recap november 24th to 28th

-6.55 R is the result for this week. After a mixed start into the week i made so unbeliveable stupid mistakes, i still cant belive it. On thuesday i disregarded every single rule i´ve set.
Sounds unbeliveable, but its true. 3 of 4 trading days ended up positive and the one
negative day kicked my ass ending up with my first negative week since i started trading my motto TRADE THE RULES.

This is the result when not following my motto and it has to be a learning experience.

For the upcomming week i do not only plan to TRADE THE RULES. I WILL TRADE THE RULES.
I´ve put some more time to tighten the rules up to make it cristal clear when a trade is with the rules and when not. when its not with the rules i count it as crap, even when such a trade ends up positive.

My first mile stone is more far away then last week and i do not plan to archive my first mile stone in the comming week. I think i focused to much on reaching my goal and this brought me to this uncomfortable situation.

Stay tuned for some more postings next week.

recap november 17th to 21st

wow, what an exciting week. I went through ups and downs during the last week.
I had days, where i traded concentrated focusing on TRADE THE RULES and had 2 special days that where someting to point out here.

On thursday i had my worst day since i´ve started trading my motto TRADE THE RULES.
Not regarding the result of that day, no, much more regarding how bad i was trading my motto.
After 60 minutes trading on thursday, i was confrontated to a absolute new situation.
I made about 25R in this short period of time and probably thought, that i could keep up this pace and reaching my first mile stone on that day. But the greed to make everything possible on one day, led me into a verry destructive mental attitude. Dont get me wrong, my attitude was verry good before the problems began, but the more mistakes i made, the more i lost control.

What happened ? One of my most important rules is to stop trading after losing 3R from the highest point of the day to prevent me to fall into a destructive mental attitude. I was unable to control myself after losing 3R from the top and the negativity began. I fell back into a old known problem, that i tend to overtrade the more i give back. I also didnt follow my other money protection rules that i´ve set. So i traded after the first 2.5 hours of trading, i traded setups who wherent valid and i could count them more and more. What a bad experience this was ! Man !!! I allways said to myself, this will be the last trade, but it would have to work and it didnt. After beeing down to less then the half profit that i had 60 minutes after market open i managed it, after some other trades and the profitable trade i was looking for, to stop trading for the day.

I´m proud of me, that i magaged it to keep about 15R in my account and i´m reconfirmed in my intention to TRADE THE RULES then it makes absolute sence to use them for what they are for !!! Rules prevent myself for making decitions without a good reason, without the possibility to proof the success of what i do. Clear defined rules make it easy to see in every chart if it worked or not. Rules make it possible to draw every line you have to, they make it possible, that you can prepare yourself entering the trade. RULES HAVE A REASON, so I TRADE THE RULES.

On friday i´ve got an additional confirmation for my motto. I made 6 trades only, had 4 small losers and 2 good winners. Maybe not everything was 100% perfect, but the first time i was able to patiently wait until the investment paid out itself before taking the profits. Yesss, it was a verry good feeling. And thats an another why, for following my motto also in the future: TRADE THE RULES !!!

I´m comming closer and closer to my first milestone. I´m so unbeliveable close...

Have a nice weekend and remember, TRADE THE RULES !

recap november 10th to 14th

This week brought new situations, new market conditions and some interesting trades.
I´m working on following my rules more and more. And it turns out, that as closer as
i trade the rules like i´ve set them, the more patient i can trade.
Thats because i know what i´m looking for, i wait for it to happen and when i see,
that my entry signal is comming, i have time to be in the first row when the things going to start.

Yes, i made mistakes again this week and i´m learning from them and they confirm me in what i am thinking about TRADE THE RULES.

Its not the number of trades that count. With hundreds of trades a day, you make your broker lucky, but not implicity yourself. 2 weeks is not a great sample rate, but i feel myself in a much better position than ever before. And i have the feeling, as more succesful i am and the more patiently i trade the better the results are. I´m not as cools as ice, i still get a faster heart beat when entering and maintaning a trade and sometimes my hands get cold too. But like i´ve said, its better than ever before and i enjoy it. I´ll stay at my current R-definiton and i´m not going to higher my R-value yet.

My first milestone is comes into a reachable distance. It is my competition, to reach this milestone until the end of this month. When i´m achive this goal, then i´m going to make a more detailed recap of my situation and of the things i´m learned on my way.

Right now i enjoy trading and like the way it goes.
I´m looking foreward to come closer and closer to my first milestone by next week.
Lets find out, what next week is possible, when i TRADE THE RULES.

results 2008 11 13

new rekord !

the blogging and intensive logging and tracking seems to pay itself out.
I still made mistakes again today. I have to further work on that, i have realy hard to work on that. my main problems are the sometimes to early entrys without a good reason to enter and on the other hand the taketheprofitstofast problem. However, right now my winning trades are bigger then my losing trades and my winrate is also higher. this gives me the profits for the day. but it could be much more better when i would TRADE THE RULES more properly. My intention is not to get more greedy, its more that i like to do what my rules allow me to do.
Yesterday and today i was close to get stopped out for the day, because i was close to lose 3R from the highest point of the day. happily it didnt happen, but it shows clearly on what edge i´m surfing while not 100% TRADING THE RULES. My plan for tomorrow is to follow and TRADING THE RULES better and to learn from the results i get this way.

results 2008/11/12

Again i made some mistakes that shouldt have had to be.
I have to work on my time frame switches as well as on
my trailstop patience.
For tomorrow i plan to trade in a better way.

results 2008 11 11

Today was the best day since i started my blog.
The bad thing here is that i made to many trades. 26 is just to much.
Sadly some of them where not with the rules again.
I realy have to work harder on that.
I have to follow the rules more exactly.

Positiv today:
i traded only 1.5 hours,
i didnt lose to much control, sadly a little bit right in the middle, but i managed it to turn around again befor i lost 3R from the highest point of my todays profit.
I allways used stops and never lost more then about 1R when a trade was a loss.

Negative:
I traded to long out of the 1 minute time frame, when i allready should have switched to a higher time frame.
I took profits to fast while they could have been more using the desired trailstrategie.

My plan for tomorrow is, to make it better then today.
TRADE THE RULES

results 2008 11 10

wow, today was realy something else.
I havent experienced such a slow open in the last days.
I thought my trading platform stands still but it wasnt.
Today i came across a new challange.
The new challange is to sit on hands when nothing to trade is available.
I have my rules and i have to trade my rules.
Today i came in temptation and made 10 trades, which where partly with the complete
rule settings but NOT ONE was 100% with the rules.
The bad point is, that 10 out of 10 where not 100% with the rules,
the good point is, that i was able to manage to end the trading day
1.5 hours after the open with a small profit. +0.155R is the result for the day.
My plan for tomorrow is, not to trade when there is nothing to trade ;-9
So the master plan is to TRADE THE RULES !

results and summary 2008 11 07

+5.41R with 15 Trades in 9 different stocks.
Today i made a few mistakes that shouldnt have been made.
They where not extreme, but the motto is to TRADE the RULES.
So i still have to work on that.

Starting the documentation was a good idea since i can review things
i made and things i didnt. As far as i can remember, this week was the first
week in my current day trading career, wher i had not uncontrolled trading day.
Thursday was a little tricky, because i was trading to much. However, also on that day
i kept control and stopped trading before it gets worse. Maybe this sounds specious,
but in the past this was one of my biggest problems -> Trading to much and much more
in times where the reasons for stopping increased.
So i´m pround of me for doing that good job this week.

On the weekend i´ll spend more time to develop the more exact rules for my entrys and exits.
Some of my rules will definitely persist.
I´ll trade in only ONE direction and right now it is the short side.
I´ll trade in R, so my maximal loss is allways limited to 1R.
I´ll only trade a manageable amount of strategies.
I´ll stop trading after the first 150 minutes of the trading day.
I´ll only make a manageable amount of trades.
I´ll stick to the idea to create a log file every day and make charts for each traded stock.
I´ll trade the rules and going to make consistent money.

However, there are some other things i´ll may have to modify.
I´ll use the weekend to get further on this belongings.

To summarize the week, i´m happy that i´ve started this blog and i´m happy
with the results of this week.

results 2008 11 06

I´m getting closer and closer to the finalisation of the exact strategie boundaries but today trading action was definitelly the worst of this week. I overtraded and made 29 trades in 7 different stocks. This sucks and i´m not there yet where i plan to be. The good news is, that i was never below -3R today so i had no reason to stop before. But i made more then 12 Trades, this realy sucks.

One thing i´ve seen today again, was that i will have to change my point of view regarding the risk reward ratio. while the calculation in R is definitely the way to go, the RRR can be most time better then 1:1, even bettern then 1:2.
I´m not sure yet, if i should use a fix initial target or if i shouldt lower my risk in a 2way action.
One way could be to set the stop in the beginning, trail until b/e and let it run the rest of the time, or trail the risk stop in the same way but taking profits from a lower time frame in case the stock is reversing a litte and preparing to get a new and better entry again.

My plan for tomorrow is to trade the rules and to let profit run more and more when its offered.

results 2008 11 05

I mostly followed the rules.
I made 9 Trades today with 6 different stocks.
I still have to work on my own tendencies to do things outside the rules,
but i´m on a good way. I will review my charts tomorrow morning to
make some more deeper research on what the similarities are of the verry successfull trades
and how they differ from the rest. Maybe this will help to categorize further.

results 2008 11 04

Todays results show how bad a day can end, when not clearly following the rules.
I made 19 trades instead of max. 12
The good thing. I was able to stop trading after that.

Tomorrow will be another, a better, day.

results 2008/11/03

Today was my first trading day.
I made 9 trades with 7 different stocks.

Some of the trades where something like in the grey zone.
My plan for tomorrow is to trade the rules even more exacting.
Only this way i can make a clear statement if the 2 strategies
are giving me my expectation or not. But i´m conviced
that i can archive my daily profits with them.

something about "R" and "RRR"

Lets talk a littel bit about "R" and the "RRR".

R:
When i say, that my maximum risk in each trade and the initial target are 1R then it means the following:
Behind 1R is a free to definie amount of money. It absolutely doesnt matter what the price of each stock is and how far (which is relative) the stop is away, because my position size is calculated in a reverse way. I dont trade a fix postion size in each trade, i more over handle it in a flexible way. So when i have a stop 20 cents away and i am willing to define 1R as 20 USD, then i trade 100 shares at this time. But when the stop is 40 cents away, then i risk the same USD amount (20 USD) and the position size is 50 shares.

RRR:
The risk reward ratio shows the relation between the money i risk compared to the money i like to get rewarded. In the beginning of each trade, my RRR is 1:1. Normaly this means that my chances of winning are the same as my chances of losing this trade. But due to my way of trailing the stop over time, my risk gets smaller while my target keeps the same.


PS:
Usualy, after the first finished candle onto the entry in the respective time frame, my RRR is allready 1:2. This together whith my selections should put me in a comfortable situation.
Nonetheless i keep an close eye on a possible initial RRR improvement.

the 2 strategies *manage* and *exit*

I allready explained how i get into the trade.
So here is how i manage and exit the trade.

After getting into the trade i manage my position and trail my stop in an absolute simple way above every of the following candles in the respective time frame.

My initial risk (1R) is the same as my fixed target (1R).
While managing my position i reduce my initial risk while
my fixed target is comming closer and closer.
Once the price reached my fixed target, i´m out of the trade.

best case: the trade goes in my direction without looking back and gives me 1R.
2nd best case: the trade takes more time then expected, i´m able to reduce my risk with each new candle at get the stop lower then my initial risk was. this way i reduced my risk reward ratio over time.
worst case: after getting into the trade i get immediately stopped out and lose 1R.

the 2 strategies * entry *

Like i allready said, i like to KISS.
So lets Keep It Short and Simple.

Strategie one is based on the 15 minute chart.
I need a lower low followed by a lower high.
The break of the lower high´s low in the 15 minute time frame is mine.

Strategie two is trading the 5 Minute chart.
I need a lower low followed by a lower high.
The break of the lower high´s low in the 5 minute time frame is mine.

Beside a "normal" lower high i also trade a lower high in form of an NRIB, which body is outside of the body of the previous candle. So in my case both candles have to be red. The break of its low is mine.