YATD - Yet Another Trading Diary

[20.sum1]

ok so back up from hibernation .. i was out of town for sometime ..i plan to start trading next week.. to ensure i am trading and not just thinking about it i resolve to make atleast 1 trade a day if no other trade is open..
see you next week(or even earlier) folks..

 

[20.sum1]

So sad to see I did not do what I said last time..Infact no trade for the last financial year in my zerodha account(the account I got opened for trading). However some good news. Zerodha has started its 60 day challenge and I plan to participate with full steam*.
Things to do now.
1.Subscribe to GDFL data feed.
2.Get license for amibroker(needed?)
3.Transfer cash to Zerodha account.
4.Trade

*How much pressure steam comes out..Only time will tell.

 

[20.sum1]

1 point I missed.

0.Learn some basic AFL. - 2-3 days

 

[20.sum1]

First trade taken today Loss around 1400 (1200+charges)

Trade taken around 5710 for target of 5680-60 . With a view that NF can reach at max around 5725.Accounting for some space I kept the SL at 5735. NF goes up to 5731.At that point I felt that there is enough buying pressure. A small Wolfe on the 1 min TF took NF back to 5717..Now what?
Should I exit now?And enter fresh SL order for sell at 5710?Or don't do anything. The former option allows me to restrict loss to around 7-8 pts + 2*charges while the latter option keeps my potential loss @ 25pts+charges.

I chose the dumber option because I was giving more priority to original trade.

Also since shortly afterwards I had to leave for office I think I could have gotten out and would have even went long if I was sitting in front of terminal.In office I do not like to trade because of lack of my setup there.

Lesson for the day:
If a trade goes against you but does not hit SL, and then comes back and then stalls,get out and start afresh.
Expanding on the above post exit only when trade has come back atleast half the distance between entry and SL.That will be nice balance for risk taken.

 

[20.sum1]

Expanding on the above post exit only when trade has come back atleast half the distance between entry and SL.

 

[20.sum1]

I think the up move is over now but I do not know how to play it..may be selling some credit spreads can be an option. I will have to do a little study on it.I will post the strategy if I intend take the trade.Good nite.

 

[20.sum1]

I am back with this diary. I have been thinking a lot about the subject of trading and a realization dawned on me that we do not trade the markets but we trade our system.In the past I had tried to piece together some systems but was not happy with the results, although many of them were profitable but not to the degree I wanted them to be.

Today I restart this thread. The main idea now would be to jot down my thoughts here so that I could come back to them. Many of these thoughts may be wrong or un-effective but that's OK.

For some time I would just try to watch the markets and see what thoughts come to my mind. Some of the thoughts I will put here and use them to design a good, satisfactory system.Let's see if that can be done.

 

[20.sum1]

The first question that one should have in mind when trading is
What is the trend now?

and not

Should I buy/sell here?

Only when the trend is known one should ask where can I buy/sell?

 

[20.sum1]

btw I did some paper trades today.

The established trend was long on trading TFs
But many times I felt that a wedge like pattern on higher TFs could derail the trend.

This led to trades both short and long but I realized that I do not fully know what to do on such days.I will wait for more such days and see how these days can be handled.

 

[20.sum1]

One of the things I noticed is that many times we can reduce the risk by taking the trade at the trend line.However I took the trades or thought of taking the trades above or below a bar which cost me around 10pts each trade(3 min TF). I will have work on entries at the trend line itself and not wait for a confirmation. Will also have to study if this is good practice or not.