bakedbeans' learning journal

[aliassmith]

Sounds like a good path to me. You don't have to aim for the stars. An average of 20points in the /ES each week is good money. 1 contract on a $50k account is plenty during the eval.

Edit: 60+ points a month is actually good. 20/ week might have been a little overzealous.

yeah i thought "hmm.. 5 pts a day might be a little too much for me... I'm no Alias!"

I've averaged 3.25 points, so I figure if I can get consistent at ~3, then I can build from there (either more size or a little more distance; both, over time).

That comes out to 60+ a month. 1 contract and you pass the $50k. Work on getting better at hitting 60/month, increase your profit cushion and add size. Getting up to 5 contracts pays well. It takes 1 trade at a time and each one adds to the experience.

[bb01100100]

My sim experiment went well today: I was long-only since the market was higher than the 12pm ET open price.

I had fixed SL/TP of 7 ticks (based on my ATR settings) and managed to net 2pts on my 3 lots.. $318 net.
I had 11 trades and was only profitable 54% of the time, but I moved my stops quickly once price moved in my favour.

It was frustrating limiting my tp.. but it got me into the mode of banking and needing to find a re-entry.

Daylight savings changes are still a struggle: internally at 6am I'm done for the day because that used to be 4pm ET, but now it's only 3pm (my timezone doesn't do daylight savings).. so I need to practice "trading on" and working with the last hour the market, which can put some nice moves in like today when it moved 10 points higher.

Summary:
- Bias said long only, so I worked long only
- Rules said 7 tick stops and profits, so max stop was 7 or less ticks. I took profits at 7 ticks or less depending on how much price struggled through resistance. That paid off a couple of times, so I'm OK with that.

[bb01100100]

Eval account (Apex only these days) update:

Net +0.78%, cumulative +0.78, target 6%... back here again.

I was scalping using M1 ATR for sl/tp sizing and price at 12pm ET as Line in the Sand for bias.

The LiS wasn't very good because I could see the market was bid as it looked to grind up to the prior hour's high.. I took a few small losses that added up over the first hour; but I then noticed volume at 4433-4434 and no one buying the highs, so I got short at 4433 and scaled out at 2pts as price pushed lower and again at 4pts as price ran stops.

I then got back into scalping mode shorting and exiting as price pushed down from 4430 to 4427.

Price ran stops and volume came in at 4426-4426.50 forming a low and successive candles couldn't get within 2 ticks of the low.. I realised it was time to be long instead of being dogmatic.

I scalped in/out/add/out from 4428 to 4430, which got me nicely up for the day... it felt good to have a target (prior volume area) and to be confident in re-entering after scaling out.

Price got back towards the prior hour's high and apart from entering 1x lot short too soon, I got cautiously positioned again near the high 1x lot then added another 1x lot at the same price a little later.. then scaled out at 4 ticks and 6 ticks and called it a day... the 6 tick trade looked like me exiting at the low of a consolidation range, but price pushed lower a minute later which could have been a 14 tick trade instead.. oh well.

Learnings/to-do list:

• Be mindful of losing sight of the wood for the trees: hourly structure is very important and provides a context for executing.. price WILL travel distance over time
• Aim to get in at slightly better prices.. 1 tick better amounts to another point or two of net profit with these small scalps.
• "Position scalping" seems a viable approach: structural targets from H1, scalps on M1, running a core position (1x lot) over a longer period of time. A skill I need to develop; perhaps I can change SierraChart to use LIFO so my avg price looks correct.
• My net profit is higher than usual because I kept focusing on the session and not on my PnL.. I saw several opportunities and took them. I need to continue building confidence in trading towards the session close.

Lastly...
I've been a long-term DOM user because it can be useful to see what volume has traded a price.. but on ES I find it hard to keep track of levels.. either you get volume per-price-tap or session volume, so the details get blurred over time.
Recently I tried using a footprint chart (despite my reservations that these might just be gimmicks), which captures the bid/ask traded volume per-candle per-price.. it's UGLY, but I feel like it helped during this session to see whether volume was one-sided or balanced.. or whether stops fired at a price extreme..

Attached is the footprint chart I used today..

2023-11-14-footprint.jpg (118.83 KiB) Viewed 18405 times

That swing low on the chart is what I was referring to above: price never went near it again, volume built up above it and there was nice movement up away from it.

[aliassmith]

Eval account (Apex only these days) update:

Net +0.78%, cumulative +0.78, target 6%... back here again.

I was scalping using M1 ATR for sl/tp sizing and price at 12pm ET as Line in the Sand for bias.

The LiS wasn't very good because I could see the market was bid as it looked to grind up to the prior hour's high.. I took a few small losses that added up over the first hour; but I then noticed volume at 4433-4434 and no one buying the highs, so I got short at 4433 and scaled out at 2pts as price pushed lower and again at 4pts as price ran stops.

I then got back into scalping mode shorting and exiting as price pushed down from 4430 to 4427.

Price ran stops and volume came in at 4426-4426.50 forming a low and successive candles couldn't get within 2 ticks of the low.. I realised it was time to be long instead of being dogmatic.

I scalped in/out/add/out from 4428 to 4430, which got me nicely up for the day... it felt good to have a target (prior volume area) and to be confident in re-entering after scaling out.

Price got back towards the prior hour's high and apart from entering 1x lot short too soon, I got cautiously positioned again near the high 1x lot then added another 1x lot at the same price a little later.. then scaled out at 4 ticks and 6 ticks and called it a day... the 6 tick trade looked like me exiting at the low of a consolidation range, but price pushed lower a minute later which could have been a 14 tick trade instead.. oh well.

Learnings/to-do list:

• Be mindful of losing sight of the wood for the trees: hourly structure is very important and provides a context for executing.. price WILL travel distance over time
• Aim to get in at slightly better prices.. 1 tick better amounts to another point or two of net profit with these small scalps.
• "Position scalping" seems a viable approach: structural targets from H1, scalps on M1, running a core position (1x lot) over a longer period of time. A skill I need to develop; perhaps I can change SierraChart to use LIFO so my avg price looks correct.
• My net profit is higher than usual because I kept focusing on the session and not on my PnL.. I saw several opportunities and took them. I need to continue building confidence in trading towards the session close.

Lastly...
I've been a long-term DOM user because it can be useful to see what volume has traded a price.. but on ES I find it hard to keep track of levels.. either you get volume per-price-tap or session volume, so the details get blurred over time.
Recently I tried using a footprint chart (despite my reservations that these might just be gimmicks), which captures the bid/ask traded volume per-candle per-price.. it's UGLY, but I feel like it helped during this session to see whether volume was one-sided or balanced.. or whether stops fired at a price extreme..

Attached is the footprint chart I used today..
2023-11-14-footprint.jpg

That swing low on the chart is what I was referring to above: price never went near it again, volume built up above it and there was nice movement up away from it.

I traded ES a little in NY. I lost 2pts then over 3 trades I made 4.75pts. Net 2.75pts.

[IgazI]

It takes a bit of work, but it is helpful to turn a P&F chart into a histogram, where the average rotation length is 3-6 boxes:

The rotations that break 6 are "trending moves" when there are two breaks of the same color, without two breaks of the opposite color, and
"interrupting moves" when the break is opposite the trending direction.

You will also quickly see:
- the last 6 months of intraday behavior
- how long trends tend to last
- which direction to trade
- when to look for trades.

[bb01100100]

It takes a bit of work, but it is helpful to turn a P&F chart into a histogram, where the average rotation length is 3-6 boxes:

The rotations that break 6 are "trending moves" when there are two breaks of the same color, without two breaks of the opposite color, and
"interrupting moves" when the break is opposite the trending direction.

You will also quickly see:
- the last 6 months of intraday behavior
- how long trends tend to last
- which direction to trade
- when to look for trades.

Wow, that got me thinking... I'll have a look at my US afternoon sessions and see if I can identify some tradable statistics; thanks for the nudge.

[bb01100100]

I’ve been working on a few “less is more” things recently:

- observing price action more closely, more cautiously
- scalping for very conservative targets that fit within the price action I’m observing.. could be 3 to 8 ticks depending on what’s happening
- making myself only trade with the price action bias I am observing: no higher timeframe, no prediction
- acknowledging that I’ll build my day with a series of smaller trades rather than a runner: being ok with several winners and several losers and keeping my stops reasonable so that I inch forward
- trusting what I’m seeing instead of trying to fade it

It’s hard work; a loss of focus sometimes means I miss a low risk entry and need to sit on my hands.

I’m trading 1 lot most of the time and am up 1.6% on the eval account .. target 6% as always.

Going with smaller targets has helped me to become slightly more comfortable with taking succcessive trades after I’ve netted 3 points.. I’m more ok with scratching or taking 3-5 ticks if things stall/grind.

[bb01100100]

Update:

Now +2.46%.. small up today (0.23%) and circa 0.63% at the end of last week).

Still swinging small and keeping the stops nearby; small bites and more of them.

[bb01100100]

Update:
Net +0.66%, cumulative is 3.14%.. I have pi!

[Don_xyZ]

Update:
Net +0.66%, cumulative is 3.14%.. I have pi!

Great going there!