The end is near…

So i’ve got 1 week left in the didactic year of my dual master program at Baylor.  I finish the year with an oral board examination from Hospital Executives, Army Colonels, and faculty from Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business.  Assuming all goes well I’ll be phase 1 complete and headed to an Army hospital to start my internship/residency.  I attempted to continue day trading during the academic year but to use an Army term, was quickly overcome by events (OBE).  The academic portion was quite rigorous and demanded most of my time that wasn’t already captured by my family (being Dad is priority #1 in my book).  To give myself a way to stay in the game I took a great course given by Maverick Trading on options and started trading complex monthly options strategies.  This gave me a month at a time to position myself accordingly and generate income.  I highly recommend Maverick as their course was a boon not just to my options trading but also enhanced my equities and futures trading.  I learned a tremendous amount from them and will continue to work them as I drive on with my trading goals.

Marcello, if you’re reading this do not despair.  I have been practicing with your system on the weekends on the sim trader and I hope to find a way during my internship to be able to at least trade the first hour or two of the /ES open.

Hiatus Part II

So yesterday I started the 4th of 5 semesters.  The light is on at the end of the tunnel and thus far it has been a good experience.  I paper traded a few times since my last post and have been watching Marcello’s recaps, however, I’ve been away from the curriculum for so long that before I post again when school is done I am going to force myself to go back through it and re-complete all homeworks that are apart of the program.  Although it will be a lot to do again, I’m looking forward to getting back to it and excited that in a few short months I’ll get my after-duty hours life back.

Until then… happy trading!

Hiatus…

Okay so it’s been almost a month since I posted last.  On the 11th of June I started a dual masters program at Baylor University and it has litterally eaten my life.  Not only am I not trading right now, but I’m not even able to do much other than come home from class and help get my kids in bed before I go back to doing more homework.  They are telling us the 1st semester is the worst so I’m planning on getting back at it once the semester ends.  It’s unfortunate because I felt like I was on a roll and really starting to see and be able to anticipate but work (school) is the priority right now… for the one guy that might actually read this, I haven’t given up and will be back at it as soon as life allows.  More to follow….

+6.5

Sheew… I wish they were all days like this in one direction or the other.  The only bad part was that we really didn’t get that many pull backs to the midband throughout the run.  Had a couple of trades that took like 20 minutes to develop… was beginning to think everyone went to lunch and didn’t tell me.  Would have had even more points on the board if I hadn’t tightened up my stops a bit…. but that’s part of trading right.

No trades today

What the heck… actually had to work today and couldn’t trade.  Sheesh… stupid job…

+3.25

Heeeyyyyy…. he finally wins one… sheesh…. I felt like I sat and watched the show for most of the morning and then around 1000 or so they finally started working for me.  After realizing it was channeling around 0930 I decided to change to a .5-.75 risk for a 1-1.5 reward.  That seemed to work a little better in the chop, especially once the market really started to inch downward.  When the  1270’s broke I was super tempted to hit the market sell button because on the big chart that was a key bottom and once that fell I was confident that it would head down toward 1264.  I didn’t do it, finally got a pull back and then the v3 PT didn’t fill at the FYL.  Oh well but not a bad recovery for what started out as a rough morning.

-7.5

Honestly, today sucked for me…. I was distracted and made a ton of stupid mistakes.  I should have not even traded today but decided to do while I was doing a few other things and it was costly.  If something could have gone wrong today it did… from placing orders at the FYL instead of the MB to accidentally closing an order trying to adjust the chart window.  Took a couple of invalid trades and minimized risk when i probably shouldn’t have.  It’s a good thing I’m still sim-trading because today was a -7.5.  I should have walked away from the computer after the 3rd or 4th loosing trade but kept at it like a moron.

-1.25

Tough day here… lots of opportunity and lots of movement but I’m still making some rookie mistakes.  All but one of the trades were valid and I should have been a little more aggressive on the runs to the downside to ensure I got filled.  Oh well… maybe next time.

-2.75

Market was crap today…. had a huge run down overnight and once the market opened it just channeled away between 1314 and 1317.  Tried to go short a few times with the overall trend being down and it never worked out.  On the first trade I tried to minimize my risk and moved my stop up a couple of ticks.  Had I not done that my profit target would have been hit at the first area for a small gain.  The second trade was valid but HTS.  Had one small winner that I should have let ride and it was a total accident.  For whatever reason when my second trade stopped out the profit target OW never cancelled and I didn’t notice.  So it filled me to the upside and I panic’d  and hit close.  These consolidation days are still frustrating me… I’m going to do the market replay and practice working on a few “pro” trades where I watch the 233 chart close and look to exit on any slowdowns for a point here and there.  I need some sideways market skills in a serious way or this is going to be a losing endeavour for me and I don’t plan on letting that happen.

+2.75

Good trading today… recognizing again that I tend to eat up any gains in a sideways market but do fine when it’s trending.  Had a couple of points where I wanted to take the easy money and run but stayed in the trade because I’m doing the HTS techinique and they ended up working in my favor.  At the end I had a V3 where my profit target didn’t fill even though it came down and touched it for a couple of ticks and was then stopped out.  All in all a good day and one that ended with a positive number on the board so it’s good for my ego.