May 31 Trade Summary $2,030

Traded the first 2 1/2 hours and now I gotta go to work. I did a pretty crazy trade on CL, a 10 lot for 5 ticks in 5 seconds, and as of right now if I had held the trade I would have an extra 5k on the trade, but it was just a quick scalp before I leave for work. No time for analysis.

P/L= $2,030

May 30 Trade Summary $1,517

Unfortunately I had technical problems with IB this morning and missed the first hour of trading, and as a result missed some good trading. IB failed to log me in this morning and wouldn't open the book trader when I finally did get a connection. I finally got connected at 7:30am and scalped the next 2 hours, took a break, and scalped another 20min, and now I'm done for the day.

P/L= $1,517 (61 RT)

Broker Problems-

IB error on log on-


Also, for some reason my total contracts traded on my trade summary log is showing double the amount of contracts I actually traded. It says I did 122 round turns today, when I actually only did 61 RT.

Trading style today-
Today is the first day I implemented a new trading style based on scalping volatility spikes. This new style of trading should have profit targets hit quickly and has a tight stop as default. With this new style of trading I hope to increase my contract size for each trade, become more mechanical in my trading, and eventually be able to move to trading ES to trade larger size.

Market Observations-
NYSE A/D opened at the lowest level I have ever monitored before (I'm sure Feb 27 was a lower value), but the futures couldn't push the NYSE A/D down any further on heavy volume during the morning, and we rallied right back into bull mode and have been trending up all day. ZN got faded today like it usually does at 7:30am, and XLE and Financials look to be the strong sectors today, which are the best sectors IMO for a trending bullish day.

May 29 Trade Summary $706

Could only trade the first 4 hours. I'm not sure if it was the market or me today, but I did really bad. I did some major churning today, mainly during the first 2 hours. I did 132 round turns trading ER2; that's about $600 just in commissions. Looks like Oil and Financials are weak and tech's are relatively strong today. I was looking at a new trading technique today, and I think that may have affected my trading. Also, there seemed to bearish divergence between the A/D lines of the exchanges and the price of the indices until the market turned at 8:30am.

P/L= $706

EDIT:
It looks like IB made an error on my trade summary log today, I only did 132 round turns, which makes since according to the gross and net P/L.

May 25 Trade Summary $3,250

Could only trade the first hour and a half. I'm surprised I ended the week with a profit considering I had a 8k loss on Monday. Today we had a bullish NYSE A/D setup, and a fade around 7:45am on volume exhuastion. Expecting a retrace into the afternoon and probably a lot of chop.

P/L= $3,250

Have a great weekend ya'll.

May 24 Trade Summary $2,034

Priorities- That is what I need to work on.
I traded the first 4 hours, and now I'm going to work. When we have a selloff like we did today, you have to be trading the contract you know. Unfortunately my attention and assets were wrapped up in ZN and AAPL when the selloff started, so I had to manage those trades, and I was unable to trade ER2 during the selloff, which as a result caused me to lose a lot of potentially easy money to be made. Overall, I'm satistfied that I got a good trade in on ZN, considering I lack experience trading it, I did exit too soon though. (I bought bonds ahead of the selloff, unfortunantely I forgot to short equities at the top because most of my attention was spent on watching ZN and ZF.) I did get a few good scalps on YM, and I'm actually surprised that I traded so many contracts on YM and ER2. I had a downside target of 828 on ER2 today, I feel bad that I didn't make more money than I did considering the large range we had today. Overall, I need to stop wasting my time with AAPL, and I need to just work on ER2 and YM.

P/L= $2,034

Market observations-
Bond/stock inverse trade occured today, marking what looks to be the start of increased volatility for the markets and a possible correction for equities.(However we have memorial day coming up so people may be just be unloading positions before the 3 day weekend). ER2 caught up to YM today in terms where they trade relative to each other. I was actually buying YM and shorting ER2 today, the opposite of yesterday. It seems like everyone caught on to the buy small caps and short big caps pair trade by Tuesday. I looked at is a more of a blowoff top, where large short positions were being accumulated in small caps and ER2. Rick Santelli said last month that he expected SP500 to test the old highs before a market correction, he looks to be correct so far. Bob Pisani and most of the broadcasters at CNBC always tell you the news 1-2 days after its happened. Bob Pisani was saying yesterday, "Record short interest", "market is likely to continue higher and squeeze the shorts".What about all of last month, shorts were squeezed badly on all of the "good earnings news" like AMZN. Guess what happened, shorts were squeezed, covered near the top, we consolidated near the top for awhile, smart money came in an added shorts to all those "good earnings companies", and now we have a nice setup for a slow decline into the summertime. Time to sell some calendar calls.

May 23 Trade Summary $2,018

It looks like volatility is dying and the market is going to go into chop mode. I wouldn't be surprised to see the market end near a high or low for the day. I'm more biased to the downside for YM, but we are still in the bullish zone for the NYSE A/D line, and ES is near its all time high so we probably won't see a selloff yet.

Trade summary-
I pushed a runner on ER2 this morning and got about 1.2pts on 9 cards. I stuck to my strategy of only taking longs on ER2 and shorts on YM, and things worked smoothly today. Later in the day I put a 10 lot short on YM for a 5 tick scalp, and did some trading in Crude oil and XLE.
YM continues to look pretty bearish to flat(I think some calendars calls were sold last friday), and the NYSE A/D is more bearish then the NASDAQ A/D.
During choppy trading(like the last hour), it is amazing to see how well block trade signals work.

P/L= $2,018

Market observations-
It's interesting to note which sectors are the ones responible for the tick extremes(which sector has all of the stocks hitting the bid/ask near the high/low of the day and what is the reaction seen in the futures indices and commodities like crude oil and gold. I missed a key time reversal on Bonds today, I'm starting to wonder when ZN well turn around. If your going to swing trade, bonds sure seem to be a good trading vehicle; a contract that I need to spend more time on learning. Although Time and Sales may be overlooked by some traders, I've been reading the tape much more lately and have been noticing an important pattern to when a breakout is going to occur and when it's likely that the price well be faded. Another interesting fact about today was that I forgot to turn on the TV to CNBC, maybe not hearing CNBC in the background helped me focus better today.

May 22 Trade Summary $1,166

Well if you didn't see it yesterday, then you must have seen it today. Huge divergence between big caps and small/mid caps. With every low on YM you should have bought ER2, and with every High on ER2 you should have shorted YM. I didn't see this change between the indices until yesterday afternoon, and as a result there was a fatal impact on my trading results yesterday. YM is lower then it was yesterday and ER2 is higher than it was yesterday.

P/L= $1,166

I actually messed up first thing in the morning because I saw a short setup form. Unfortunately I went short ER2 (should have shorted YM instead), and I ended up letting a $500 winner turn into 3k worth of heat. Absolutely ridiculous, I know, it looked like it was going to be another blow up day. But I held the short, Vowing not to go short ER2 again, and finally covered ER2 around the 9am lows for a small profit. I then made a cool scalp trade with 8 cards for a few ticks based on something I've been noticing, and then I had my computer freeze up while it processed this mornings recording, and as a result I missed the afternoon breakout. I later tried going long ER2 at 841, got stopped out, went short and got stopped out, and then noticed a similiar pattern that we had yesterday (a price and volume peak), so I went short and made about 1/3 my profits.(Again, I never should have been looking to short ER2, but I saw the trade and took it, again I would have been better off shorting YM). I then later did some stock trades, covering my short on SMH and XLE too soon, and then near the close I shorted YM, and that trade was a piece of cake.

So until I see things change, if I want to go short ER2 I will short YM instead, and if I want to go long, I will go long ER2 over YM. Another thing I made a mistake on and failed to notice was that the Nasdaq advance decline line is a much better gauge to use when trading ER2 and NQ, where as NYSE A/D is better used on YM and ES. I'm still using NYSE TICK, but I will look into seeing if NASDAQ TICK is any better to use.

May 22 Afternoon progress

P/L= $575

I was getting my butt kicked this morning, but stuck it out. Not sure if I'm done for the day, I'm waiting for a possible afternoon breakout in SPY and IWM. 837 has been a magent on ER2 today. I tried a scalp trade with 8 cards and got 2-3 ticks, a new scalping setup I've been looking at where you only have a few seconds to react based on NYSE TICK and block trades. I recorded it, so I might be able to show to you guys later. I'm so happy to be positive today considering how choppy its been and how crappy I traded yesterday.

May 22 PreMarket

Well, in the last 2 days ER2 has caught up to YM in terms of percentage gains for the past week, and IWM is at it's 52 week high. I have a bullish bias on ER2 going into today and will be looking for long signals. I will pay less attention to the divergence between ER2 and YM because trading off the diveregences between the indices doesn't work like it use to. I will be looking to see if there is strength in SMH and XLF today, which will help ER2 and ES make new highs for the year. Only add to winners and cut the losers. There is no real news out today except for the Richmond Fed index at 10am EST and Paulson speaking at 9:15am EST, so today should be a fairly straight forward day.

May 21 Anatomy of a blow up day $-8K

P/L= $-8,100

It would be wrong not to post today's performance, because it is REAL, and it shows that I'm human and mess up just like everyone else. I was short YM, covered and lost 2k, went long ER2 at its tops and sold for a 2k loss, went short ER2 and lost 4k. The divergences messed me up. I tried trading longer time frames then my usual scalping while holding large size. As a result I traded badly, trying to get back to breakeven. I'm looking at a few things where I might be able to trade large size and look for 5 ticks per scalp. Today was definitely a depressing day. I'm going to go back to scalping and trading my usual size, because that is what has worked the best in the past. I should stick with trading ER2 as well, because I'm not as good at trading YM. It's funny that I drew in arrows to where ER2 would go today on Sunday night, yet I totally ignored that ER2 was traveling there because I was trading YM and focusing in on it. I've added a new label - tagged- trading blow up. For all the people that thought that it wasn't possible to win everyday, well, here it is, my blowup day. Lets see how much I can lose tommorow from revenge trading and trying to make it all back in 1 day! (NOT)

May 21 morning trading

I'm short YM at 13580. There is a big bearish divergence on YM compared to ER2.(the reverse of what we saw last week). Profit target is 20-50pts to the downside. I'm waiting for an afternoon breakdown. ER2 is making new highs, but YM is still near its opening price. I'm taking some heat on this trade, but it looks like there is strong resistance at 13590 and that traders are buying ER2 instead. I bet this divergence is really messing with traders heads that have been trading YM for the last few weeks.

May 21 Week Outlook

The Monday following option expiration Friday can be a good day to trade. I'll be watching for signs of a trending market.

May 18 update $844

I was getting ready to leave for work and I came to my computer and saw that ER2 had broken out and was at 823, and that YM had bearish divergence compared to ER2 (the reverse of what we've been seeing lately), so I got a quick long scalp on ER2, and a short scalp on YM.

P/L= $844

OK, now I'm officially done.

Market Observations-
Too bad I missed ER2's afternoon pop, no one was expecting it I bet, but with expiration today, the divergences aren't working between YM/ER2, and we saw a reverse of what we have been seeing between this pair for the last month.

Have a good weekend ya'll