I did not trade today. Basically, I did not see anything interesting that can fit into my trading journal Q & A.
I will be away from home tomorrow to settle some personal stuffs, I guess I will end the week early and start trading after U.S Labor day.
by Gav 8 Comments
I was looking for a way to write my trading journal in a short and effective fashion. I revisited Maoxian’s trading for dummies again, and I studied the way he compiled the 90+ trading for dummies lesson.
I found that writing my trading journal in Q&A (Question and Answer) style is something I need to seriously consider. Sometimes, unintentionally, I cheated myself by not writing down my trading mistake. Or sometimes, I am just writing too much of something that is not worth to be mentioned in trading journal.
By forcing myself to answer a series of questions in trading journal will help to keep the journal clean and clear, at the same time, to remind myself about my own trading rules.
This is not new, I know few traders are doing this.
Here are the questions I quote from Maoxian’s Trading for dummies lessons.
1) Why would you be paying attention to this futures contract ?
2) Is the trend up or down? Would you be looking to get long or short this futures contract?
3) Where would you get long/short this futures contract ?
4) Where would you put the initial protective stop?
5) When would you stop trading for the day?
6) Where would you exit the position?
These 6 questions are effective in keeping me disciplined. If I am unable to answer these questions, something is really wrong with my trading.
(If one day, bloggers are able to claim and charge copyright of their postings, Maoxian will no longer need to trade. The copyright fee from dummies lessons should feed him very well 😆 )
This is the business we have chosen ~ The GodFather, the movie
Dear diary,
I am pretty selective on dummy setup. I do not want to get whipsawed during this pre holiday trading week. (Excuse to take a day off).
Ok, Maybe I was being a coward. I exited the trade early. There were few reasons that prompted me to cover short position of mini-sized Dow early.
Well, am I writing something to cover myself from breaking the rules? Maybe I am.(Anyway, this decision was right for this particular trade, market rallied back in the later session).
These are not rules of trade, but some judgement calls under certain conditions.
Another lousy day. Short position of mini-sized Dow was established below 10am(chicago time) candle. Dow mini did move in my favour and it was 2-ticks away from my 1-R break even point. AGAIN?!?!?! So near, yet so far….
I am especially cautious this week. After seeing position stalled for an hour and FOMC meeting is scheduled at 2pm, I decided to cover the position with tiny 0.15-R gain.
I am pretty good in making my broker happy huh?
Time for me to catch some sleep. Postmortem will be done later.
[photopress:mini_dow_30_min_trade_closed.JPG,full,centered]
by Gav
Dear diary,
This is gonna be a short one. Basically, I did not make any trade today. Monday blue? Definitely no. I was basically too tired with some symptoms of getting flu. The weather in Singapore is killing me.
Ok, Looking back the chart retrospectively, There were dummy setups in mini-Dow and E-mini Nasdaq at 1030am (chicago time). Though E-mini Nasdaq trade would most probably end up with break even. Mini-sized Dow would give a minimum 1-R gain.
I will be kinda inactive this week, due to some personal commitments. Some traders are taking a week off as well, Trader Mike is doing that. However, I will make sure myself come back with full strength in September.
Looking at next week’s economic calendar , we have a number of events coming up. However, I would be very cautious over the current thin volume situation of stock market.
Weekly
Economic Calendar
Date
ET
Release
For
Consensus
Prior
Aug 29
10:00
Consumer Confidence
Aug
103.7
106.5
Aug 29
14:00
FOMC Minutes
Aug 8
–
–
Aug 30
08:30
Chain Deflator-Prel.
Q2
3.3%
3.3%
Aug 30
08:30
GDP-Prel.
Q2
3.0%
2.5%
Aug 30
10:30
Crude Inventories
08/25
NA
-643K
Aug 31
08:30
Initial Claims
08/26
NA
313K
Aug 31
08:30
Personal Income
Jul
0.5%
0.6%
Aug 31
08:30
Personal Spending
Jul
0.8%
0.4%
Aug 31
10:00
Chicago PMI
Aug
57.0
57.9
Aug 31
10:00
Factory Orders
Jul
0.5%
1.2%
Aug 31
10:00
Help-Wanted Index
Jul
33
33
Sep 01
00:00
Auto Sales
Aug
5.4M
5.6M
Sep 01
00:00
Truck Sales
Aug
7.3M
7.6M
Sep 01
08:30
Average Workweek
Aug
33.9
33.9
Sep 01
08:30
Hourly Earnings
Aug
0.3%
0.4%
Sep 01
08:30
Nonfarm Payrolls
Aug
125K
113K
Sep 01
08:30
Unemployment Rate
Aug
4.7%
4.8%
Sep 01
09:50
Mich Sentiment-Rev.
Aug
79.5
78.7
Sep 01
10:00
Construction Spending
Jul
0.0%
0.3%
Sep 01
10:00
ISM Index
Aug
55.0
54.7
