Dear diary,

Another losing day of the week.
I thought I am going to write a chunk of stuffs to express my frustration, but after getting some sleep, I forget about what really made me so frustrated. 😆
(Remember, my ‘Two losess in row, walk away for good’ rule)

There was no problem with trade execution. Everything was done as planned. And I was stopped out as planned as well. Though the Rs are relatively small, it made me think of 2 possible improvements I can make to my trading.

• Though yesterday I mentioned the opening volume analysis suggested by John Carter, I have yet to add it into my ‘must do’ list. And, again, it seemed to be proving itself yesterday. From the chart available to me, the first 6 bars in 5-min charts were trading below 10,000 contracts. I would be watching it closely for another week.
• Instead of trading E-mini S&P(ES) and mini-sized Dow (YM) at the same time, I will be trading only one of them with bigger position size.This is not an improvement of the system, I am just seeking a easier way to manage my trades. Most of time, if not everytime, ES and YM are moving in a highly similar fashion.

So far, dummy trading yields positive expectancy and profit for me. However, I am looking for another or couple of setups to fill my trading tool box. Is it possible to make a living by trading only one setup? I know the answer, do you?

To keep track of the effectiveness of my stop loss, I decided to record down the market direction at the end of the day after I got stopped out.

E-mini S&P : Long stopped, market down. Correctly stopped.
Mini-sized Dow: Long stopped, market down. Correctly stoped

Dear diary,

It was a slow and quiet Monday. Before I started the day, I was reading John Carter’s book. His point on opening volume of E-mini S&P(ES) caught my attention.

If the first six bars on a five-minutes ES chart have most of the volume at or well under 10,000 contracts, expect a choppy, tight range session.
If the first six bars on a five-minute ES chart have most of the volume at or well above 10,000 contracts, expect a more volatile session with better trends

I think this is a pretty good idea. I use it as part of market tone determination for day trading E-mini S&P(ES) and Dow mini(YM) during cash market opening hour. That was what happened today. Other than the very first candle, the following 5 candles of E-mini S&P were trading below 10,000 contracts. And in fact, the broad market was rather quiet (partly because there was no fresh lead, no economic report). I ignored any possibility of trading E-mini S&P and Dow mini for the day even though there were a couple of dummy set ups. (I was right in this case).

Instead, I was looking at E-mini Nasdaq. ( Until this point, I am thinking, if market opening volume analysis of S&P shows a choppy, tight range session, can Nasdaq escape from this market sentiment and dancing in its own pace?) I got a short position.

That were a little of discipline and psychological plays. E-mini Nasdaq was indeed, moving in my favour after short position was established. And it poised to reach my 1-R break even point. It did not. To be frank to myself, I was really tempted to close the position when it was moving back around my entry point. It was the temptation and that’s all. I left it alone and sticked to the rule, let the market stop me out (And I got stopped out, Darn)

First trading day of the week, I am down with 1-R. No big deal, at least, I stick to the rule. The challege here is market tone determination. More works need to be done.

Ok, I just talked too much.