Went Live Today

I wasn't planning on trading this week due to finishing up a project for school that was occupying a lot of my time. However, I finished it yesterday so decided to begin my "new" trading career today.

Essentially I am embarking on a dual track, scalping ES for daily income and building wealth through CL trading trying to catch the larger moves on CL. For the moment, the CL trades will be few and far between as I concentrate on replacing the income from the "real job" I recently left behind. This looks like 2-4 points a day on ES using a tired but true scalping system. Don't ask about it, I'm somewhat embarrassed to show you anything about this system because it relies on indicators but it works so I'm going with it for now. There are no attempts to capture the "big moves" in ES just a piece of one of the legs each day. With any luck and some patience, I will be able to capture perhaps two legs a day depending on my schedule. I still have a full school schedule but I've rearranged my daily schedule to allow for some extended trading hours in the morning. We will see how that works next week.

As to my results, I made my first 3 points today in ES. Happy about that and moving into the weekend a winner, always a good thing for sure.

Update

Its been a while since my last post. No trading since then. I've been occupied with my school work, getting my new trading system locked in place and dealing with some of my fathers health issues. This week I have a final due on Friday so will more than likely trade very little until next Monday. That said, I'm ready to get back to trading again!

Oh, and last week I pulled the plug on what hopefully was the last job I'll ever have. I cannot tell you the incredible feeling of walking away from something I hated. It was as if a huge load lifted off my shoulders and I could breathe again! So thankful that is over.

Onward and upward as they say!

+2%....+4% for the year

Today's post is not really about the trading. I've not had much time for posting the last couple of weeks. I have a "real" job which incidentally I have come to loath with a white hot passion, I am in the final stages of earning my degree which I have no idea what to do with. Plus I am the taxi driver for my kiddo. All this keeps me pretty busy.

But and its a big but......

I am about 2 days from completely burning the real job bridge. I literally hate it. I thought I'd enjoy being back in the mortgage business but truth be told, I hated it from the first day and I've only grown to hate it more each day.

What led me to this decision is this.....the job is sucking the life out of me and I think I'm at a place where I can afford to live on my trading....not because I am a great trader but because I am ready to literally burn the bridge of thinking I am anything other than a trader. I'm ready to own the label. Its been my experience that until you burn the bridge of other options, there is very little success at any of the endeavors you are pursuing. The old Chinese proverb says, "man who chases two rabbits loses both." I'm tired of chasing anything other than excellence in trading.

I have about 16 years until I retire. Two things happened this week that helped push me over the edge.....1. One of my favorite authors has a new book all about finding and creating the life you want and 2. This week I listened to a podcast and a Netflix movie both featuring Tony Robbins. I used to think he was over-hyped, but he said a few things that resonated with me. All this started me thinking about what I could see myself doing for the next 16 years.....and it wasn't mortgage banking, something I'm good at but hate. I went through a mental inventory of all the requirements I have for income producing activities (I refuse to call it a job) and of the 8-10 things I came up with that I require, no single "job) filled all of them but trading came closest to all of them in some way. One of the main requirements I had was that I had to love what I do....and I love trading even though I sometimes hate it!!! So I chatted with my wife and we agreed, so its time to rock and roll

I am under capitalized. I know and understand the issues with this. I fully accept these limitations. I will be trading one or two lots most of the time....and I will trade both CL and ES. ES will be just for scalping, purely mechanical. I have a mechanical system for scalping 1-2 points a day on ES that I developed a long time ago, it still works, I just wanted to learn how to hit the big ones....so I quit the scalping game. Since ES doesn't move that much right now, scalping is fine on this instrument...I can live on scalping proceeds because my needs are fairly small.......and I will wait for the larger moves on CL to build capital and create wealth longer term.


Here are the charts from yesterday. 45ish ticks per lot on CL and 2 points on ES (not shown)

By the way, the yearly totals don't add up from the last post because I've had some wins since then that I didn't post.

.00% for the day. -1.77% for the year

My CL trade trailed out with a small winner but not enough to really report here. I did a small ES trade in SIM which produced 3.25 points. Seems small but I know many ES traders would kill for 3.25 points a day. I am thinking of expanding the products traded to ES mostly to just scalp for a couple of points a day for income. I think I can do that while building my ability to read and understand MP and VP for longer term trades.

I only have the ES chart to show today.

-1.05%....-1.77% for the year.

An incredible day for making money. Something is definitely wrong with they way I am seeing things. Seems I am always on the wrong side of the market lately. Fighting the tape. I missed a fantastic short early on by being a bit greedy in terms of where I wanted the entry. I even marked the entry level before the market reached that level but at the last minute, I thought I saw a better location a bit higher up and so I moved my limit order there only to see it collapse to my target area.

I was short just prior to the number, it took me out BE and as you know, collapsed hard to the lows of the day. After that, I lost all perspective and got hit for a 1% loss. This is the worst loss I've had in a long time in terms of absolute dollars.

I think I might be thinking to much AFTER I find my levels. Over thinking leads to over trading and that is what happened today.

Not sure about trading tomorrow, I might need to take a day or so to clear my head. It isn't the loss, it's how it occurred that disturbs me.

Till next time.

-.74%....-.72% for the year

I learned something very valuable today. Essentially I am a totally visual learner. I need an image. I knew this but it wasn't heart knowledge. I can learn and experience verbally and written as well but its not my primary way.

This means I need to visually see the levels on the chart....and those levels MUST come from the 30M or higher....preferably the weekly. A mentor told me this the other day, I did it the first day and forgot to derive my levels from the weekly today and totally paid the price for it both in terms of the loss I suffered but also the missed opportunity that was so blatantly obvious from the higher time frame. This morning I took my levels from the five min chart and it was a total bust. I will not make that mistake every again.

No charts today because I didn't take any pictures this morning.....but tomorrow I will make sure I have those pics taken as the morning progresses.

+.002%....+.002% for the year.

Very small trade yesterday. I was long from the bottom of the break out area, it went 20 ticks my way, then reversed for BE and then I went short. Trailed out with a small gain before I had to call it quits for the day. That trade went to my original target of 40.38 and then some.....more time and its monster trade at least for me. As it was, just a tiny little one.