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Trading Journal

Weekly Economic Calendar: 05-September to 08-September-2006

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Summer is over. Most likely we are seeing some changes in term of volume and volatility. Well, I certainly hope so!

Here is the economic calendar for the coming week.

Weekly Economic Calendar

Date ET Release For Consensus Prior

Sep 06

08:30

Productivity-Rev.

Q2

1.6%

1.1%

Sep 06

10:00

ISM Services

Aug

55.0

54.8

Sep 06

10:30

Crude Inventories

09/01

NA

2481K

Sep 06

14:00

Fed’s Beige Book

.

.

.

Sep 07

08:30

Initial Claims

09/02

NA

316K

Sep 07

10:00

Wholesale Inventories

Jul

0.7%

0.8%

Sep 08

15:00

Consumer Credit

Jul

$7.0B

$10.3B

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Revamp the way of writing trading journal

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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 😆 )

Dummy day trading #22 29-August-2006: mini-sized Dow: Short trade closed

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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]

Snapshot of index futures 14-August-2006

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This is the business we have chosen ~ The GodFather, the movie

It was a lousy day of bulls for stocks indices. I did not have any set up to trade. Dow,Nasdaq and S&P were showing the same pattern. To be frank, I was tempted to enter Long position and I was a bit frustrated of not having any long position. The decision to stick to my rules strictly pays off this time.

30-min chart of E-mini Nasdaq 

[photopress:Mini_Nasdaq_30_min_fullday.JPG,full,pp_image]

30-min chart of Dow Mini 

[photopress:Mini_Dow_full_day_closed..JPG,full,pp_image]

Charts: Futures recap 08-August-2006

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If one of the trading rules is 'You don't need to trade everyday', Fed meeting day might be a good day to take a break from trading. Again, I decided to leave index futures alone for the day, and turned my eyes to commodities.

Well, Gold did not have a good run. I was pretty lucky since my broker did not set up Gold contract to be tradeable in my account. My Long order was rejected. A nice entry set up above 10am(chicago time) candle for Long position. However, it was eventually by the wild swing @13:00 (chicago time) candle.

30-min chart of Gold 100z Futures 

[photopress:Gold_100oz_30min_full_day.JPG,full,pp_image]

Here is 30-min chart of Mini Dow futures. again 13:00 (chicago time) candle will stop out any position. 

[photopress:Mini_Dow_30_min_full_day_1.JPG,full,pp_image]

 

Not so good for the first two days of the week. I am still flat for this week.

Dummy day trading #6 07-August-2006: Mini Gold: Long trade closed.

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I decided to look at commodities today, since most likely, stocks market will be waiting for tomorrow's Fed decision with some monkey moves.

I do not know if I am making a mistake on this trade. Long position of Mini Gold was established at 661.7 , which was above 9am inside bar. Stop was moved to break even point after 1-R gain at 663.4. And, it was triggered. Looking at the long tails of candles, it makes me thinking if moving stop after 1-R gain if appropriate for commodities trading. No concrete plan yet, I will still stick to this rule for the time being.

If I were to point out mistake of the day, that should be missing out entry opportunity of Mini Crude oil at 10am.

Here is the 30-min chart of Mini Gold. One trade closed, with no gain.

[photopress:Mini_Gold_30_min_trade_close.JPG,full,pp_image]