Call me Vidvad - I day trade futures

+3R profit average across the five accounts. I'm going to leave the casino now since like yesterday, I have day job obligations that will cause me to be away from my desk and work station in around 10 AM and I won't be back for 15 to 30 minutes.

I copy trade these accounts and so the orders are not all executed simultaneously. Also, the NQ is extremely volatile, even from second to second, which means that price can be several ticks to several points different when an order that is executed on the main account gets sent to the copy traded accounts. That is why there is almost always a disparity between the accounts.




Average profit today is $748.38/account for a total profit of $3741.94. Always grateful for any day on which I don't do any irreversible damage to my accounts, and extremely grateful for days such as I've had lately with decent profits.

After today, I have off from my day job until next week. However, I am not sure I will be trading anymore this week. I am fine to wait until next week to trade again. I don't mind risking a losing day tomorrow. However, since they will be closing the casino on Friday and working with a skeleton crew on Friday, I think it best that I cash in my chips and enjoy the holiday. Monday is the start of a new month. I've had a wonderful Novemeber, and I am going to go out on a high note.

I trade the NQ futures contract which is $5/ tick and $20/point. -$250 risk is -12.25 points, +$500 take profit is +25 points.

Beautiful. Protect your mentality like you would your position. Great trading, I'm going to take one more bet at this casino here and bow out myself.

I did trade today and I started with the mindset that if I found myself +2R I'd call it a month. I hit my +2R target and so I am sticking to the promise I made myself to quit for the week. Total profit for the week is $9007.34, which is an average profit of 7.21R per account for the three day week. I am extremely grateful for such a production.

I'll be back trading on Monday December 2, 2024. Let's make it a December to remember!

THOUGHTS:

For the longest time I beat my head against the trading wall insisting that to consider myself to be (have become?) a "real" trader I had to earn most if not all of my profits from the ES (SP500) futures.

Since my roulette epiphany, I've revisited the charts of the US index futures, and I'd say that focusing on the ES has been a huge error for me.

The NQ (Tech100/US100) and the YM (Down30/US30) are the two markets I will be trading going forward.

Even in range days the NQ and YM offer decent opportunities, whereas the ES, for me, is really a choppy market with so much back and fill that it is very difficult to manage risk, trail a stop, and lock in decent profits.

I also like what I see on CL (oil) and GC (gold). I'm not ready to add these to my trading options, but I do believe, from what I have seen, a trader could focus on either one of those markets as his/her sole instrument and have sufficient opportunity on a weekly and monthly basis to be consistently profitable, and quite profitable at that. Gold, however, does seem t fall into periods of lethargy not unlike many of the forex futures instruments do, so I'd incorporate some sort of volatility measure below which I'd stop trading Gold until volatility again picked up. Recalling some of the current and past discussions at the rocky thread, for example, I would maybe apply a ADX measure to the gold daily chart, or only day trade once it started to break out from a Bollinger band squeeze.

I've always liked trading forex futures, but the only pairs available as liquid futures just aren't moving with enough range during the NY session to hold my interest. I'm just not interested in trading for 5 or 10 pip profits.

For next week, NQ will continue to be my main trading vehicle. I will be continuing my back testing over the coming market break to determine if I'd like to add an additional futures contract.

I think what would prove to be more productive, however, is to revamp my money management trading plan to allow for a trailing position. For example, on the NQ today the NQ had a very nice trend from the NYSE open. This is not unusual on the NQ. It seems to occur about 2 times per month, even when the YM and ES do not follow it. This trend can be either UP or DOWN. I had already banked a +2R profit today. I would like to perhaps amend of plan so that if the NQ has broken above or below an important pivot during the first M15 of the NYSE session, and I have +2R in the bank, I'll take one stab at a potential runner, risking 1R of the closed profit, setting a take profit at the next major pivot up or down.

For today, NQ broke below last week's high at the NYSE open, and it is currently trading below yesterday's low. The potential profit was 150.75 points, or $3015 per contract.

I actually did this trade in my Ninjatrader SIM account. My entry was at the open, so the actual profit was a touch better than the theoretical profit.

Again, this is SIM profits.

But this makes clear that it would be wise, perhaps, to make room for these special market situations in my trading plan.

Arrived to the casino late, took one bet at BE+1. Last few M15 candles are surging down, so waiting for next bullish close. Staying a bit late into the afternoon here but there's no rules at the casino.

I think moving our SL can help hedge our bets against the house, but who knows. Slow and steady.

The casino may have been open but there was very low volume. Even this morning the NQ spread on the futures is as high as 5 ticks, and I had two orders filled 2 points away from their posted levels. This has made me very cautious as a result moved my stop loss on both trades closer than I would normally do. I'll probably wait until the NYSE open at this point unless we see the NQ test the overnight low.

I wasn't going to trade today but the set up was there and so was I. If I find myself +1R or more at any point I will call it a week.

Well, I did finish with +1R across the five accounts but in all honesty, it wasn't pretty. The premarket trading I did started me off on the wrong footing to be sure. When I saw the slippage I was getting, I let it get into my head and from there I started to deviate from my trading plan. I went from +1R to -4 or -5R.

I finally recognized that I was doing some revenge trading which is a recipe to blow up an account in a hurry. As I have five accounts, no way would I wanted to blow one of them, because if I blow one, I blow them all!

I stepped away from the computer, had a cup of coffee, and then came back fresh for the open.

The spread was still erratic, but I traded my plan and stuck to my plan. Actually, stuck to my plans, with an "s." Whenever I go off the rails, I revert to an old method I have used here at FF with multiple moving averages and a small data interval, such as the M1 or M2.

I settled in, took the trades as they came, and managed to dig out of the deep red to finish Black Friday in the black, if only by +1R.


As you can see by the disparity in P/L on the five accounts, the slippage was stunning and really impacted where some trades were entered (all entries using a buy stop or sell stop) and also the differences in where stop loss were filled once hit in the lead account.

I'm going to count my lucky stars today, refresh over the weekend, and come back for more on Monday.

On Monday, I will be back to the roulette method and the roulette state of mind. I also am looking to incorporate a "swing over ride" variable whereby if I enter on a roulette set up at or very near a pivotal point such as last week's high or low, the previous day's high or low, yesterday's close, or today's globex open, I will move my take profit from +2R to the next pivotal point in the direction of the trade. Like Tuesday, this morning gave a signal soon after the open and it was almost spot on at the previous day's low. Price rose from 20807.25 low of yesterday to today's open 20884, then yesterday's close 20890, yesterday's high at 20909.50, and the globex high at 20937.75. Just targeting today's globex open would have been a +6R profit.

So the task before me is to continue the discipline of employing my scalping method which has served me so well for going on three weeks now, and to define when a trade taken within proximity of a pivotal level would indicate a larger take profit target. In other words, I need to put together a defined condition that would leave no room for discretion. For example, if a buy entry is within 15 points of the previous day's or week's low, then move take profit from +2R to next highest pivot. A similar formulation would be used for short sales taken within a certain defined distance in points from a previous daily or weekly high.

I have largely ignored other markets during trading hours. For example, I like trading CL (oil) using the HOLO method. I haven't been trading it lately. I have been 100% focused on the NQ during my trading hours. I have been reviewing other instruments after hours, but for about two to two and half weeks I have been essentially 100% focused on NQ. This focus is starting to pay off in terms of my recognizing certain price behaviors that are not unique to the NQ taken individually, but in aggregate do seem to represent the NQ's "personality."

Also, I have only used the M15 and the M1 during this time. I do look at the weekly, daily, and hourly in the morning before I start to trade as a way for me to get an idea of where price is in relation to the "big picture." But I have not been flipping from M15 to M1 to M2 to 13 renko with HA to 34 renko with HA etc. I have settled comfortably into the M15 and the M1. And the M1 I watch is superimposed on M15 candles.

I would say this is another week of progress, though I recognize that this morning I came dangerously close to losing control as my discipline definitely slipped away from me for about 20 to 30 minutes. Another 20 to 30 minutes more I May have been starting from scratch and having to use some of the Black Friday prop firm sales to begin again ... all over again. Thankfully I recognized that I had shifted from a professional roulette play playing a biased wheel with a defined edge to a degenerate gamble on tilt. I need to make my trading workstation a "Tilt-free Zone."

My average profit for the week across the five accounts is $2087.12

That is an average profit of +8.35R for the week, with R= $250. I am not yet ready to increase my R=x, which I will do by adding another contract to my trade size.

My total profit across the five accounts is $10,435.60 for the week. I am grateful for that level of production and the opportunity to earn those profits. I remind myself daily that if I hold my discipline, that averaging +2R per trading day (taking into account losing days, +1R days, and the occasional +4 or +6R day) yields $10,000 in profits per week. I could take a payout of $5000 per week ($1000 per account) and STILL grow my trading capital by $5000/week ($1000 per account).
The roulette epiphany as renewed my focus on treating this as a business.

Also, I now have the additional 5 days of +$200 or more in profit to request another payout. I will probably wait until next week to request my last payout for 2024. I want a bit more of a cushion before taking my next payout because I would like to get to the level I need to be to increase my trade size to 2 NQ contracts. I want to earn another $2000 in profits per account before requesting the next payout. Assuming that I get there with a week or two, I will then allow any profits to accumulate in the accounts until sometime after the New Year begins.

This is my main chart, and if I had to pick just one template to use for the rest of my trading career, it would be this one.

It is an M15 ohlc bar chart of the NQ. I labelled the various levels that the template marks for me.

8:00 AM NYC time is when I am at my desk and looking for my first set up of the day. 9:30 NYC is the NYSE open so that is marked for me automatically so that it doesn't catch me unawares. 11:00 NYC, in keeping with my new-found "biased roulette wheel" them is when I color up, in the language of Vegas. If I have any open entry orders unfilled when that red line prints on my screen, I cancel the order. If I am in a position and it is at a loss, I exit it at the market. If I am in a position and it is in a profit, I move my stop loss to breakeven.

Nice shooting Vid !

I love how your self mgmt. exploits your edge thru your process ...if that makes sense lol...

Keep up the good work !

I am done for the day. In my Topstep accounts I finish with a total profit across all 5 accounts of +$8,658.26, which is an average of $1731.61 per account, or +6.92R. A stunningly good day for me. I used both my M15 method, and also a variant of the Roadmap method from LauraT's thread here at FF.



Going forward what I am going to do for the month of December is I will post just the calendar P&L view of my lead Topstep account. I have shown enough now so that anyone following along here will know that the profit in the other four accounts will be close to but probably not exactly what the profit is in the lead account. The calendar view looks like this:

Way to go Vidvad

Good day at the casino.

Excellent work Vid ... Saw your post on 100% focus... Reminds me of a few weeks back... I was in a Jeep Trackhawk coming back from Whistler... Sea to Sky hwy... Anyways had good dry roads and I very rarely speed..

But that day I was nailing it..pushing to my driving limits. Like riding a sport bike flat out...

100% of your focus is on the task at hand... Absolutely zero thoughts creep into your mind...it's basically do or die...

And when I trade that's something that I have always kept in the back of my mind... Pure focus like driving to the limit..

I do the same..when my mind is not there I stop trading.. it's why I like you only trade a few hours at most... Per day

Anyways thought I'd share my quick thoughts on focus...

Cheers !

Hello brother, first of all, congratulations on your results, I'm new here, what method do you use in 15 minutes?

Absolutley blue!

Mark Douglas tells a story about a floor trader with whom he worked who start trading, be up something ridiculous like $750K within an hour or two, and then he'd give it all back and sometimes more trading the rest of the day. Some of us can only muster that level of focus for a few hours. That's me. I can go 2 or 3 hours at most without a break. Even on the rare day (very, very rare) that I trade in the afternoon, it is only after I've been away from the computer for several hours, and I', probably going to take trades from maybe 2-2:30 until 3:30.

I think a lot of retail traders are trying to day trade, keep their day job, and reading and posting to FF, twitter, Facebook or whatever at the same time. And then they wonder why trading is so hard!

Well, trading is hard. Very hard. Mentally and emotionally. It is impossible if you are trying to trade the NQ while balancing your checkbook and looking to see what your Facebook "friends" did this weekend.

Thanks for coming by. I always appreciate your comments!

To be honest, I am not ready to share the M15 method I am using for three reasons.

1) I don't want people asking me why a particular signal "didn't work."
2) I don't want people asking me for the EA or the MT4 template or telling me how it would be even better if I added their favorite 27 indicators in order to "better filter my signals."
3) This is a journal, and not a systems thread. The most important aspect of this journal is the roulette epiphany I had a few weeks ago which has led me to focusing on trading 100% mechanically with no discretion. The strategy does not matter. It really doesn't.

I am not being secretive, and no, I do not believe sharing my method here would damage my edge lol

This is my journal. I am sharing my journey. The current success I am experiencing is not because of the method. It is the mindset that has allowed me to trust the process.

Finishing up for the day here and now.

I had an important breakthrough today in that I recognized the trading range in the globex/pre-market.

In the past, I'd take my signals even though my method is a type of "breakout" method. Well, when in a trading range, a breakout has to be a breakout of the range, and not just the breakout of the range of, say, the last 15 minutes.

Since adopting my new roulette mindset, I almost "doubled down" on taking all the signals, even those inside a range. I took every signal, even when my experience told me that the market conditions were not favorable to my edge.

When going over my production over the long weekend, I realized that the majority of my losses occurred when I took valid trade signals that occurred inside a tight trading range. Therefore, I added a rule that simply states, "Do not trade when NQ is in a tight trading range," and I define a tight trading range as one in which the ranges of the last five or more 15-minute bars overlap. Today it saved me from taking three to four -1R losses. Instead, I was able to wait for the bar that indicated the tight trading range was coming to an end before I started taking my signals. It was an incredible feeling.

What is important to highlight here is that I defined what constitutes a tight trading range beforehand, and I further defined what would constitute the end of that tight trading range. In other words, this is not in any way discretionary. I defined objectively what constitutes a tight trading range and I have a rule that indicates not to take any signals until the objectively defined end of the tight trading range presents itself.




For today, my total profits across the five accounts is $5758, or an average profit of $1151.60. This represents an average profit of +4.6R across the five accounts. Since my roulette epiphany, I have accumulated over $26,000 in trading profits in just a few weeks. The method doesn't matter. What has made this possible is that my epiphany has allowed me to "flip the switch."

Tom Hougaard's concept of "flipping the switch" really seems to describe my newfound carefree state of mind that I now experience while trading. I feel that I have finally and truly (and hopefully permanently) flipped the switch. If I understand Trader Tom correctly, the notion of "flipping the switch" is how he describes a trader becoming focused on following the process and no longer focusing on the outcome of individual trades. Flipping the switch, he says, is "doing the right thing." Instead of focusing on the outcome, focus on the process. Even when your method stings you with a series of consecutive losses, the trader who has "flipped the switch" will stick to his process, knowing that doing so is the right thing to do, and that so long as he continues to do the right thing the outcomes will take care of themselves.

It is this "flipping of the switch" that allowed me to examine rationally and intelligently my recent trading results, identify the difficulty that tight trading ranges present to my method, and then use objective and observable market data to create a rule set to add staying out of tight trading ranges to my process. That is, I have a rule set that makes ignoring signals that occur in an objectively defined trading range the right thing to do.

Here is an old video of Trader Tom's that is worth a watch or a rewatch and I am going to rewatch it now.

Best Loser Wins - Flip The Switch

Well said Vidvad.
I love reading your journal to follow your journey. It's all in the mind