Jay's Journal

[jasont]

Hope that you have not told us before, if so, I'm sorry. What time zone are you using in your posts? That would be GMT+?

Regards Split

Hey Spitlink. I am using New York time zone in my posts. I think it is GMT -5 hours but daylight savings changes it. Currently GMT time is 6am and New York time is 2am. Hope that helps.

 

[jasont]

Trade Setup For May 23rd

Here are my zones I have noted for May 23rd:

Resistance

1398.75-1399.50
1407.25-1407.75
1414.50-1415.25
1418.25-1419

Support

1391.50-1391
1384.25-1383.75
1380.5
1377.50-1377

No Trading For May 23rd

I'm not going to be trading today as I have an early start on Saturday for work and won't be able to stay up long enough to warrant it.

Something I found interesting over at Brett Steenbargers Trader Feed is a report presented to Homeland Security outlining one of the major causes to Commodity increases over the past 5 years. Here is the direct link to the report : http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/052008Masters.pdf

For those who don't want to read it all, it just comments on institutional traders who have been buying commodities futures and rolling over their contracts with calendar spreads. So instead of the ordinary speculator buying and selling futures contracts, these institutions buy and hold massive stockpiles as they roll their contracts out to following months. Ordinarily there is a limit on the amount of speculative futures that can be held but banks are exploiting a loophole that allows them infinite numbers.

I found it to be quite an eye opener as I thought the demand was coming from legitimate sources such as China or by OPEC's reluctance to increase supplies. It seems that no matter how much supply increases these institutions still buy up supplies that aren't released into the public.

Trading Review

I thought I would give a review of my trading since I returned from my holidays. It has taken me some time to get back into the swing of things and I have noticed an odd phenomenon. Whenever I go away or take some substantial time away from the market I tend to have a drawdown period immediately after I get back. Before I began my live trading I went away for a week or so and came back to have my initial big losses. Now after I came back from my latest holiday I had a few losses on Tuesday.

I think I could be implementing a 'make up for the lost time trading' mentality when I return. I am happy I was able to pick up on this because it means next time I have a break from trading I can remain very conservative when I return. I am also glad that I was reasonably conservative with my risk and Tuesday was the only day I did damage.

The other thing I have picked up on is the way a single bad day of trading can ruin a week of trading. Granted Tuesday wasn't a terrible day, I did lose 2.5 points when ordinarily I might take a hit of under 2 points on a bad day. Also the rest of the week wasn't a fantastic week but Tuesday was enough to make the week not so great. The reason I mention this isn't to complain about a bad week, I am mentioning it because I have developed a new appreciation for risk management.

I always new limiting risk was a good idea but I never first hand experienced a day when you don't quite feel yourself but you trade anyway. I now understand how easy those days can creep up on you and you may not even realize until its too late. If I was not so stringent on my risk management I could have made a fair sized dent in the past few weeks work. So there is a great reinforcement of the importance of limiting my risk.

Apart from Tuesday I had a reasonably slow week but was getting my market legs back. It was good to see me take the hit early on and work on improving the rest of the week. I knuckled down on the areas I wanted to improve and although I didn't make miracles, I do feel like I moved forward. Small steps is what it takes, inch by inch I'll get there. So for now I will focus on next week and do some research.

 

[jasont]

After giving it much thought, I have decided to move my journal from here. I was recommended early on to make the change and am now doing so. The new journal can be found here: Jay's Journal

 

[_JWG_]

Ok guys I'm not sure if anyone is actually reading this thing but I thought I'd try to help people discover what to trade. I'm going to disclose a few things about how I found my trading niche and offer some ideas to help people find out their niche. This may be a long post so if you want some help picking a niche, grab a coffee or beer before starting to read. List what you find so you can help keep track.

When I first started trading I was foolish enough to jump in without doing my homework. I jumped into trading a time frame that wasn’t suited to me and trading an instrument (options) that didn’t utilize my personal talents and advantages. So over time I managed to find the right instrument and time frame to trade but how did I go about it?

I actually found the time frame and instrument a bit blindly to be honest. I actually stumbled across them and then did the following stuff afterwards to clarify that it was the right thing for me. Hopefully if you’re reading this you can do it before backtesting or simulation trading a method so you don’t waste your time.

Absolutely fantastic post:clap:

Thank you very much. I found it very informative.

I'm only up to page 2 but I'm loving your work.

Cheers Mate

JWG :cheesy: