TraderGav.com

Gav's trading blog - Perseverance, Consistency, Confidence

Gav

Postmortem 17-August-2006

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Ok, Let’s get straight forward (Again?!?). I did not make any money today. But, neither did I lose a penny. Enough of BS. I did not make any trade today. Reason? Well, I was physically tired., and secondly I did not have any good dummy set up and good feeling across the market. In the morning, Nasdaq just kept running without me (it basically meant I did not have entry point at all). All right, it got the punishment it deserved in the afternoon, ended the rally and retraced gave back some early gain . I called it a day after 1130am NY time to catch some sleep.

This is not an easy week, for me.

We continued our discussion on profit taking. And Mike posted his reply to Vince on partial profit taking here. Jason did some recaps of his recent performance as well. Traders might find something familiar…

Blogging using Performancing for FireFox

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Yup, I switched again. No, not trading, I mean blogging tools. After introduced by Trader Eyal, I have a look at Performancing for FireFox. Let’s try some Foxy style of blogging.
Well, first impression. Performancing is lighter and faster. It basically means it is faster to load the editor. I am not sure why did Windows Live take me so long to load.

But something is missing here…I can’t find smiley faces. 🙁  Or maybe I just missed out some setting? Leave a comment to me if your know the trick. Please… 🙂

Anyway, it is still a great tool to blog. It integrated Performancing metrics at the sidebar. So you can immediately view yoru visitors statistics.

Here is a snapshot of Performancing for Firefox. (I am still trying to figure how to configure in order to upload my image to my server…)
[photopress:perfomancing.jpg,full,centered]

In short, impressive blogging tool. 🙂

Postmortem 16-August-2006

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Let?s get it straight forward. I earned some money today. But, the problem is, according to plan, I should have earned more. Instead of closing the day with 3.5-R profit, I should have closed it with 5-R or maybe a little bit more.

Dow mini trade was the mistake of the day. I again closed the trade prematurely due to my psychological weakness. In fact, I did plan the trade before that, however, I decided to chicken out again, forgetting the darn rules.

Well, on the hindsight, I did see the improvement after when I start to work the plan, follow the rules and let the profit run. E-mini Nasdaq trade went pretty well with 3-R gain. My main problem now is EXIT. I have no problem with my stop loss execution. However, when it comes to exit a profitable trade, I do not have a concrete plan yet.

I had some discussion with Vincent on the topic of profit taking. We review some strategies used by bloggers like Mike and Maoxian. Maoxian was right by saying that

?in the end, everyone is different. i might be comfortable walking away from the screens and do OK and someone else finds they do best by never missing a tick … you have to know yourself, figure out what makes you tick.?

No single strategy is perfect, it comes down to trader?s personality and his/her ?Needs? of profit. Here are some links I have found related to this topic.

Taylor tree?s Scale Fish Not trade Part I
Taylor tree’s Scale Fish Not trade Part II

Trader Mike?s Note to self: Look to sell half

Dummy day trading #15 16-August-2006:E-mini Nasdaq:Long trade closed

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This is the result of let your profit run. Long position of E-mini Nasdaq was established above 9am (chicago time) candle. After closed Dow Mini position prematurely, I have decided to let E-mini Nasdaq position run. Indeed, it was a good decision. Trade closed with nice 3-R gain. I was just too tired at this point of time (mind you , it was 3am in Singapore Zzzzz).
Finally, I am turning black for this week.

This is 30-min chart of E-mini Nasdaq

16 August 2006
16 August 2006

Dummy day trading #14 16-August-2006:Dow Mini:Long trade closed

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It was another bullish day, and it was indeed a repeat of tuesday’s session. S&P, Dow Mini as well as Nasdaq were having nice dummy set up. Long position of Dow mini was established above 9am(chicago time) candle. It was a very slow trade. Position was closed at 11309, and I have left E-mini Nasdaq position to run instead.That was a wrong exit of Dow. It continued to move up after that. My problem is on Exit a trade (in profit taking way).

[photopress:mini_dow_30_min_trade_close.JPG,full,pp_image]

Here is part of the conversation with my trading buddy Vincent when discussing my problem. I have found it very useful.

do your planning in off hour trading not during trading -” plan the trade and then trade the plan”- if you can’t then you need to do one of 2 things or both – paper trade to give you more confidence so you really believe and therefore will stick to it or work on your discipline by using imagery of how you will trade in all situations or WRITE DOWN your stop and then ask yourself how do I answer to this if I override my stop and if I am wrong in overriding my stop

One trade close with 0.49R gain.