Thursday Trade Review - Dropped pass addition 5/28/2009

First before I get into my trading today, I wanted to share how I trade YM futures. A few readers wonder what my rules or methods were so I thought I write them down - (especially for Jules who I know only trades futures).

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I use three methods and two of them are written up on the first chart. I either trade the news where I buy or sell the break out of the range caused by the news. Second - I buy or sell a 9/14/50 exp moving avg crossover with chart formation and third I buy or sell break out of trading ranges usually the inter day plus over nite range - a simple chart method.

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I mainly use two contracts. I will only add to winners and most of the time I will use a 20 tick stop. I move it to break even after gaining 15 ticks. If the trade does not start working within 5 to 10 minutes, I try to scratch it. I usually trade off of a 89 tick chart but I look at the signals on a 1 minutes chart to confirm. If the 1 minute is giving clearer signals, I may just use that.

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If you look at the above charts, using the 1 minute chart would have produced great profits today. Too bad my head was not screwed on straight. My first futures trade was on the 8:30 news. Instead of selling of the break down of the range, I gave myself an extra 10 ticks because of recently being whipsawed too often. I got filled on the bottom tick for my short. It took a while to get stopped but I did.

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My second trade was using the crossover method. I was looking at the 89 tick chart and not using the other to confirm the direction of the trade. Dummy me. This got me in earlier than the 1 minute and so I sat on a trade for nearly 8 minutes where most of the time, I was in the red. I gave up and scratched the trade. If I used the 1 minutes, I would have stayed long enough to have this be a great trade. Also if I did not loss on the first trade, I might have stayed longer. I have that problem that I trade differently when I am in a hole than when I am not.

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My third futures trade should have been the long near the bottom of the day. I did not take it because I was too pissed at myself.

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I did trade some stocks but the trades are not worth talking. I will say I blew them too.

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So this in my 3rd losing day in a row and I really need to clear my head for tomorrow. This is why I wrote what I wrote today. Instead of mainly stating how much I fucked up - I wrote up my method to show myself that my system can work only if I remember to follow the rules.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross +78 net +43 shares 7000

Stock futures: gross -180 net -198 contracts 8

Forex: none - I got to start swing trading this stuff.

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There was no big mouth stocks today.