my journal 3

agricultural futures

Corn, Market Analysis, Agricultural Markets | Agriculture.com
...Tim Hannagan, Alpari (U.S.) LLC senior grain analyst, says the market is having a tough time with rallies.

"We started the day with 'turn around Tuesday' or profit taking from Monday's big break. Traders still want to sell rallies, ahead of next Wednesday's USDA monthly crop report. That Report is expected to show last Thursday's quarterly stocks increase to the ending stocks."
Click to expand...

Remember my post on key reports?
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/140032-my-journal-3-post2105256.html

He's talking about this:

Snap1.jpg

Great opportunities right now in grains futures.

Although this guy says, of course, that they'll fall even lower:
USDA dumps grain prices
...However, if we get the crop planted at an average pace or faster, it will help to provide pressure overall to grains. Look for a recovery of sorts to be a seller of grains, as prices will likely see a rapid decline now that corn prices (and corn2 - wheat) dropped below support levels. It could open up downside all the way to $5.50 corn and $6 wheat levels, as the support is thin between $5.50 and $6.80 corn prices. A quick retreat back to $5.50 in corn could also open up the downside in soybeans to the $11 area, as once we break support at $13.60 there is also little support below that area in soybean charts as well.
Click to expand...

It's always like this. When the market rises, everyone says it will keep rising. When it falls, everyone says it will keep falling.

Lady here says the opposite, rally in sight:
Inside Futures: Relevant trading-focused information authored by key players in the futures, options and forex industries
GRAINS:
The attempt at rallies today, after the extreme sell offs, were more than pathetic. Possibly they will have to consolidate more, I don't know. I did expect more aggressive rallies today but the grains just did not seem to have it. It appears the bear mode has got a grip on the markets.
I have already gone over the technical damage done on the long term charts by Thursdays Report in my Trade Alerts since that report. Those who sign up for my Updates via email receive those. They are not available in the websites where I am featured. Therefore I will not be reviewing those issues again.
When all is said and done, on the weekly chart wheat and meal are near some support. Beans are struggling to hold comparable support and corn has failed similar support. Bean oil is not near any support. Possibly that means that wheat, meal and possibly beans could muster up more of a rally. If so, it could be short lived and an opportunity to short.
Click to expand...
Who is she? Judy Crawford... "commodity broker", hmm...
Inside Futures: Author Profiles
BACKGROUND ... Thirty years experience as a commodity broker has given me an insight into the needs of traders that only comes with experience. Originally from Minnesota, I started my career as a stockbroker in New York but moved to Chicago, the center for the commodity industry. I have found that no matter where a client lives in the world, all traders have the same needs.
Click to expand...
Hmm, bull****, don't trust her.

She must have copied "When all was said and done" from Jerry Welch's report here:
Inside Futures: Relevant trading-focused information authored by key players in the futures, options and forex industries
The grain complex, was far trickier today than the metal or livestock markets. When all was said and done, grains went out mixed with wheat the upside leader followed by old crop beans and soybean meal. Trade was so mixed and the spreading so intense, I have no idea what tomorrow will show.

But today, the active technical traders were cut to shreds because prices were trading wildly mixed all session. Only wheat managed to perform impressively. But wheat was also supported by news that NASS, rated conditions of the crop to be the 3rd worst in history. It is no wonder the market did well!
Click to expand...

Blah blah... don't know what they're all talking about. I'll just follow the charts and my stats as I've always been doing. Although for commodities, reading these opinions makes a bit more sense than it does for stock indexes.
 
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Capital back above 30k, finally. Having been slightly below 28k a few times before, I feel just great right now. Almost "happy".

My GBP and JPY positions are doing so so, and they seem uncertain on what to do next.

Grains futures are doing just great. They look like they'll rise quite a bit in the next few days. If I can manage to make 5000 dollars out of my positions, I'll close both ZW and ZC. Did I tell you that I went long on ZC this morning? Well, I am telling you now, in case I didn't.

What else do I have open?

Right, grains, currencies and GBL. GBL is the one I am expecting the most from, because, dude, it is still quite high.

All in all, I am at about 30k now and I expect the following to happen within the next 10 days (one week and a half):
15k from GBL
2k from currencies
5k from grains

The total is over 20k, and I should end up with a capital of about 50k. Then I can resume swimming. Right now i am so depressed that I just don't float. I would drown.

...

In the next 3 days, or even in the next 8 days, the hard part will be to keep myself from tampering and closing my positions too early.

I need to take 8 days off, very effectively. And for sure I must not tamper until next Friday night. That's for sure.

What do I do now? What do I do!?

I can't go swimming because I am too depressed.

All I can do is watch movies and go to the newly discovered Japanese restaurant in front of my office. Restaurant every day from 14.30 to 15.00, then movie from 15.30 till 17.30, then I need another movie. And then I can go home.

Damn, so tiring. But that's what it takes to not tamper.
 
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Well done on ZC. I remember your comment on your discretionary trading in which you said you just like buying oversold markets - I think you should start going over your old trades and seeing which were successful and which weren't, and see if there was any sign beforehand that would have betrayed that.

This will aid the improvement process and increase your hit rate on your discretionary trades. You should also look at situations where you decided not to trade and see whether there was anything in the chart which put you off the trade (as opposed to purely business reasons such as lack of margin).

This is the key process for your subconscious. Your comment that you just like the trades doesn't mean that there isn't a subconscious reason that makes perfect sense. Just because it's an emotion, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily irrational.
 
Replying as I read.

Thanks.

Yeah, I don't like anything but that. Ah, I see. I don't really feel like going over all my discretionary trades, but in some ways I must be keeping them in mind, because otherwise I could not explain my big improvement during all these years. It could also be due to the fact that I am now monitoring 19 different futures: 6 currencies, 3 metals, 3 grains, 2 government bonds, 3 stock indexes, 2 energies.

Yeah, I am seeing all this stuff, subconsciously, unconsciously.

Yeah, I see your point. I don't think I am that compulsive anymore. I think I am on the verge of becoming profitable.

There are still old viruses in me, such as the risk of not closing unprofitable positions (which can lead and did lead often to blowing out my accounts). However, I am not opening that many contracts anymore, I am diversifying, I am doing a lot of good things, that I didn't use to do. Let's just say that I learned juggling starting with knives and got cut quite often as a consequence. Whereas others start juggling with balls.

...

In the next few days, of markets going my way, I will be dealing with these emotions:

"hurry up, it won't stay up there that long"
"what if it turned around and wiped out all your profit?"
"come on, you can't leave that 10k of profit there with the risk of losing it!"
"come on, remember where you were two days ago, at 30k, be happy with what you got"

To all these things, I must reply: I want more, chico, I want what's coming to me.

Scarface "the world chico...and everything in it" - YouTube

...

OK, off to the Japanese restaurant and then to at least one movie. My account is safe at least until 18.00.
 
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Unbelievable. Instead of going to the movie, I told the cab driver to take me home.

I don't know why i did that. Now I am getting ready to go in the bath tub, as usual. If it's hot enough, it'll knock me out for a couple of hours, so that I won't do any damage to my account.

Did I tell you that I got a haircut yesterday? Well, in case I didn't, I am telling you now.

When you get a haircut your personality changes. You become younger, the shorter your hair, the younger. For one thing I can swim more easily and get ready more easily... it's like losing weight, although I wouldn't know, because at the most I've been overweight by seven kilos.

By the way, I am developing a belly again. Just not swimming for 4 days and testing out the Japanese restaurant and the Sapporo and Asahi beers was enough to make me develop a belly. But as I said, I am not in a good enough mood to go back to swimming, for a few more days, until I reach 50k of capital.

I'm gonna a watch a movie from the bath tub. I might post it later.
 
I guess I'm gonna justify the maid for stealing from us after all. If she did, and she probably did.

I have trading. Others have working hard. But what means do you have in life to make more money if all you can do is iron shirts? You're condemned to be a slave basically.

So it does serve my parents right that they got their jewelry stolen, particularly if it happened while we all went to hear Pope Francis first Angelus... where he was preaching poverty. Furthermore, it serves them right for behaving like those same lower forms of intelligence who stole it from us. They can't use their brains to make more money so they lower their honesty level. And my parents couldn't use their brains to keep what they could make thanks to their brains.

By leaving the jewelry in an open drawer instead of putting it in the safe that we had and never used, my parents allowed the principle of communicating vessels to work:
Communicating vessels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...when the liquid settles, it balances out to the same level in all of the containers regardless of the shape and volume of the containers. If additional liquid is added to one vessel, the liquid will again find a new equal level in all the connected vessels.
Click to expand...

The only valve to keep the jewelry from going to other lower forms of honesty and intelligence was precisely honesty and the safe. If you remove all the valves, the jewelry will balance out to the same level among all the lower forms of intelligence.
 
Didn't finish the previous one.

Now I am not sure between which one of these to watch:
Il temerario (1974) | CineBlog01 | FILM GRATIS IN STREAMING E DOWNLOAD LINK
Le Grand Bleu (1988) | CineBlog01 | FILM GRATIS IN STREAMING E DOWNLOAD LINK

One about the sky, with robert redford, and one about the ocean, french one. Both great probably and if they were showing them on tv, I wouldn't hesitate to watch them, but given that they're so easy to stop on my laptop, i might not even watch them entirely. So funny. Tv is good in some ways. It makes you stay there and watch the whole thing.

In the meanwhile, the grains trades are doing great, especially ZW. I am relying on ZC, too, though, at least by tomorrow, because they're totally correlated.

The one doing very very badly is GBL. Will have to have another 10 days before seeing any real profit on that one.

...

I am watching The Great Waldo Pepper (the one with Robert Redford). In many ways it's related to trading: the risk, the challenge, the passion, the addiction, the freedom, the lack of rules. Maybe it's like someone said before, "profitable trading is boring" and I am looking to be an acrobat trader rather than a profitable trader, and risk my account, just like Waldo was an acrobatic flyer (aka aerobatics) and risked his life. And he wasn't after the money.

I thought of this, when, about 30 minutes into it, he was with his girlfriend, and she told him that he loved her, but only when he wasn't flying. I remember similar instances happening to me.

...

OK, enough of the flying movie (only watched 60 minutes of it). Now I'll watch the french movie about the ocean.

Holy cow, I've been in the bath tub for... 16:30 till 21:00 already, so it's... 4 and a half hours. I guess I will be watching the right movie, after setting the tone for it.

Nope, downloading too slowly. I'll watch it here instead, in English:
Watch Le grand bleu online - on 1Channel | LetMeWatchThis

...got it, this is good:
The.Big.Blue.[1988].DVDRip.XviD-BLiTZKRiEG.mkv | SockShare

How are the trades going: GBL awful, but it's my stoplosslossness buddy, so I am not worried. All other trades are doing great.
 
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All right. Time to get out of the bath tub. I've been here for about 5 and a half hours.

Ultimately I didn't manage to watch The Big Blue, because it wasn't loading fast enough. I'll watch it another time.

I watched another 30 minutes of this and now I am done with the first 2 hours:

The Money Masters (1996) [FULL DOCUMENTARY] - YouTube

More than a video, this is as heavy as a finance class, a whole semester of classes.

I am going to bed in an hour. The markets are closing about now, and my capital is always at 30k because GBL took (temporarily) from my balance what was made with all the other positions.

...

Eventually I got out of the bath tub precisely 6 hours after getting into it. I am fine. No signs of melting in the water yet. But this is not my personal record, because I remember a few weeks ago I stayed almost 10 hours in it.
 
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Damn!

Yen Set to Drop Most in 10 Weeks on BOJ Bond Purchases - Bloomberg
The yen headed for its biggest one- day decline against the dollar in more than two months after the Bank of Japan (8301) announced larger-than-expected monthly bond purchases at the conclusion of a two-day meeting.
Click to expand...

I went, on JPY, from a profit of 3000 to a profit of -400 dollars. That hurt. Just like the other day on... remember? ... on the grains.

Oh, man, these gods of the markets definitely do not exist. There's just a man, a man and his dream, and that's me.

I am alone, against chance and some other market actors.

Man, doesn't this suck. Good thing I didn't have 2 contracts but just one.

Dude, this time I cannot reproach myself anything at all. There was nothing I could have known... or wait. Maybe there was something, let me check the economic calendar:
Forex Economic Calendar @ DailyFX

3 hours ago... let's see...

Bingo!

Snap1.jpg

This serves me right for not monitoring the economic calendar!

I got screwed twice in just 4 days, because I wasn't aware of the two major economic news releases for grains futures and JPY, which would have definitely made me close my positions early.

Lazy me!

From now on, if I want to hold positions for weeks and weeks and not just for one or two days, I must be aware of the economic calendar of news releases.

Man, I suck.

It's such a simple link to click, on dailyfx.com, and I've been aware of it for such a long time... no more excuses for these sudden losses of profit. I need to monitor this thing if I want to hold positions for weeks.

... man, so sad. I can definitely blame myself for this crap happening to me. Definitely. Especially when on that economic calendar it says "HIGH" relevance with days in advance. Damn! Moron! Lower form of intelligence that I am!

Don't get me wrong: it is totally OK to go long on a stock that is extremely oversold no matter what the news may be in the next few days. What is not OK is to hold that position for weeks, while profitable, and disregard the economic calendar in the meanwhile. When it's oversold, just buy and disregard the news, but when your position starts being profitable, and you've got money to lose, do monitor the economic calendar at all times, and simply close your positions before the news.

idea2develop

Now I am totally depressed. Nothing more to say for the rest of the day.
 
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Ok, fellas.

I just came back from an awful compulsory "plenary assembly" where I had to listen to all the bull**** my various bosses spoke for several hours, from 9.30 till 13.00, but I left 45 minutes early because I just couldn't take it anymore.

Let's see just how much more pain I have to take in life, after the beatings on grains futures, on JPY economic news releases, and the plenary assembly. I know, in some cases it was my own fault for not learning about the economic calendar.

zw.png

jpy.png

Let's see if at least, after all this beating I've been taking, my second contract on JPY has paid off and I can close that hellish trade I opened maybe over a month ago. Let's check.

You know, after all these beatings I am developing some heart condition, psychologically. I mean, I can feel my heart beating quite fast lately, with all these mother ****ing surprises.

All right, now let's look.

...

Nope, losing even more. Not much more though.

And GBL is doing just as badly as usual. I closed by GBP position by the way, because I was fed up with it, and I needed the margin for my JPY extra contract anyway.

Grains are doing all right on the other hand, still profitable.

All right, I'll take a break from monitoring for the next... 3 hours, after having inserted LMT close orders for all positions. Needless to say, I am not only depressed but emotionally... harassed by the markets.

But this really taught me once and for all to monitor the news releases when I hold positions... for an entire month!

I will add that link to the news on my index.html and I will post it later.
 
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Back home.

Today no bath tub - I have had enough yesterday (six hours).

I'm going to try and watch Le Grand Bleu again, bad connection yesterday. Then I have to add the economic calendar to my index.html file.

But first let's see let's see how much suffering fate has in store for me and how my nightmarish JPY trade is going. I set a LMT order so that if I ever become profitable by 2k, I close it.

Oh, god... a lot more suffering. GBL is as high as ever, and JPY still as low as ever.

How about the grains...

...grains sucking really bad, too.

All in all, I am doing awful! Especially considering it is a Thursday today, which should be in my favor.

...

Here's the updated index.html. with the damn economic calendar:
View attachment index.html

The markets are doing so badly for my positions that I can't even afford to buy any more contracts on anything. I am actually with a negative margin and if I closed anything, I couldn't even buy it back (you know, the usual difference between "initial" margin and "maintenance" margin).

I am so depressed that I might even go to sleep early.
 
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Yeah, well, at least Le Grand Bleu is working perfectly:
The.Big.Blue.[1988].DVDRip.XviD-BLiTZKRiEG.mkv | SockShare

---

14 minutes into it, the colors are nice (they came back after the start being black and white), but so far it is a total piece of ****. Very clumsy script, bad acting, and full of imperfections.

Can I be so unlucky? Bad movie, bad trades, bad plenary assembly?

Something has to go my way soon, statistically.
 
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Ok, Le Big Bleu was a totally peace of ****. Really bad acting and script.

The same applies to all my trades. Oh my god. I got punished all at once for all my mistakes.

Terrible result. My account balance is so low that I don't even want to talk about it.

Let me just compute how this happened, that my account balance went so low.

OK, JPY went from plus 3000 to -3000, so that brought my equity line from 30k to 24k.

How did I lose the rest?

Right, GBL went from an ongoing loss of -7000 to one of -10,000.

That is another -4000.

So that's basically where I am right now. Of course if either JPY or GBL rise at all, I will make it all back immediately, but this is so so depressing.

To be temporarily so low, after reaching so high... man, so depressing.

The unimaginable took place.

I was counting on GBL, and we all know what happened to that one. I am still hopeful.

I was counting on JPY, and in one day it lost 400 ticks, erasing all my gain, PLUS the extra contract that I went long on.

I closed GBP, which in fact is the only one that ended up being profitable today. But that's no big deal because I only lost 600 dollars because of closing it early, given that I only had 1 contract left on it.

I was counting on the grains, and, much like for JPY, I lost all profit on ZW, and my 2 contracts on ZW just allowed me to make an extra 1000. ZC is still open and it is still down there, to the bottom of the 20% it lost.

So, basically because of not being aware of the economic calendar, I lost on JPY and ZW, more than 10k. And then, on GBL, it is still very open, but at the moment obviously it is all against me, and it's been lasting for weeks.

I am totally tired and wish I had closed these positions 2 weeks ago, when I was at 39k. This feels really really bad.

...

How could i have known that JPY was to lose 4% in one day and ZW and ZC lose almost 20% in 2 days? Well, I could have simply stayed out of the market ahead of such important economic releases: the most important in a year for grains, and the most important in months for JPY. I suck.

Now what? Now I'll just wait. Hoping and arranging so that I will have enough overnight margin for my GBL positions. If necessary I will have to close one JPY contract.

...

Would you expect some bouncing from a JPY that loses 400 ticks in one day or from a ZC that loses 20% in 2 days? Well, instead they do not show it, because some of these futures behave like those old rubber bands - they have no elasticity and break if you stretch them. JPY is definitely one of them. I didn't expect the same behavior from ZC.

...

Right now I am like when you dive a few meters underwater and reach the bottom and for some reason after a few meters there is nothing pushing you upwards, and you're wondering if you have enough energy and oxygen to go back up to the surface. My oxygen is not just represented by capital but also by mental energy needed to put up with being so low in my account balance for so many weeks. I know that GBL has to come down from 146 sooner or later but will I be able to wait long enough for it to happen. This wait has become very unnerving at this point. I've been saying "just one more week" for too many weeks. And then, if you add to it what happened on grains and what happened today on JPY, you can see how I am feeling.

You wait weeks and weeks for your profit to build up on JPY and ZW and then it evaporates all in one day because you didn't take the time to monitor the economic calendar and to get out of your positions before news releases. I can only blame myself for this. Being profitable takes so much more work than just clicking "buy" and "sell".
 
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Ok, let's try to save what can be saved and act rationally from here.

I now have 6 short contracts on GBL, and those are all staying there, because that is the safest trade I have, and the one I can make the most money from.

Then I have 1 contract long on ZC and 2 on JPY.

I will not have margin for all 3 of the contracts on ZC and JPY.

I might not even have enough for 2 of them (ZC and JPY do not change, but overnight margin on GBL doubles).

So let's start thinking on what 2 contracts I should be closing.

Psychologically, the easiest thing to do would be to close ZC, because it is only causing me a loss of 300 dollars, and that has always been hard for me to do: taking losses.

On the other hand, ZC has fallen 20% in the last few days and it is the one that's most likely to rise now.

Also, it only requires 2k of overnight margin.

JPY on the other hand has 2600 of overnight maintenance margin.

And, crazy as it is, it could just keep on falling for the next two weeks, without looking back.

Furthermore, to close ZC, I need to anticipate it by 1 hour, because it ends trading as early as 21.00 CET.

And last but not least, ZC always recovers a great deal in the last hour, and especially in the last 15 minutes, so I should not close it before that.

So, from all points of view, I will be closing the JPY contracts, when and if the GBL margin call will materialize, at about 21.45 CET.

I'll set the alarm so I am alert at that time.

This really sucks about my JPY contracts. I wish I had never opened the second contract this morning. But you always have that feeling after a sudden drop due to news, that it will recover some of it. But JPY acts like this. It doesn't bounce much. It either goes up up up, or down down down, but with very little zigzagging.

As those brokers said, after all is said and done, I will have just 1 ZC and 6 GBL to worry about. They could still bring my account to... not 60k but at least 45k, and... basically I could recover from this disaster. But this time I really have to sit still and forget about everything, including monitoring these positions. I just have to sit and sit and wait for maybe two more weeks. Useless to count the hours.

Well... right. If I was expecting about 55k before this disaster with JPY, and also counting on some profit from GBP and the grains... I can definitely hope to reach no more than 45k this time around.

New objective is therefore 45k at best. But I'll be happy with anything above 40k. Then of course I might add more discretionary trading, and if I say it now that it is so far away, it most likely will be the case.
 
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Nope, change in plans.

Given that my GBL trade is the one I am most confident about, and given that I am so stressed out by my other positions, I will do as follows:

1) wait till right before the ZC close, and close my ZC contract, so to get the best price possible
2) find the best timing for opening 1 extra GBL short position
3) find the best timing, as late and high as possible, for closing my other 2 JPY positions

This way I will only have GBL on my mind and will be able to hold out longer than if I had all these other worries.

I will target my prayers for GBL.

Furthermore, given that I can expect about 4000 of profit from each GBL contract, it wouldn't make sense (since it requires about the same margin) to waste that same margin on ZC, from which I expect less than 4000 dollars of profit.
 
I must say, travis, I do admire your fortitude. I think I'd be a gibbering wreck by now with the latest batch of discretionary trades.

You made those trades for rational reasons, but your focus seems to have changed and be all about how you can hit $x overall rather than an equally rational examination of each trade. Maybe, maybe not, only you know for sure.

In any event, I hope they work out for you.
 
Thanks, that's the only type of feedback I can afford to hear right now, an encouraging one. I already warned the usual commentators not to come here and write "I told you so" or similar berating comments.
 
Another half an hour and I'll be closing the ZC long position. Then, within the following hour, I will close the JPY long positions. Then I will add another GBL short contract.

And then I will rest for a month, because there's nothing left to do, nor margin available.
 
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