My journey to long term consistency

[DrSafari]

Preperation 27-10-2016



Long S&P500

Net P/L +3.40 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2132.3
Close Rate 2135.7

Open Time 10/27/2016 11:05 AM
Close Time 10/27/2016 12:34 PM

Stop loss: below the 2130.70 point

Entry and exit 5m chart:




Reason of closure: adjusted trailing stop loss got hit at ~ + 1.5 R

Comments
Pretty much same reason of entry as last trade. Big rally down, hit support and stayed there for a while so took a long position. However, having defined 2133.94 as a daily resistence level it was probably not so wise to open at 2132.3 but thats up for discussion. That being said if I was counting on price to go up to 2140.70 which is a level of 26-10-2016 I should not have tightened my SL and let that profit run more. I was too late since I wasnt watching but then I atleast should have let it run but my logic was that it had passed the 2133.94 level already. But it went through it convincingly which meant that it was heading for 2140.70 instead..

Interesting trade..

 

[DrSafari]

Preperation for month


Preperation for week


Preparation for 02-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

I am a bit behind.

This was the prep for 03-11-2016


No demo trades

 

[DrSafari]

Preperation for the week


Preperation for 07-11-2016



Did not result in any trades. I probably should demo trade more but did not see any opportunities while watching the market. Watch time is limited due to work and changing living place.

 

[DrSafari]

Preperation for 08-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

I took one position on 08-11-2016:

Long S&P500

Net P/L +0.88 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2121.56
Close Rate 2122.44

Open Time 11/8/2016 4:05 PM
Close Time 11/8/2016 4:41 PM

Stop loss: a bit below opening value

Entry and exit 15m chart this time:




Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit at ~ + 0.5 R

Comments
Although this is a win it is painful to look at the chart. This could have been a really big winner if I had let my profits run, well technically I did but I adjusted my stop loss and put it too tight. The fluctuation I see is of about 1.00 point. Enough to get me stopped out here. I guess this is why I am testing things. I should always base my stop loss on technical S&R levels, not tighten it to protect money. Either your trade idea is right and you win, or it is wrong and you lose. If price was near 2124.70 or 2129.20 I would understand if I tightened it. But here it was just based out of fear of losing (even if it is just demo). Even if I tightened there it wouldnt have caused me to miss out on big profits in this trade.

But again, this is why I am observing again to devise a system based on my findings.

 

[DrSafari]

I took another position on 09-11-2016. This trade is not one that you can use on a day to day basis. But just because the S&P500 futures "crashed" because of the Trump election it was a nice opportunity

Long S&P500

Net P/L +75.12 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2097.32
Close Rate 2172.44

Open Time 11/9/2016 9:58 AM
Close Time 11/10/2016 1:02 PM

Stop loss: a bit below opening value

Entry and exit 15m chart this time:




Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit at ~ + 1.2 R

Comments
Huge stop loss on this one. This is probably a trade you shouldnt take on your main account. If you keep doing it sooner or later it is going to go bad. But chance of that happening is rather small and as you can see the profit is huuuge. This is around 35 R for a normal trade.

I had an idea how you can take these sort of trades though. Have a seperate account set up with just a little bit of money to play on these sort of events. Have enough of these trades in a row and you may end up with enough money to be able to live off of it (by less riskier investments like annual return of 8% or something). If not it most definitely will be fun to trade that AND more importantly you won't be tempted to do these kind of trades on your main account.

 

[DrSafari]

Preperation for 10-11-2016




Long S&P500

Net P/L -4.50 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2174.44
Close Rate 2169.94

Open Time 11/10/2016 1:11 PM
Close Time 11/10/2016 1:29 PM

Stop loss: a bit below lowest low but then put it wider as I saw it failing

Entry and exit 15m chart again (not much detail sadly)




Reason of closure: adjusted stop loss got hit at ~- 1.5 R (1.5 because I added to it)

Comments
Took this trade too soon. It could have worked but I had to wait until it went through support more properly. If I entered at 13:45 it would have been a good trade. Still monitoring the market

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation 14-11-2016 weekly


Preperation 14-11-2016 daily

 

[DrSafari]

Later on 14-11-2016 new levels developed
Taken at 4:29pm

 

[DrSafari]

Long S&P500

Net P/L -1.49 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2160.93
Close Rate 2159.44

Open Time 11/14/2016 4:39 PM
Close Time 11/14/2016 4:42 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 2.00 points

Entry and exit 5m chart again (but 1m would have been better here to see what happend, sadly that data is not available anymore in my broker)




Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit at - 0.75 R

Comments
This trade did not work out, but upon looking at the chart with the S&R levels drawn the SL seems narrow in comparison with the Range, here the idea of relative SL compared to the Range come up again. This time it would have resulted in a bigger loss though.

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation 15-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Short S&P500

Net P/L -2.23 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2166.2
Close Rate 2168.43

Open Time 11/15/2016 4:07 PM
Close Time 11/15/2016 4:10 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 2.00 points

Entry and exit 1m chart



Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit at -1 R

Comments
Viewing this trade on the 1 min chart shows it's not such a good entry point, this was not really visible on the 5m chart. Resistance had become support instead of just going through it and reversing. In any case, how this 1 min chart looked was NOT an incentive to go short. The 5m chart looked a lot better to go short. So for entering positions I will always use 1m charts from now on.... and maybe also for defining daily S&R ?

 

[DrSafari]

Short S&P500

Net P/L -0.12 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2167.44
Close Rate 2167.56

Open Time 11/15/2016 4:22 PM
Close Time 11/15/2016 4:55 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 2.00 points

Entry and exit 5m chart (used the 1m to enter though)



Reason of closure: trailing stop loss got hit at close to break even.

Comments
This time I did not make the stop tighter but it would have been justified if I did. Price was nearing the previous resistance level. Either it bounces off from it or it goes right through it. I was gambling on the second one, but this shouldnt be gambling as we all know. Tightening would have been good which in this case would have resulted in a profit. IF you happen to get stopped out and price goes right through it you can always re-enter. If you don't get stopped out and it goes right through it you can widen your stop again. This all makes for fast reaction time. That's one more reason to watch the 1m chart instead of the 5m chart.

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation 16-11-2016




Short S&P500

Net P/L +0.77 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2174.57
Close Rate 2173.8

Open Time 11/16/2016 9:23 PM
Close Time 11/16/2016 9:37 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 2.00 points

Entry and exit 1m chart



Reason of closure: tightened trailing stop loss got hit

Comments
Valid trade, however I tightened the SL because I thought price was nearing the 2173.20 weekly level, but that was defined as 2173.70 which is relatively close to my entry point so using that logic I shouldn't have taken the trade anyway. Turned out to turn out good though. Price was stagnating anyway indicating a reversal, this could be a criteria for my new plan for when to tighten a SL or maybe even exiting a position alltogether.

 

[DrSafari]

Preperation week:


Preparation 21-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Preparation 22-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Long S&P500

Net P/L +0.64 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2199.3
Close Rate 2199.94

Open Time 11/22/2016 3:27 PM
Close Time 11/22/2016 3:31 PM

Stop loss: trailing stop of 2.00 points

Entry and exit 1m chart



Reason of closure: tightened trailing stop loss got hit

Comments
I took a position right before USA market opens which I said not to do because of volatility reasons. Anyway I had a strong feeling price would continue to go up so I went long. I am not following any system yet and just observing so why not. Price had reached an all time high today and then trended down again, that trend seemed to have come to a halt and reversed so I jumped on that bandwagon, this time on a minute chart so I am with it "on time". When price was nearing the 2200.39 level I tightened the SL cause there was a previous support level. And as you can see on the hindsight chart price did bounce off of it. Not a bad trade if it weren't for entering a position near market open

 

[DrSafari]

S&R levels are not set in stone and of course change, so upon investigating a timeframe longer than daily but not as long as weekly I did come to some new levels. In this case I call them new weekly levels for this week as I believe these levels will be important this week.

Revised weekly perparation



Preparation for 23-11-2016

 

[DrSafari]

Resulting in the following trade:

Short S&P500

Net P/L +0.40 points

Amount 1 Contracts

Opening Rate 2197.2
Close Rate 2196.8

Open Time 11/23/2016 2:36 PM
Close Time 11/23/2016 3:10 PM

Stop loss: fixed stop of 1.00 point right above the 2198.20 level

Entry and exit 1m chart




Reason of closure: tightened fixed stop loss got hit (sadly enough )

Comments
Was watching price and didn't move much all day. Stayed within the relatively confined range of 2198.20 and 2200.44 . Then I noticed price started moving down, I could not find any level that could interfere other than the very comfortable new weekly defined 2192.20 so I took a short. Good call but I messed up by tightening my stop loss to 0.4 point above break even when I was around 1.35 points in profit. This happened at the orange dot. As you can see price barely touched my SL but nevertheless touched it causing my position to be closed, whereafter it plunges down OF COURSE.

Again this is why you need to devise a system and test it and tweak SL parameters for optimal performance over the long run. There was no technical level to base this SL on. It was based only on the fear of turning a profit into a loss. Well now I turned a lot of profit into a small profit, which can be seen as a loss in long term statistics.

Oh well, live and learn....