I read again John Carter’s article on TICK. I found it useful and I incorporate it into my trading. It assists me in exiting potentially losing trade or protecting profit. It will reduced the situation like’ I exited the trade earlier because I feel something is not right’.
Strategy & tools
Charting headache – Strategy runner
I can’t make any trade today. Strategy runner charts s*ck the big time. It messed up totally. After confirming with Vincent, I know I am looking at some monkey charts.
Here are the charts of E-mini Nasdaq at the same period, same time frame. Can anyone tell me which one is the correct one?
[photopress:Nasdaq.JPG,full,centered]
[photopress:nasdaq_2.JPG,full,centered]
Same problem for Dow and E-mini S&P charts. No way to trade. I will get my Tradestation up tomorrow or Monday.
Change
I have made some major changes to my system after studying and reading books and blogs recently. The change was not caused by recent losses, after all, I am still in pretty nice profitable situation. 🙂 The reason behind this change is the seek of simplicity. Yes, I was in fact confused by my own system, and there is really a urgency to keep things simple. The change is done mostly on entry part of the system. I am basically a trend following person and I will still stick with percent risk model for money management part. Instead of looking at shorter timeframe for day trading, I intend to lengthen the time frame to 30-min chart. Most of my entry rules are inspired by Maoxian. I am basically looking at reversal up/down bar or insider bar for entry opportunity. Nothing much in this posting. Hope the simplicity works.
Trading Business plan 101
I have been doing some thinking and studies over the past weeks. I had some good days and some bad days over the past 2 months. Well, I guess, I'd better figure out the details of managing the trading business while I am still in nice profitable situation rather than searching for 'holy grail' for survival after hitting losing streaks. At least, mentally, I am not under heavy stress now.
The R-multiple concept hits me well on the head. I have figured out the importance of it in order to survive in this business for long. Well, at least for now, this is the best approach that comes to my mind. I am currently following Percent Risk Model. I am not trading a million-dollar-sized account now. So, the objective now is to grow the account as soon, and as much as possible. Well said, tough job though. I am striving to improve and maintain my system with high expectancy and frequency of trade.
So the first thing in the morning is to figure out how much I am going to risk and position size to be taken for the day.
This is second thing I will be doing every morning before start of a new trading day. Basically, the idea is not to go against the trend. Some profitable movements in short term might be missed out, however, I would prefer to go along with the trend for long term survival.The time frame are only refering to intraday trend of the day. I am not looking at longer time frame like daily , weekly or monthly. This is shuold simplify my job during the trading day where I will be only concentrating on the last thing of trading – entry and exit point.
This is for my day trading business. Nothing fancy. The last thing I will say in this entry : " Hey, Don't Buck the trend – lah"
| MSCI Taiwan Index Futures | MSCI Singapore Index Futures | |
| Longer term |
Down
|
Down
|
| Medium term |
Lateral
|
Lateral
|
| Short term |
Up
|
Up
|
| Recent High | ||
| Recent Low |
Some thought on the ‘Waves’
I believe there are profitable Elliot wave traders out there. No doubt. Though I have never met any of them yet. In fact, I have met a lot of wave analysts, not trader. I am not an wave trader and I definitely do not have bad feeling towards these wave analysts, I just have the feeling that they have complicated trading unintentionally. They are trying to view the market in a different, maybe, creative way. But, they create the confusion at the same time.
Trading should not be so difficult (after all, you are buying something with good potential upside and sell it when it is in high demand). And wave, to me, is sometimes over subjective and the element of prediction or you call it forecasting is too strong. Being always objective is difficult but it is necessary for trading. I have come back to the same point, straight trend line, support and resistance line are in fact enough for you to trade profitablely. I have never believe in market prediction in my whole trading life. To trade, I prefer to face the fact, what is happening in front of my eyes. Accept the fact, and act on it.
I have the same feeling towards Gann's stuffs as well. If you are confused, not sure about which wave you are in now, why bother to spend your time struggling on these waves?
Make trading simpler, and trade better.
