Wishing Us A Successful Trading Week Ahead & May We Have Green Grass & High Tides Forever

Market Internals - Add to Your Arsenal

This chart is a partial screen shot of the market internals I watch during the day. The $TRIN and VIX, Advancer/Decliner lines and Up/Down volume lines are considered by many to be a few of the most important indicators to monitor. I'll add more of my internals later.

TSS Subscription Option and More

For those who are tuning in regularly to my trade journal, I have enabled subscription capability. You can choose a more automated mode of delivery that is more convenient to you rather than manually visiting my blog. Opt in or opt out...your choice.

I'm taking a few hours this weekend to look at adding some enhancements to my blog that might bring added value to me as well as anyone who is peeking into my trading log.
I'm considering adding occasional charts, website links, video's, etc. that will help me organize certain chart patterns/set-ups, learning resources and inspirational tidbits.

Trade Well !

Friday Log – Being Schizophrenic for Fun & Profit

Trading both accounts, live and sim is an experiment I’m testing. It’s the tale of “two” traders. The “Schizo’s” are Trader Steve and the ES_Addict. In an attempt to get in touch and develop my intuitive side of trading, I’m going to do some simultaneous trades with the live account and sim account. Entries might be the same, stops and targets are expected to be different.

Began the day with a decent plan. Enter short from the pre-market high edge near 14-15’s (R2) and look middle fill of ½ gap at 12’s and final target of ½ gap fill in 09’s. Put on trades in both accounts with one variation. Both had similar targets and stops with the exception of the live account using “intuitive” stop with additional buy limit at 15’s incase of B/O. Adjusted stops once initial target hit to BE on sim and 13’s on live as I began seeing weakness for more downside (eco report influence). Getting close to the 1000 eco report so was playing conservative with ½ position on reversal side. I had reversal target at 17’s using overshoot of YTD HH expecting possibility of Boyz to inflict stop run. The report came out and price ran upward hard. The runner on the reversal would have been a sweet finish but can’t complain too much with the live and sim sequence. Result: Sim +2.5 / Live + 6.5

So as I get in touch with the intuitive side of trading, the schizophrenic tale of two traders should be interesting. We’ll see how it pans out over the next several days.
It should be a fun and interesting psychotic ride to help act on intuition and build my profit base. Ahh, what a journey it is.

That’s it for the day. Traded the first hour on this expiry Friday and that’s all she wrote. Other than a sim trade on for a scalp, no over trading for this trader.

Relax and enjoy the weekend.

Trade Well !

Thursday Log - Beat the Heat

Today began with a live trade once the CO set up shortly after market open. Went long once price went above yesterday close. Seeing no real resistance until the confluence of overnight & weekly highs and R1 in the 1003-1005 area, I had targets set for 00.75 (MP level) and 02’s with my stop 2 pts lower than entry near angel. I wanted to be out with most of the trade before the 1000 eco reports influenced volatility and price. Overall, a fairly good trade. I “felt” the market, did not try for too much and got what I planned without taking heat. Result: 5.0+

Late in the afternoon I took one live and one sim trade during the chop and slop of low volume summer trading. Basically, it was the same entry with 05’s BO stop limit entry but with different stops. Live trade I tightened stop too quickly and stopped out. Sim trade I did what “I felt” was a more “logical” level and hit 1st target of 07’s. Balance was BE and ended up closing the trade. Result: +5.0

I was chatting with a fellow EWS member yesterday and we briefly discussed trade management and stops. How many times do we put on a trade, set our stops, price triggers our stop by 1-2 ticks and then turns and does what we anticipated but without us onboard?! “No, that never happens to me”. Ya, right.

Well, there are a couple of things to consider. The pros know where the “obvious” stops are and they target those levels to run stops. The key is not to think like the crowd. Rather than have stops, target the stop areas as an entry zone area. Easier said than done, I know. But that is part of re-wiring our thought process. Too many times we either want instant results, we’re afraid we will miss a trade, stops are too tight, etc. The pros know and it’s our job to get in the know as well.

As yesterday’s trading tip mentioned, trade the edges. By trading the edges we hone our entry/exit skills, will more often find ourselves running with the pros and not the herd, develop trading confidence and we will truly learn to beat the heat with many our trades.

Trade Well !

Wednesday Log - The Edge

Trader Tip - When looking at a chart, look where the edges are. Fading these areas are high probability trades. Stops can be fairly tight and the opportunity to make 1-2+ points is likely. Identify "Your Edge". Trading the edges could be yours.

Wednesday was a mix of sim and live. Live did better than sim as I'm working on honing my intuition of market moves thru the sim. High probability trades I am working live. Played the pre-market on live from the 978's. Was only looking for a 1.5 on two C's and took it. Hindsight should have let one run but didn't.Result: +3.0
Sim was a slow start with opposite side of live account. Stopped out. Immediately reversed course and went long. Scalped around the rest of the day only in sim and ended positive albeit not by much. Result: +2.0

Trade Well !

Tuesday Log - Community Pathways

Played around with sim trades today. Started to apply more intuitive type trades into the mix but still unsure of how to listen to myself. I’m beginning to make notations on my chart that indicate whether I was considering the trade but failed to execute. After a few days of data I should have a starting point of how to listen to and act on my intuition. This is a large portion of EWS.

Another key part of any trading system is feeling the market rhythm. Today I felt it at certain points of the day. Entered three good trades, two long, one short and all winners. Scaled out of each long and took it all off with the short. These range days can be good for a trader but need to identify and scalp. Result: +12.00

Spent about an hour over lunch time with a member to help set up 2nd Twitter account for access to EWS member Tweets. Good progress made. Seems to be a bit difficult to “find” members partly due to privacy feature. Once linked, the member Tweets seem to be working.

There were very good posts today from members. Very instructive and helpful. The community is coming together and building up nicely. I believe that support and encouragement within the EWS community is very important. The learning process is a journey and those that have ventured down different paths can offer others good directions to help them find their destination. Keep wearing down the paths until the favored route is second nature.

Trade Well !

Monday Log - Right Tool for the Job

Last week I worked on my planning strategy as well as adjusted my EWS ss planning tool. I cleaned up the comment areas which explain what the numbers are for in that particular cell and where the numbers come from. I've also worked off a fellow members' lead in linking common cells with one entry (thx JK). In addition, I've created a front end "Command Center" worksheet which only displays ss information that I deem critical as we move thru the trading day. This 'CC' will provide me with key info at a glance without having to move the cursor. I've also linked the vitals within CC to the rest of the ss making for more automation.

Put on a couple trades today sim). Mostly just feeling out the market. I missed all of the overnight move and scalped thru the day a couple times for a scratch. Most efforts today and majority of this week will be refining my planning tools and approach that I've developed this past week. Trying to keep it simple yet effective.

I'll be sharing the new ss with EWS members hopefully within a week or so once I know the cells are calculating properly. We need the right tool(s)for the job at hand. Hopefully I am getting my tool bag organized and primed for some serious trade construction in the coming days and weeks ahead.

Trade Well !