Further Refinements, and thoughts on long PC day

It occurred to me i don't have a contingency planned for when my down day pc play (DDPP) starts to work but then there is a late day reversal.  So here it is.  Once it starts to work, if it dips back above the MA, my exit is 4.5 points away from the initial touch of the MA, or my original stop loss exit, whichever is closer.  That should hopefully be a good one.

Today was a great PC day on the long side.  If i had tried to apply the DDPP rules to it, but reversed for an up day, i wouldn't have gotten in at all because there never was a sufficient pullback in the market.  It got me thinking that i had seen a lot of up PC days that never had a decent pullback but closed by their highs.  That would be a classic trend day.  I'm not sure if this is because up days are always like this, or the bull market that we find ourselves in,but that seems to be the case.  I'm going to look into it further in order to come up with a good UDPP setup rule list, but in the meantime, i am inclined to think it will have to buy it at a worse relative price, all the while keeping a sufficiently far stop.  So it would be riskier, but could still be quite profitable.  I will revisit this soon.

Down Day PC Play rules adjustment

Well it worked today, and like gang busters. I didn't do much for various reasons.  Suffice it to say I suck.  Also I did it wrong.  But that's neither here nor there.

Here is my adjusted rule list on this play.

Get in 2 Points above where if first crosses above the MA after 1PM.  Stop 2.5 points away.  Exit if it works - as soon as the market goes 4 points below the MA after 3PM, else, right before MOC's come out.

heres the chart of today (if following the new rules, locked 9.75 of profit and only 2 points of pain at the worst.)

new bearish pc play to try out

Seems like we just might be rolling over  for a little while, daily chart-wise in ES.  I've looked back a couple weeks, with the assumption, that if the dynamic of the market has changed recently from bullish to short term bearish, there would be some kind of pattern emerging with the way down days play out.

PC has been working better lately than it had been.  I have been really trying to get involved in that again.  So I have been looking at these down days for an afternoon PC trade.  I have noticed that out of 4 similar down days that i looked at, 3 of them had nice drops close to the close, or after 3 at least.  The fourth one did drift up the last hour and a half but didnt rip or anything.  So i came up with this trade:  If by 1 oclock, we havent had a real bounce on a down morning, wait for the first squeeze to the MA, (if we are above at 1, wait for a cross below for confirmation, then sell the next squeeze to it)  then put on a short trade for a couple hours- pc style.  Stop-loss has to be fairly far, like 4.5 points.  The exit, if it works, is into the first decent size drop after 3.  If you don't get one, out before imbalances come out.  Out of the 4 samples, i would have made nice bank on 3 of them, and lost about 2 points on one (if didnt take a small profit of 1 or 1.50 on the drop shortly after 3 and instead got out exasperated around moc time).  Two of the 3 that worked were today (actually yesterday, its after midnight) and friday, so recent action confirms.


Since this bearish action in the markets has only started recently there were not many examples to look at, meaning that there isn't quite so much confidence to be gained from any patterns found, but PC is something well tested.  Also, I have thought that the market tends to do what its been doing recently much more often than would be implied by mere coincidence, and also much more often than it tends to repeat behavior over long periods like months or years.  Because of this i think there is a strong chance that in the near future this behavior is likely to repeat, and so i am compelled to try to do this play.  I will try it out the next couple times I see it, and hopefully not mess it up too bad.  I will reassess then if i need to.  Lets say, next setup like this i see, i will do it with 3k shares of spy.  That loss if, it goes wrong of 1350 gross doesnt seem too bad...  If it really starts working repeatedly and my account balance recovers i can always size it up later.

here's how it would have worked out today

-fmlt

my dog

Learning Day

I didnt get any good quality setups today, so i am not pissed about being flat.  On the other hand, PC worked great so I have to formulate a plan of action for that bitch.  I am thinking buy either once or twice, a point below the MA and a stop loss 4 or or 5 points away from that, cover at 3:40 or 3:20.  Need to work on that this weekend. Also, what to buy? SPY IYR or KBE would be the most likely candidates.











-fmlt

today sucked. i am smoked

i dont have anything else to say

fml

Snoozefest

Friday was slow.  Today is slower.  Friday first half hour TVOL 122 mil shares.  Which is abysmal.  Today's is 112 mil.  Why work on the day Columbus accidentally thought he found india but instead found jamaica or some shit? Also,  no opportunity that i can see.  First hour's range in the S&P eminis- 4.5 points.  That is terrible.  Im gonna go hang with my wife and son.

note - That pic above is supposed to be Reese Witherspoon yawning.  Or deep throating a well-endowed ghost.  Im not sure which.

This market is very gay

                           

Super dead right out the gate.  There was one small oportunity that I didnt go on.  I hope next week is a better success than this week's fiasco.

-fmlt

Dearness. High-priced; expensive

"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.

It is dearness only which gives everything its value.

Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods."

-Thomas Paine

This got me thinking how sweet it will be to finally have success when it comes because its been a long hard road.

Didnt go on my trade

Lack of discipline begets more lack of discipline.  Still kicking myself over messing up my morning trade, I didnt go on a FMATANT trade and missed out on 1500 more dollars.  Starting tomorrow i cant allow any slipups!

-FMLT

I Made some Dough!!! (Epic Fail) :(

OK so today and yesterday I made money.  But i didnt follow the plan.

Two trades yesterday would have worked, and would have brought me flat on the week.  Instead I made half on one, and didnt take the second one.  And so far this morning, another trade worked.  Today was better than yesterday, because I made about 60% of what I should have made.  If I had followed the plan on all 3 trades I would be up 1500 on the week.  Instead, I am still down 1500 on the week.

I think its a lot easier for me to follow the plan when i get stopped out than when I get out of my trade a winner.  Its very hard for me to resist taking some profit.  I think its ingrained in my psyche from years of inconsistent trading.  If I see some money sitting on the table its hard to leave it all there and let it ride, to maybe be snatched away, and have to take a loss to boot.  Another thing that makes it difficult is this- when I put the trade on, its a 2 to 1 reward/risk.  When it moves towards my target, It starts to look more like 1 to 2, because my reward is an additional small move whereas if i get stopped out I lose all my unrealized profit plus the loss.  Anyway, all these are reasons I dont follow the plan, but they are not an excuse.  I have to make following the plan the #1 priority, like I have been saying all along.

Goal tomorrow: Stop fucking around.  Get my shit together.  Follow the plan!

FMLT

DOH! (no dough)

OK so after getting stopped out of my first trade, I had a nice chance for a comeback when the MA got tested at around 1030.  Based on what I was thinking about yesterday, I waited patiently for the previous bar's value.  Never got there.  Almost, but not quite.  Would have worked sick too.  Doh.

-fml

fixing rules

I have a thought about getting rid of the ambiguity of the moving MA from my setup (bottom of this post). Use the previous bar's value. boom, problem solved.

Assignment: Gotta go back and backtest when i am looking at charts

some observations

I was thinking about 3 different situations that may signal that doing my setup is risky and should be avoided-

1. after 12pm
2. after a reversal hammer bar like today after that 10 o'clock number
3. immediately following a successful gap fill like the 9:40 bar today


Assignment to self- when checking charts, look to see if any or all of these exceptions to the rule are warranted.


also, judging from today's actions so far pc is alive and well....

Success!! (I am smoked)

OK judging by how i followed the plan, I succeeded. But i was stopped out almost immediately on 2 trades so I am now down almost 1700 net and its 10:13 AM. Somehow i dont feel very good about my "success." Done for the day. FML

-FMLT

Week's Plang

OK I have decided to do this week with 4k. Also, my placement is at the MA.

this week blew a moose cock

Between having to go to the dentist Monday, internet issues Tuesday through Thursday, and today not getting the good setup except for a split second today, which i missed, i have to say that this week sucked in terms of being able to trade. Add to that my smokefest on Wednesday and you have a shitty week that will be great to recover from next week.

Speaking of next week. I am inclined to keep in last Friday's goal for this week of 3k shares on my setup. But i am also thinking that negative account aside I should be able to withstand the risk involved with my setup for 5k shares. Especially since it seems to work more often than it doesn't. So either I will do 3k, 5k or split the difference and do 4k. I have to decide that this weekend and have it down in the blog for accountability reasons before the market opens Monday.

More and more I am seeing that you can get your setups airtight but they are only as good as their execution. Reading trading from hell has confirmed that he is struggling with the same problem. When it comes to ostensibly smart traders that continue to underperform, i am starting to think that our main shortcoming is how we handle the task of trading than our analysis of the market. The best way i can think of to handle that is to make the trade as easy as possible, and then make following it the #1 priority (above the actual money made or lost. See my post here .) And to constantly try to push the amount of shares i can do that with over time.

reminder to self- this weekend try to come to terms with the best place to be setting my entry limits- at, further or closer to the MA- This is something i have never fully figured out. One thing that came up today is the fact that the latest candle's movement before it finishes (the 5 minutes are up in a 5 min chart) ends up moving where the line is.