Has been a long time since I added here.
Have not been trading futures, concentrating solely on Aus equities mainly because I have great trouble being alert enough late at night to trade futures. I think if I lived in a different timeframe, futures would hold most interest for me, but the time of day makes a huge difference in how well I trade.
Will have to do more Futures shortly, if only to recover the loss in value due to my account being in US dollars. This effectively has meant a loss in value due to the AUD gain over the USD.
Anyhow, thought this might be a good place to create a diary for myself, a place to write a few thoughts about my trading. Things like how I'm feeling with my trades, how my methods are progressing. A place where I can return some time in the future and look back at my time trading.

Have had cause this week to monitor my emotions whilst trading. Lost my very best mate last week and past experience told me to take extra caution, have made some huge errors a few years ago trying to trade after the passing of my Father.
I decided to trade wider stops and set smaller trade positions to lock in potential losses to a maximum of 0.5% of the account. In doing so and making my trading more of a mathematical system I realised I can set and forget trades which makes it possible to hold more positions at a given time than I have been able to control in past.
Am liking the feeling and have noticed it has less emotional component than trading tighter stops. I think the fact I am more relaxed plus have more time analyse potential new positions, the result is better trading.
In the past, tight contingent stops have sometimes been costly by being triggered intra-day only to find price recover by end of session, meaning I have been stopped a position unnecessarily.
Since prior posts have really been embracing Volume Spread Analysis (VSA), might write down a few thoughts here as i progress in learning VSA.

Wasted month, that's the only thing I can say about what has been a miserable few weeks trade wise.The last post I mentioned a significant setback, yet little did I realize just how much a single loss can affect confidence. Have become somewhat reluctant to pull the trigger and when I have done it has usually been to late so increases greatly the chance of the trade being run over. That in turn increases the number of fail trades, again further zapping confidence.
This coming week may turn into some sort of turning point. I feel now I have finally put the disappointment behind me. Stay tuned

What a week this has been, from highs to lows and back again. Started the week being overly cautious which resulted in some very small gains and missing some huge wins because i didn't have faith in my selected entries, so as the week wore on I gradually became more comfortable with trading live and spent little time in sim trading. I preferred to expose myself to more of the real world and the rough and tumble of emotions trading the live market. So come late Friday with a reasonable week of gains in the account i decided one more throw of the dice. I intended it to be a small position to take advantage of a late short covering squeeze should it occur. No sooner was i set and the market came back to take out my position at break even.
All this would be fine, except for some reason not yet known to me, i had a brain fade and decided to trade in the opposite direction. a move that was to become the biggest most expensive lesson the market has given me so far.
I managed to turn a modest week of gain into a total disaster which may take several weeks of careful trading to recover from.
I am preparing for the week ahead, trying not to let the set-back affect my confidence, trying not to chase a bad mistake by taking further risks and destroying the account even further. Will post mid week with a progress report

Trading from the wrong side

One of the key elements to become a successful trader surely is being alert when you trade, be able to make clear and concise decisions in quick time.
So why do I leave the safe haven of a familiar market that I normally trade in Australia and change to trading a market that operates in the middle of my nighttime, is fiercely complex and rips trading accounts to shreds faster than a wild animal does to its prey ?

The answer to that is quite complex and yet so simple. After 8 years of honing skills on the local market I have come to the conclusion that the market here in Australia is to small. Not in the way you may think, It's not that I feel I have outgrown it, more so that I finally can see the amount of manipulation present in the market.
The amount this influences outcomes for the retail trader can be quite severe, most of all for anyone who trades on Technical Analysis, the bigger players can easily create what appears to be an ideal set-up on relatively low volumes, then catch the majority of unsuspecting retail traders as they reverse direction and take everyone to the cleaners.
I dont mean to suggest there are no big players moving markets anywhere but in Australia, what I say is it becomes much more difficult to create their desired outcome when attempted in a much larger markets. This is but one of my reasons for moving to Futures.
Here we go, off on this new adventure.

I have spent the last couple of months trading the S&P each night in simulation, checking what indicators suit my style, how the market pulses, how different news affects price action, and looking for the footprints left by the elephants (there eare manipulators in every market), developing diferent strategies etc.

All the initial research and development has now been done, now I have to put everything to practical use.

Hope to leave a record here each day of the experiences and feelings i have as this process unfolds

Starting Live Trading

This journal will document my journey through this life changing experience. Already so much has had to change to arrive at this point.