Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Did I forget how to pull 'da trigger?

Wednesday, December7
Total gross profits:  $237.50  +4.75 ES points
Total trades:  3  [0 scratch]
Accuracy:  100.0%

NOTES:  After what I thought were the less than perfect conditions over the past couple days, we end up with a day like today where the ES seems to be working the way it's supposed to.

You know those days, where you say, "It'll go up/down from here", and it does, and again, and again...  There seemed to be great setups all over the place in the morning, as well as the afternoon once the usual lunchtime doldrums passed.  I could have had ten or more trades today, and perhaps booked +15 ES points or likely much more.  It was that good of a day.

But...only 3 trades today
But today, I only had 3 trades and all of them were before lunch.  Whereas Renato and his Diamond Setups alerts had at least 10+ points and few more trades.  I missed some of the DS alerts simply by not being here, or having an order not get filled.  But there was one DS alert late in the afternoon that I deliberately passed (bad decision, it made money, and rule #1 is to take all of Renato's trades).

The one that got away
And another near perfect setup I missed (I returned to my computer about 1-2 minutes too late) was late in the final hour that ended up riding the news driven move sharply higher.
ESZ1 30m - The one that got away
I am too critical?
Perhaps the pendulum has swung the other way a little too far, and now I'm being too critical of my setups?  Did I forget how to pull the trigger?  I thought about that, and for now, I believe everything is OK.  After trading in the style of the Wild Wild West for the past month or so, any type of rigid discipline will feel quite restrictive to me.  This is only my 3rd day on "the plan", which is restrictive and focused by design, so I consider all of this a part of my adjustment period.

Bottom line - Success!
With that in mind, I was very successful today.  No rogue trades, and many setups were rejected (and nearly all were profitable).  I was very disciplined.

Next time...
In the future, when I see this type of day come up again, I'll be ready.  Interestingly, I don't feel any regret or disappointment with today, since I know this isn't the last time we'll ever see a market like this again.  So when days that are "in tune" with your trading method come up and you're in the zone, you really have to capitalize on it and go for the jugular.  As a trader, I believe there are absolutely no excuses not to pounce hard when great opportunities presents itself.

4 comments:

Jay_MTF said...

Good Job grove, Keep it up :) GL tmrw

Grove Under said...

Hi Jay,
Thanks, same to you! We miss seeing you in the room. Hope you're continuing to do well with DS.

Tomross58 said...

Hey Grove,,

Very impressive day. I will speak to the conservative side (coward thats me) and say from what I see you had a great day. Your goal was to be disciplined, patient, and not overtrade or revenge trade.I think mission accomplished.
Now,,,,lets look at the 3 profitable trades. Trading one contract doesnt allow the ability to scale out. And with just one contract if your position stalls and you havent hit your 2 point target you may exit early so as not to take a loss but then you are out of that trade. You and I have the same goal and thats to trade ( once you reach a certain level of consistancy ) more contracts. Lets say you had the same day with 2 contracts, you exit 1 and let the other run with free ride, to either come back B/E or run in your favor. Lets say you have 3 or 4 contracts on and you had the exact same day as today, GOOD DISCIPLINE, CONTROLLED ENTRIES, NO REVENGE TRADES. Seems to me you are on the brink of being able to really manage some profitable trades even if you only make 3 in a day.
For me when I go live I will also start small with 1 contract until a certain point and then go to 2 contracts. But I will not go to 2 contracts (more risk also) until I know that I have earned that right. One step at a time. For me,,,3 winners everyday and over 4 points a day with contract size,,,,,I will do the dance of joy,,LOL.
Keep up the great discipline and I hope I am not far behind.

Tom

Grove Under said...

Hi Tom,
You're totally right about the advantages of being able to scale out of trades. The more I study them, the more I realize they're really critical for long term success.

I just hope that the experience I'm having trading 1 contract, while trying to do a "psudo-scale out" on that one contracts (i.e. moving stop to b/e and letting it run) will help once I'm trading multiple contracts.

Great to see that you're also get up to speed. DS is pretty amazing!