April 27 Trade Summary $417

I woke up late, 20min after market open, so I wasn't as prepared as I should have been. If only I had held on to that short position for another 6 min, today could've been a 1k+ day. Still, today was productive for the hour that I traded. Expecting market volatility to tail off now that they got BUSH on CNBC. I didn't have time to record todays trading. Gotta go to work so Quitin early.

P/L= $417

Trade summary-
There was a ton of volume on the bids at 7:35am, as you can tell from that charts, and it was near the lows, so I went short expecting a flush to the down side, but it didn't go within 3 min like I thought. So I ended up covering up the majority of the 5 contracts I held before we got the push through the lows. I ended up buying a little too soon, (should have used a 4 tick stop on that first buy at 832), but remembered that 830 was good support by looking at the volume profile charts which showed support at 830 from a few days ago and also we were getting block trades at this level with less movement to the downside, so I ended up adding to the long position and scaled out on NYSE TICK highs.

MISSTRADE also went short ER2 last night at 839 and made some nice coin today, covering near the lows. I've been checking out his blog through the virtual office, and he's been kicking ass. Also, Evolution Trader; who trades the airlines mostly, has been kicking ass as well lately.(I like his method to trading).

Market observations-
Gold (ZG) and Swiss Franc (6S) have bee pretty volatile lately, as well as crude oil (CL). Bonds (ZN) have been pretty choppy lately.

Weekly Summary:
Confidence was stronger this week, and has been growing each day with my account balance. My goal this month was to gain just as much as I did as last month, and I think I met that goal, which is pretty good considering I had 1 losing day this month where I lost $900. This week's gains were above average, which I contribute to trading with IB Book Trader. My goal was to gain more experience in trade executions this week using IB Book Trader, and it turns out that so far trading with IB Book Trarer has been a wise choice.

Weekly P/L= $2,005

I might not be able to trade next Monday or Tuesday, due to work. So I will probably do my monthly recap this weekend.

April 20 Trade summary

I was done trading after my first trade, but then came back later and took a look at my account and noticed that I needed another $50 to make $1,000 for the week, so I put on a couple of scalp trades and made the extra amount needed.

P/L= $115

Market observations-
Option expiration was the highlight the first 15min, and then things started to tailoff. ZN and JPY are retracing as expected and the Dow has made new highs. I would not hold any longs over the weekend. I'm expecting next week to be very volatile, with a bearish tone. I'm really anxious to see where the market opens on Monday. I've noticed the Mondays following option expiration tend to be trend days, so be on the lookout.

Trade Summary for the week-
Well, I made up for my big loss I took last Friday and made some extra by going back to trading small size and taking high probability trade setups. Overall, the P/L for the week was average, but the amount of time I was in the market when compared to the P/L, was above average considering I only traded the first 2 hours 4/5 days this week.

Weekly P/L= $1,015

Tuesday of this week I posted charts showing Volume gaps labeled with VPOC (virgin point of control), and these VPOC's were filled as expected yesterday. I wanted to take advantage of the Volume gap seen on IWM (ER2 is the futures contract for IWM), but I wasn't able to because the hedgies gapped it down in the afterhours due to weakness in the asian markets, and I rarely will hold positions overnight so I wasn't in the trade. When the market opened Thursday, the VPOC had been hit and the gap had been filled. Moreover, there was no opportunities for short setups to the downside once the gap had been filled.
Checkout the comparison charts. These charts are a good example of how VPOC's and volume gaps can be used as a setup for short term trades.

IWM April 17:



IWM April 20:



ZN Tuesday April 17:



ZN Thursday April 19: