Thursday 04/30/09 - Caught up in the DOM

I'm still waiting for that one day when I'll have no distractions or technical problems throughout the trading day, and I'll be able to focus on just the market. I got up pretty early this morning to head to the condo (as mentioned in yesterday's post), and a few minutes after I left, I got a call from my contractor saying he will need to reschedule due to weather (did I mention how glad I am to NOT be in the construction business). I was actually glad since I could now spend the day trading. I was at the screens at 8:15 AM, and started placing trades around 8:40 AM. Unfortunately, TradeStation started having problems right from the open. Charts froze for a few minutes at the open. Then later on, I lost my tick-bar charts altogether. After that, the NYSE TICK data froze up. Then I lost data on XLF, the financial ETF. In the middle of all this, I received 7-8 phone calls regarding a property I'm selling, which is a good thing for the property sale, but a huge distraction for trading. So basically just problem after problem, and an extremely frustrating day. I was trading just off the 1 and 3 minute charts, and was up +$187.50 in the morning; missed a lot of trades, and took some bad ones since I didn't have the 610 tick chart, which is my primary execution chart. I kicked up the size a bit in the PM session and began trading 1-3 contracts. Ended the day up +$1,100 but I'm not really counting it since it wasn't on my typical 1-lot trade size. For the record, I hate trading 1-lots but I have to prove I can be profitable on 1 contract before I increase size (have traded up to 12 contracts in my real $ account in the past, but want to "earn" the size this time around).

As the title suggests, I lost discipline and got caught up in the action on the DOM (depth of market), and began scalping for quick 1-2 pt profits; at times just 2-3 ticks of profits. Perhaps this was because my charts were barely functioning today, or maybe I just got caught up in price moving so quickly on the price ladder (Infinity's platform is super fast!), and started going for quick momentum trades. I don't know. Whatever the reason, it's not how I normally trade, and despite the gain today, I would grade my trading as a "C-" since I didn't stick to my plan in the afternoon, cut too many winners short, and scalped way too much (40+ trades today).

As of now, looks like I'll be at the condo tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM, unless it rains again, so no trading for tomorrow. A one-day break is probably a good thing on this end.

ES/$TICK (3-Min) - Negative $TICK divergence into the push up to 885.75. Gap filled by 12:14 PM (central).

Wed. 04/29/09 - Bullishness Continues

I'm having some work done at my condo in downtown Chicago and was busy meeting with contractors most of the day (thank God I'm not in the construction business). But from the looks of it, I didn't really miss much.

Market rally on bad or mediocre news is indicative of a bull (or at least bullish) market. Everyone is looking for a retrace; no, wishing and praying for a retrace, and it hasn't materialized yet. I've looked over several time-frame charts (15-min, 60-min, 240-min, and Daily) and they're all bullish. I'm not saying I won't short, but I will be cautious on the short side. This market is not letting up and the more bears that pile in on the short side, the stronger the next leg up will be. At the rate this market is moving, breaking above 900 shouldn't take a lot of effort. We've developed substantial support in the 830 area, and now in the 850 area. A pullback to 850 is within reason. My only concern at this point is the weakness in NQ.

On this end, I won't be able to trade tomorrow either since I have to be at the condo at 8:30 AM sharp to get the contractor going on the work. Hopefully I can trade the afternoon session. Personal Income and Outlays at 7:30 AM (central), Jobless Claims at 7:30 AM (central), Chicago PMI at 8:45 AM (central) tomorrow.

I'll leave you with the Daily chart of the S&P Cash Index and the ES. Let me know your thoughts and/or market outlook for the coming days/weeks.

ES - Daily


$SPX.X - Daily


ES/$TICK (3-Min) - Negative $TICK divergence on the push up 879.25. Open gap at 851.25.

Tuesday 04/28/09 - Indecisive price action

I won't bore you with the excuses (although I have a few), bottom line is, I didn't adjust to the market's pace (or lack of), and got chopped. There just wasn't any follow through on the moves today; my trades would go 1-2 points in favor, but my targets were usually 3-4 points and I would try to be patient and hold out for target, and instead get hit with a loss since price would reverse hard! I had 25 trades today (32% win rate) with 3 Longs (all losers), and 22 shorts (36% win rate) and ended the day with a net loss of -$310 ($157.20 lost on the 3 Longs, and $152.80 lost on 22 shorts). At least I kept it tight. I made several mistakes. First mistake was trading while I was mentally frustrated and physically occupied with non-market related issues, and not "in the zone". Second, I got sucked into trading the afternoon range-bound chop, and reversed my position several times which resulted in several small losses. I should have just waited it out, but I really thought the market was going to drop to at least the 851 area, and wanted to be positioned short into the drop. After I was down over $300, I decided to call it quits, and of course we got the break-down in ES right after I quit for the day (so frustrating!). And that brings me to an important question: Should I impose a loss-limit while I'm on the Sim? I would definitely have a loss limit on the real $ account, and it makes sense to treat the Sim trading as close to real $ trading as I possibly can. But on the other hand, I miss out on additional screen/trade time if I quit early in the day. Post your thoughts in the comments.

An update on my friend; he netted +$55 or so today after commission. Not bad at all considering the price action.

GDP at 7:30 AM (central) and FOMC Meeting Announcement at 1:15 PM (central) tomorrow.

ES 233-Tick Bar Chart (Morning Trades)


ES 233-Tick Bar Chart (Afternoon Trades)


ES/$TICK (3-Min) - TICK MAs were hovering around the zero-line most of the day; indicative of the indecisive market action today. We got the gap-fill at 9:42 AM (central)

Monday 04/27/09 - One for the bears

I used the Infinity AT platform for my trades today so I won't be posting the usual TradeStation trade execution chart. I manually marked some of the morning trades, and will post that chart below. The net gain on the day was +$300, mostly due to a Long entry at 858 off a pullback, which netted +5 points. I was trading 1 to 2 contracts today; although majority of the trades were with a 1-lot. The net gain would have been higher but I tried trading the open, and lost some money during that time period. I was long at 851.50 right off the open, but was too quick to move my stop-loss to break-even! I'm not used to trading the open and need to adjust my risk management to handle the volatility during the opening range. Of course I always have the option to just sit out during that time, but some of the best entries over the past few days have been very close to the open. Plus, I was expecting gap-fill, so wanted to enter Long at the best available price. I also had limited screen time since I was on the phone with recruiters, etc. Here's a 610 tick bar chart showing a few of the morning trades; there were a couple of losers during the opening range which aren't marked on the chart.



My friend who's learning how to trade the ES, ended the day with a net gain of +$350, and his trades were all based on the simple price action method I taught him last week. I'll keep you guys posted on his progress over the coming days/weeks.

Redbook out at 7:55 AM (central) and Consumer Confidence at 9:00 AM (central) tomorrow morning. I'll probably sit out the first hour. Trend is down at the moment; lets see if tomorrow's data can shake things up :-)


ES/$TICK (3-Min) - Came within 3 ticks of gap-fill; close enough to be considered filled.

Friday 04/24/09 - Be aware of Market Moving News

Started a bit late on Friday morning due to the economic data being released in the morning. It's safer to let the market digest the data, and then enter trades based on some fresh support/resistance levels. I essentially had two trading ideas/sequences on Friday. The first trade was entering Long at the 857 area with an expected initial target of 860.75. That worked out OK for me and then I sat on my hands for the next move. The next area in-play was 860-865.25. My plan was to short a break of 860 (I had a sell stop order in at 859.75) or to buy a break-out of 865.25 with a 3-4 point target in either scenario. I was aware that some "stress-test" related news was going to be out at 1:00 PM (central), and based on price action (trend was up), I was long at 861 with a reversal-stop at 859.75. Seemed like a safe play at the time. Once the news came out, I got stopped out of my Long position, and entered into a Short position, but the move came in so fats & furious, that my short position got stopped out for a 2 point loss on that swing up. I entered long again expecting the up-side to continue since we were in an up-trend prior to the news. But, I got stopped out yet again, so I again, entered short around 860 and exited around 855 (853 was a support level). I ended my trading day there at 1:15 PM (central) with a net gain of +$425.10 with a win rate of 38.4% and an average profit factor of 1.64 (the profit factor on my short trades was 8.85!). I could have certainly handled the situation better by NOT entering Long simply because price reversed after that break of 860. That would have saved me a few hundred in losses. The better play would have been to remain flat into the news, and then enter short on break of 860 with a tight stop or enter long on a break-out of 865.25. Lesson learned! Here's a snapshot of my 610 Tick bar chart from Friday. It should give you an idea of what I look for, and how I read price action:



Looking at this past week's results in TradeStation, my net gain on the week was +$897.40 with a win rate of 39% and an average profit factor of 1.53. This number doesn't include the gains from Tuesday, when I was experiencing technical problems with TradeStation (caused unnecessary losses), and used the Infinity AT trading platform. If I count those trades, the weekly gain would probably be around +$1,600.

Going forward, I'll be looking at 868.75, 872, 878 and 883 as possible areas of resistance. I'll be looking at 860, 850, 848.75 (OPEN GAP) and 833 as areas of support. Hoping for continued upside action!

On to the regular charts...

ES/$TICK (3-Min) - Open Gap at 848.75 Below


ES 15-Minute - Price above 34 and 200 EMA. 850 level held support.