I have recently subscribed to StockTkr journaling software in hopes of finding a trade journal software that meets my needs. My challenge is that I take several hundred trades a week now scalping across three brokers and really need a somewhat automated method for inputting trades. Stocktickr is very robust and has many features. I have been able to export trades in .csv format from all three brokers to input. The only real problem so far is that I can only export Infinity trades from the AT platform and that is limited to trades within that session. That sounds simple enough just download you trades for the day at the end of the day. The problem is that the AT platform resets itself for different instruments at different times of the day. I have found this to be too cumbersome for my needs. I contacted Infinity and they explained that they are working on a solution. I assume it will be a web based solution provided by TransAct as that is where customers currently find reports. I have had several asking me about this so I will post an update as I receive more information.

I am giving another long overdue update. January is finally over and I have been very busy with other non-trading business tasks as I am setting up a website and marketing material for our vacation rental business. Check back later at www.Cabinsof BlueRidge.net for updates. January was my third solid profitable month at 9.8%, lower than November and slightly higher than December. I am having difficulty compiling so many trades from three different brokers to extract needed statistical information. I have slowed trading equities futures and now almost solely trade the currency pair futures 6A, 6B, 6C, 6E, and 6J. I will occasionally trade NQ and rarely trade ES. This has been a pretty dramatic change and has been reflected in my results positively.

I have finished the Market Profile studies part of Joe Mertes mentoring program but still need to complete other aspects like refining my business and trading plans and completing detailed strength/weakness analysis. I am planning on spending another trading day with Joe live sometime over the next few weeks. I will post later on my progress with some thoughts on the use of Market Profile in general.

I had another record day today and bagged my best trade ever by catching a 344 pip x 2 cars (over $4k) on 6B. Fortunately, I was not even tempted to take any longs last night with the repeating P pattern on the Market Profile. See below for a 2 week composite that bring in some key areas below. I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t break 6240 today but when we do we could be looking at a significant continuation move down. I will post more analysis of these key areas over the weekend.

I traded 6E, mostly on the short side, for most of the day yesterday and managed my best day for the year so far (4.4%). It is worth noting that this 30 minute chart is indicative of a continuation move upward.  The “P” pattern formed on the Market Profile for 10/21 shows price exhaustion and normally a good place for trade placement for a rotation back to the mean. But in this case we need to exercise caution with shorts due to the fact we had a repeat of the “P” pattern on 10/22 (today) on lesser volume.

6E Monthly Profile Chart plotting price value area in red on histograms and POC lines in green. The cumulative yearly volumes are plotted to the left of each year in thin blue line.

Daily 6E Chart showing key S/R areas and 200EMA.

With regards to the monthly ES Market Profile we have rotated around the 1061.5 area forming a recent high volume node with a September POC 0f 1059.25 and a running October POC of 1061.5. We are now trading at least 50 points lower than last years lower end of yearly value area. That being said going into tomorrow, a low volume holiday, I will be looking for shorts and a rotation down before rotating up as we will need significant buying conviction and volume to rotate up from this area. Last years POC and high volume node is 1275.25.

I realize that it has been quite a while since my last post. Many things have changed since that time frame. Even though I have neglected this site, I have not been neglecting my work trading. My hours have gotten longer and since increasing my 6E trading and in the market from 2:00-3:00 AM until 4:00 EST for 2-3 days per week and weekends get consumed quickly with family and rest.

I have continued with the eminiaddict subscription but not always listening to David’s webinar. I am usually in David’s chat room and also in Vlad’s chat room at esecfutures.com. for the most part during the trading day. In addition, I have also subscribed recently to Ben Lichtenstein’s squakbox broadcast of the live S&P pit. I have both going most of the time but slowly trying to use Ben’s service primarily. I trade only futures now and use the futures contracts to trade currencies. My current trading plan as follows, ES and 6E (Euro) trades constitute 8o% of my trades with the other 20% being of 6J (Japanese Yen) and 6B (British Pound).  I have become much more regimented and find myself sticking to my trading plan better. It has also shown in my results as I have had my best 3 weeks of the year in the past 7 weeks, ranging from 6.2% to 7.9% per week. In reality, I only expect to have one week like that every 6 to 8 weeks. I am trading on accounts totaling 60-70k total for now and is sufficient for my risk tolerance and position sizing. I am looking forward to doubling my trading account size in 6-12 months as I become more consistent.

My trading setup has changed a bit. Hardware wise, I am all Mac now and do not use any PCs. I am still using TOS and Tradestation for charting and have not been able to fully convert to Tradestation. I am using IB and Tradestation as brokers but still have accounts with Infinity, TOS, and MB Trading as well. I currently run Tradstation on Windows XP inside of VMware Fusion on the Mac. I am at the same time and on the same machine running TOS, IB, Market Internals spreadsheets, etc. on Mac OSX natively. I like this setup as it is very stable and also mobile on a 17 inch MacBook Pro with a secondary 22 inch Samsung T220 monitor, secondary Mac full keyboard and mouse. I still have a desktop PC with a Samsung T260 and a T220 in my upstairs office that is not currently being used.

I will be starting a one-on-one mentorship with Joe Mertes at Joseph James Consulting next week that should last into the holidays. Joe uses Market Profile data extensively in his trading so I will be learning something new. We will be refining my trading plan over the next few weeks and will post it here once it is refined. Our goals are not to overhaul my trading since I am already profitable and getting more consistent every week but to enhance my trading by working over the basics of planning, execution, tracking etc. inside of my existing plan. I will also post periodic updates of my training and hopefully some examples.

Well that’s enough for now. I am hoping to get back to posting on this site and get some fresh material posted. Thanks!

{ Simple indicator to ID new extreme values, while leaving
an indication of prior Highs & Lows. Existing TS indicator,
Day Open Hi Lo Lines erases prior highs & lows, showing only
most recent extreme.

The above implemented by drawing H_Lines across all new extremes.
This is working, but when small, barely visible new extremes
occur, it is often difficult to see which candle caused the
new extreme. Thus a PB indicator will also be added to color the
TICK bar that causes the new extreme value.
}

vars:
DayHi ( 0 ) ,
DayLow ( 0 ) ;

if date <> date[1] then
begin
DayHi = high ;
DayLow = Low ;
end ;

if High > DayHi then
begin
DayHi = High ;
end ;

if Low < DayLow then
begin
DayLow = Low ;
end ;

Plot1( DayHi, "Tick Hi" ) ;
Plot2( DayLow, "Tick Lo" ) ;
Plot3( 0, "Z-Line" ) ;

(Above this is the code for the indicator do not copy below this.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Below this is the code for the paintbar do not copy above this.)

{ PaintBar for tick extremes }

vars:
BarColor ( White ),
DayHi ( 0 ) ,
DayLow ( 0 ) ;

if date <> date[1] then
begin
DayHi = high ;
DayLow = Low ;
end ;

BarColor = White ;

if High > DayHi then
begin
DayHi = High ;
BarColor = Red ;
end ;

if Low < DayLow then
begin
DayLow = Low ;
BarColor = Green ;
end ;

PlotPaintBar( High, Low, “Xtreme”, BarColor ) ;

The Expo started on Wednesday and Chris AKA breezerhead and I did not arrive until Thursday around lunch. We attended seminars pretty much all day over the two days. We also had a chance to meet with several fellow traders from the Emini Addict Trading Room. There were about 11-12 of us total and we had a chance to drink and dine together both nights. It was great to put faces with some of the people in the room and get to know them better.

From left to right: RV, breezerhead, Ripster, Letrader, me SteveC, DH aka EminiAddict, RayC, and AnnArbor.

Congress reconvenes next week. If you have not aready done so, makes sure you contact your congressman and encourage them to act on the following:

• Koh favors treaties and U.N. conferences that undermine American sovereignty
• Koh’s positions handicap America’s efforts to defend itself
• Koh’s positions would harm American businesses

And so it begins. Rep. Alan Grayson has distributed the letter below to all Democrats in the House and will use it to generate Democratic co-sponsorship for the HR1207 Bill, aka The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, allowing the GAO to audit the Federal Reserve, and also require a Fed report to Congress by the end of 2010.

This is the critical first step for U.S. Taxpayers to regain some semblance of control over the insanity that happens each and every day over at the Federal Reserve. The status quo must change.

Zero Hedge recommends all readers who believe in transparency and accountability join Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, James K. Galbraith, Dean Baker, Bill Black, Tyler Durden, Yves Smith, US PIRG, Public Citizen, Mike Farrell, Digby, Rob Kuttner, Ian Welsh, Bill Greider, Stirling Newberry, ANWF, Les Leopold, Mike Lux and others in supporting Alan Grayson and asking Democratic members of Congress to cosponsor the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Endorse your approval of the proposal and go to this site to sign the petition.
From Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Here is the schedule for the Memorial Day Holiday for CME.

The “cap-and-trade” legislation (HR2454) that is being pushed through congress by Chairman Henry Waxman (CA- D) is just another tax on the American people. Even President Obama has admitted that it is going to be an additional cost on every household and business in this country. It will cost the average American family anywhere from $700 to $3,000 a year depending on whose analysis you believe. I believe the $3000 estimate determined by a study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

It’s a tax! “Cap-and-trade” is just another tax and a huge expansion of government bureaucracy.

Bill: (HR2454) American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

Summary of Bill: Cap and Tax Overview

Democrats have this legislation on a fast track hoping that the American people will not notice.

Please contact your Representative and both Senators with the following message:
Please vote NO on the upcoming ‘cap-and-trade’ legislation. We do not need another tax on the people of this country nor another government bureaucracy.

Please respond immediately! Congress has this bill on a fast track.

The undermining of Nancy Pelosi. We can only hope…

I have finished up a busy week. I traded half days only on Tuesday and Friday (Today) and full days on Wednesday and Thursday and managed to pull 29 points out of ES Emini for the week. This was definitely my best week of this year so far. I have been working diligently on discipline and trying to avoid over trading. I believe that focusing on setting up most of my trades around the 15 minute chart has also increased my performance. I am taking less than one half of the trades that I was two months ago. I also traded two contracts instead of one a few times in the past two days scaling out with two profit targets. The goal is to increase no. of contracts as my consistency increases. I did get my Infinity account funded today. I can now say that I have test driven a total of five brokers in the past 10 months of trading. (IB, Etrade, MB Trading, Think or Swim, and now Infinity)

Governor Purdue vetoed the J.O.B.S 2009 bill. The good news is that he did sign into effect HB482, a bill that eliminates ad valorem tax on business inventory.

I finally booked my travel to the International Traders Expo in Las Angeles June 3-6. I am only going for 2 nights arriving on the second day and departing on the last day (Saturday). The intent was to stay through Saturday and take only one “pay” course,  Linda Raschke’s condensed 3 day course, Classic Technical Trading. I have not decided if I will take her course as there are others during that time that are free. This is my first of these events and I am looking forward to learning and meeting some fellow comrades in person.

Here’s a great video, Mind Over Market by Mark Douglas, that I ran across last week. He is the author of Trading in the Zone and Diciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes.

I finished the day with a gain of +165 USD holding only a small position long in DZZ. I was tired today and only traded 1 hour in the morning and 2 in the afternoon but did so scalping the ES with some success. I have been really focusing on disecting the $TICK and also limiting scalps to areas around signifcant levels on the 15 minute chart. This weekend I am looking forward to setting up my new trading computer and getting caught up on some reading. I started Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas last night and looks like it’s going to be a great book.

I finished the day with a gain of +197 USD and holding only a small position long in DZZ with an entry of  22.52. I scalped the ES a few times for a gain. I accidentally added to my DUG position when trying to put a sell limit order in that cost me some change. I later closed the entire position at 19.20 (P&L above not correct). I tried scalping the E7 Euro mini contract a couple of times and stopped out. It is looking like I will use the currency futures over spot FX going forward. Tonight to take a short position in the ES if we move up near the daily pivot.

Volunteers are needed for the Freedom Works booth at the GOP Convention in Savannah for May 15th and 16th. Volunteers are asked to work 2 hour shifts on Friday between 12:00 and 5:00 PM and on Saturday between 9:00 AM and 12:00. For more information contact:

Debbie Ellis-Dooley

debbie0040@yahoo.com

Cell 404-625-4986

I have finished the day with a loss -140 USD holding a position long in DUG. We opened up above previous days highs and still managed to get a full gap fill on the ES. The gap fill is a great play but my bias was too bullish to jump on. I got stopped a couple times in the morning, once after lunch and hit my max loss for day and sat out afterward.

I finished the day flat with a gain of +168 USD (the 500+ above on DUG is misleading, read on). I only traded between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning and then had to leave to run errands. I scalped the ES a couple of times and closed the one long DUG futures contract at 20.05 for +146 (0.15×1000-4 comm). I would normally hold DUG for more but was a bit anxious to close as it as it was tying up a bit more than I like to carry in one trade and I was about to leave for the day. Too bad for me as it ended up retracing up to 50% of the move down from Friday afternoon (see chart above). It would have been a gain of +600 USD in that one trade exiting at 20.50.  Oh well, you know what is said about hindsight.

I finished the day holding only 1 futures contract long DUG with a loss of +18 USD (-56 today and +74 last night) I did not trade FX today as I was focused on scalping the ES. I missed the morning move up and got chopped up afterward. I was not thinking when I went long with the DUG futures contract and thought that I was securing control of 100 shares when in reality I secured 1000 (a bit more leverage than I wanted) I will usually scale into a DUG 50-100 at a time for a swing trade.

I scalped the ES 4 times short starting from 880.50 earlier tonight and finished flat with a gain of +74 USD.

With the exception of walking outside and holding my phone as high as I could to get my email, I enjoyed a wonderful four day weekend without an internet connection. I did have a chance to catch up on some reading. One of my more interesting reads was the 83-page eBook, Read the Greed by Mike Reed and Morrill T. Morehead.

Most of the setups discussed in this eBook are designed to get a trader into a position with an expected immediate turn around or continuation. Almost all of them use TICK extremes to determine when momentum is about to slow/change. The determination of a TICK extreme is made on breakout on a 5 minute TICK chart of a 12 period Bollinger Band with 2 standard deviations of the last 12 bars. Clear examples with easy to read graphics and charts were provided for each setup. Throughout the document he refers to the “RBI Support and Resistance Levels” are the levels that his group determines nightly and publishes as part of their subscription service.

I readily use one of Mike’s key trading rules when trading any of the Emini futures: if the trade is not going my way I exit immediately. Usually I exit in 60 seconds to two minutes if the TICK supported by price action turns against me. I will be taking a closer look at some his techniques reading the TICK. I am also going to take a look at the 60 EMA on 5 minute chart and the 15 EMA on the 2 minute chart and their correlation with extreme TICK readings for scalping the ES. At the end of the day, this document was a good read and a must read for anyone interested in scalping the eminis.

I managed to catch 2 scalps on the ES this morning while packing for a gain of +75 USD. I have really missed out on some nice moves on the ES this morning as we made a nice continuation move. I should have got long one contract last night but did not want to have to baby sit it this morning before leaving. Have a great weekend!