart shows the this weeks sideways range.

1-27

-90

misse the clean up trade. Oh the pain

1-26

-77.5 on 3 trades.  2 6b and 1 YM. ( FOMC day no change) .  Trying to trade the 6B today was like trying to catch a rabbit.  Almost had it penned but the little b*stard bit me and got away.

1-25

- 95

while the GPB slopped around the YM was playing hard to get.  It was far from a perfect day. Pre FOMC  day so kind of expected.  I tried to fight back but couldnt time the move on the YM  afternoon move

1-24

+

Positive results .  Take what you can get kind of day

1-21 trades

+

Up a few ticks today on the YM.

Some live execution today to end the week.  I would have like to had more live trades but I didn’t have that good of a read on the market.  I was able to fire off a few live trades and it felt good to be productive again.

1-20 trades

+

Little green today. I got sloppy on my read and some levels  were trading not so clear to me.  Charts are cleaned up for simple future review.  

1-19 trades

 -

Down 20 ticks on 2 trades.  YM got messy as everything else was selling off .  

1/18 trades

flat

I had an up bias up for the day but realized  that a correction was starting to take place.  Only the short side was setting up but didn’t want to trade against my analysis.  I was slow to catch on to the hints the market was giving me.  No trades were made

1-13 trades

+

Positive on the day.  Didn’t get into too much trouble working longs in the stretched 6B. I’ve might have been asking for too much  at this level. 

1-12 trades

+

1-11 trades....(hacks)

                                                             +before comm / - after comm

+3  ticks (before comm)  Had to fight my way all day long.   Im working on my  zone trading when I have ..(or think I have) a good read.  When it works its beautiful but most of the time my chart end up looking like a mess like today.  I kept telling myself it’s the trade I don’t hit that ends up working so I stayed with the plan and kept hacking at it. 

1-7 trades

                                                                   +
FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS.   Positive day.  I missed most of the premium entries on the 6B but was able to get in the YM price action.  I had a busy day off and on screen  today so I had to make the best of the time I had. 

I took some time to write detailed notes on a higher time frame using candle stick chart of my analysis.

1-6 trades

                                                                                 flat

1-5 trades

+

Both trades today were interesting choices.  I guess my read was good or these trades wouldn’t have worked out.  Felt more like instincts played a big part in today’s trades. Funny how you can almost smell a probe a mile away

1/5

Starting to get back to work.  I'm watching price action with a focused state of mind locating key levels and mentally preparing for trading. I'm looking forward to 2011 trading.   I plan to apply more focus, discipline and better lifestyle habits to improve my trading.  “Keep moving forward” will be my motivation for 2011.  My pre/post trading skills will improve allowing better prep and review time needed.  I will work on using short term memory like professional athletes use to control emotional highs and lows.  I will make time weekly for education and review quality trading material.  I took about 2 weeks off from the screen. It was the first time I’ve taken that kind of time off.  I really enjoyed it and it was well overdue.  I feel great and refreshed and the family was able to bond during the time off.  I will take more time off screen to refresh my mind and stop to smell the roses.