Another losing day

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Today was another losing day. I don't mind such losing day's, as long as I am able to avoid disasters like on Monday. While I avoided whipsaws with the wide Stop Losses, I also missed the risky twist and turns that I could have caught otherwise.

Safety first. Avoid whipsaws. Be the hunted.

Day Trading Price Action Chart

>>> My live tweets of the day's trades <<<

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Unlucky when I get a fill, unlucky when I don't get a fill

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This is a delayed report on yesterday's trade.

Went with wide mechanical Stop Losses, and that help in avoiding potentially dangerous whipsaws. But it was an unlucky day. For the first trade, I got entry at the highest tick and then the price kept going down. The exit of the second trade was to be a Stop and Reverse to Long, but I got the fill only for the exit, and not for the reversal order. And then the price went up.

So 2 times unlucky...

Day Trading Price Action Chart

Day Trading Price Action Chart

>>> My live tweets of the day's trades <<<

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Disastrous Trading

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Today was a disastrous trading day.

Thinking of doing the following now:

1. Make this trading style Mechanical to extent possible, though this is still WIP.
2. Wait more patiently for entries.
3. Don't think about reducing the Initial Stop Loss.
4. Stop trading if the Mark-to-Market is positive when a trade closes.

Day Trading Price Action ICICIBANK

Day Trading Price Action TATASTEEL

Day Trading Price Action YESBANK

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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Got shaken out of the Opening Range Breakout trade

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Today, I logged in early again in an attempt to replicate my success with Opening Range Breakout yesterday. I found the opening move in State Bank Of India to be impressive, and went short with it. But my Initial Stop Loss was tight and got hit. I had wanted to keep a Stop-and-Reverse to long at that point, but did not have sufficient margin. Such potential early morning whipsaws are the reason why I was logging in late prior to yesterday.

Anyway, if I had stayed on with State Bank Of India, I would have ridden the second breakdown successfully, but that was not to be.

I was already into Hindalco. My 2 trades in Hindalco did not give me much.

After that, I was back to State Bank Of India. I thought that my late short in State Bank would help me get into profits, but that was not to be. Actually, I was in profit in that trade, but the wide Trailing Stop Loss required by the One Good Trade rule, prevented locking any profits in it.

Day Trading Price Action SBIN

Day Trading Price Action HINDALCO

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

 

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Opening Range Breakout: One Great Trade covered yesterday's losses

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Finally, I got a One Good Trade. Today, I have more than recovered from yesterday's losses.

Trading the right scrip matters

Today was a metals day (I didn't check the other commodity charts). All of them, Hindalco, Vedanta, Jindal Steel, Tata Steel - all of them were on fire. Taking a Opening Range Breakout Long trade on any one of them would have made me rich.

That way, I was lucky that I chose to go with Hindalco today, instead of State Bank Of India or ICICI Bank. Also, kind of made my own luck, when I decided to switch from Nifty Futures to Stock Futures. Just look at the Nifty Futures chart today. There was no life in it.

On these Stock Futures, though the Day Trading Margin Requirements are higher, the brokerage and other costs are lower per unit of volatility, when compared to the Nifty Futures. An important thing to keep in mind is the volume/liquidity of individual Stock Futures. I am satisfied with the liquidity in the scrips that I have chosen to trade so far, though many times I could not get my entry orders filled for what could have been potentially good trades.

This trading style has been working so far. I guess that it will keep working.... until it stops working. The sun is shining right now... so make hay with this trading system.

Opening Range Breakout

Lately, I have been logging into my trading terminal a good 15-20 minutes after start of trading. It could be that I am just lazy, but I try to rationalize that due to the delay I avoid a number of early whipsaws. Today, I logged in early, just about 3 minutes after trading began.

Though I liked the look of both ICICI Bank and Tata Steel, I decided that I like the pattern on the Hindalco chart better. Hindalco had a good gap up and had higher volumes. That matches the kind of better Opening Range Breakout scenarios that I was evaluating earlier.

This one was a good Opening Range Breakout day, with no deep pullbacks that could take out my Trailing Stop Losses, and I only had to sit through it. The One Good Trade rule for my Trailing Stop Loss kept it wide enough.

From tomorrow, I will try to log in early into my trading terminal to catch similar trades, if possible. Especially, need to keep an eye on the gap ups and volumes at day open.

Day Trading Price Action Chart

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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More lessons about Initial Stop Losses

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I started experimenting with small Initial Stop Losses yesterday. Today, I continued the experiment. The experiment has given me very bad results on both days. Is the market trying to tell me something?

Though the impact of today's misfortune with the small Initial Stop Loss in HINDALCO was much greater, I don't feel as bad about it as the small Initial Stop Loss exit in ICICIBANK yesterday. Something quirky - I don't know why. If I had been able to stick with that HINDALCO long, it would have been perhaps my best trading day this month. But I have still not decided whether to end this experiment with the Initial Stop Loss positioning. The perpetual dilemma about Stop Loss positioning continues....

2 losses in HINDALCO, followed by 3 losses in SBIN. Finally, one good trade in ICICIBANK, but overall a very bad day trading day.

That's trading. You win some, you lose some. You pick yourself up and then move on.... Right!!?

Day Trading Price Action HINDALCO

Day Trading Price Action SBIN

Day Trading Price Action ICICIBANK

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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Need to focus on the Initial Stop Loss

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Got back to trading after a break on Monday. Was a decent day today.

Traded two scrips - SBIN and TATAMOTORS - and managed to be in-the-money on both.

Started the day with 2 trades in Tata Motors. Scratched both those trades, though there was some profit in both. After that, I thought that Tata Motors might range, and decided to wait for either a Break Out or Break Out Failure at Range Extremes. However, in the meantime, I entered short in State Bank Of India, and so missed the fall in Tata Motors.

While Tata Motors fell, I was locked in my Short position in State Bank Of India, which did not move for quite sometime. But finally, it did fall, and I locked in some profit and reversed to long. I am experimenting with keeping the Initial Stop Loss small - sometimes smaller than what the One Good Trade rule would demand. More whipsaws are expected with smaller Stop Losses, and that is what happened to my long trade in State Bank Of India.

The final trade was a Long in Tata Motors above a congestion. That did not move much.

The whole of last week, I had been focusing on Trailing Stop Losses, and the result was the One Good Trade rule. While that rule has not yet caught any super duper trade for me, it has reduced the number of whipsaws and improved my performance.

Now, I am thinking about ways to reduce the Initial Stop Loss. If a wide Initial Stop Loss is hit, it takes away a considerable part of my profits every time, and I don't like that. Now what should I do about it?

Day Trading Price Action TATAMOTORS

Day Trading Price Action SBIN

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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The long wait for the One Good Trade

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Since I added the One Good Trade rule to my trading, it has been all about waiting for that One Good Trade, which may not even materialize. Yesterday and today, the day started off with losses, and the rest of the day was spent in waiting for the One Good Trade that did not materialize.

It is still early days to judge the rule, but so far, it has behaved reasonably. A very big factor in the results has been luck/fate/kismet - from choosing the scrip that would move on that day (SBIN was good pick today), to being able to get a fill on the order.

Today was another single scrip day for me. It started of with the bad whipsaw of 2 losses. The SAR that caused the whipsaw was particularly jarring, because the tick on which the reversal took place did not even show up on the chart. That's unfortunate, but sort of balances off against my fortune yesterday when the second trade survived by just one tick. See what I mean by luck/fate/kismet?

Even then, there was particular SAR point that I was eyeing after 12:30 PM, that could have turned this into a big profit day. But I was waiting for a retest of the immediate preceding Pivot High. That did not happen.

I will not be trading on Monday. I should be back on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

Day Trading Price Action SBIN

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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Minor Loss in Today's Trading

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As the day started, I was undecided on where to take a trade. I had to choose between SBIN, ICICIBANK, VEDL and TATASTEEL.

First, I attempted a short in SBIN on break of the Opening Range Low. When that did not happen, I shifted focus to ICICIBANK. In hindsight, the right choice would have been VEDL, which kept falling through the day.

If instead to SBIN, I had started off with ICICI, I would have gone long on the break of the Opening Range High, and avoided the losing Short trade. Also, I think that the Stop Loss on that fist Short trade was a wide, but I had to keep it there at the Day's High due of the "One Good Trade" rule. Ended with a loss, though there were opportunities to lock in a profit in subsequent trades.

Day Trading Price Action ICICIBANK

Day Trading Price Action SBIN

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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One Good Trade: And Luck... Good Trading Day

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One Good Trade

A new addition to my trading rules. I am calling the new rule as the "One Good Trade" rule.

It is basically inspired by my experience in trading Opening Range Breakouts, where my aim was to try to catch the big move of the day from Day Open. That meant either no Trailing Stop Losses, or very wide Trailing Stop Losses. However, there are differences.

The obvious difference is that the trades are not restricted to only Opening Range Breakouts. The entries are based on a variation of the Range Compression Trading System that I traded in Q1 2016. Plus, when compared to my trailing with the Opening Range Breakout Systems, here I do trail quite early before I relax the trailing, just to not appear stupid.

So, in a way, the currently evolving trading method is a mishmash of a lot of my trading experiences. I am still getting the hang of trading Stock Futures, after having focused for long only on Nifty Futures. The current five digit price of Nifty Futures is significantly high compared to what it was a few years back, while the daily range of Nifty has remained almost the same. So, for capturing the same price movement in Nifty Futures, the cost in points has gone up, making it a big disincentive for day trading. I think that one factor affecting Nifty's movements is the fact that the gap between Option Strike Prices has remained at 50 points. Maybe sometimes later, I will have a look at trading Nifty Options, but for now I think Stock Futures may just work out.

Today's trades

Today, indiscipline saved me. I opened my terminal well after 9:30 AM, and liked the look of DLF, TATAMOTORS and TATASTEEL.

My first attempt was to go long on DLF. Luckily, that order was not filled. Then, I realized that I had missed a short in TATAMOTORS. So, I placed a Limit Short order on TATAMOTORS. Luckily, that did not trigger. With the new One Good Trade rule, that short would not have made a profit, and would have also caused me to miss the long trade. When I saw that the DLF long would have failed, I wanted to go short on DLF, but my money was already blocked in the pending TATAMOTORS order. Lucky again!!

The first long on TATAMOTORS took a long time to move, but I held tight based on the One Good Trade rule. It turned out to be a good day, with all my trades being in TATAMOTORS, and no losing trades.

Day Trading Price Action TATAMOTORS

Day Trading Price Action DLF

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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Bad trading day

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Started of the day well, but getting a bit aggressive with TATASTEEL cost me a very good day. If I had learnt the lesson about not trailing aggressively during periods of high momentum/volume/volatility, I would have been a happier person.

Day Trading Price Action ICICIBANK

Day Trading Price Action TATAMOTORS

Day Trading Price Action TATASTEEL

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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Rolodex Trading

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I am not used to trading Stock Futures. Over the years, I have been focused on on trading NIFTY Futures and Options. Rarely, do I trade Stocks or Commodities.

Today, I did not even once check the Nifty Chart. I had my watchlist of Stock Futures. I wanted to focus only on one scrip at a time. So, it turned out to be a kind of rolodex, where I traded each Stock Future in turn.

JUBLFOOD (Jubilant Foodworks)

Was in a bit of a hurry to get on with today's trades. Bad decision (in hindsight). After a whipsaw, managed to pull in some profit with my 4th trade. Then, I thought that Jindal Steel was interesting and shifted focus.

Day Trading Price Action JUBLFOOD

TATASTEEL (Tata Steel)

There was a mismatch between the price in my data feed and the price on my trading terminal. In the confusion, I had to let go a short that was probably a good opportunity. I did not chase that short and shifted back to Jubilant Foods.

Day Trading Price Action TATASTEEL

JINDALSTEL (Jindal Steel & Power)

There was this news about increased steel production and sales by Jindal Steel. I thought that the news was bullish. But when the stock did not react, I was tempted to go short.

Day Trading Price Action JINDALSTEL

ICICIBANK (ICICI Bank)

Caught a very small part of the breakout.

Day Trading Price Action ICICIBANK

SBIN (State Bank Of India)

This one gave me a grand whipsaw, and I could not recover from it.

Day Trading Price Action SBIN

>>> My live tweets of today's trades <<<

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Losses prevent profits

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Friday's excuse. A couple of initial losses changed what could have been a great day trading day.

Nifty M3 Price Action Chart

The open action was just above/near the previous day high. The volume action was not great, but only the fact that price was above range, and looking like it would come down, tempted me to go short - twice. If the action was in the previous day's range, I would have sat on my hands.

The small Stop Losses on those trades resulted in losses, and prevented me from going short again. Thinking about it, a wider Stop Loss would have resulted in a smaller loss than the total losses in those 2 losing trades.

When later, the price broke down with volume, I was not sure of which way it would turn, but just to avoid being left out of a down move, I placed a short at the low of the day. That trade cleared my losses, but my exit was bad. I was anxious to lock in some profit after the initial losses. Then, placed another short at low of the day to catch further momentum, if any. Another loss, and I was back in red.

The price was popping up, but I was patient and waited for a consolidation. And when the consolidation happened, I was not so patient and took a short instead of a long.

At this point, I had 4 losses in 5 trades, on a very good day trading day. To top it, the last 2 trades were even wrong directionally. So, I switched to mechanical trading and managed to recoup losses. I do not intend to post mechanical trades. I believe that I should have stuck to discretionary trading, and tried to make in work. I plan to trade discretionary again this week, and hopefully my resolve will hold this time...... depends on the results.

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Getting the direction right

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Here are my thoughts on the last 2 days of trading.

Markets are in a sort of range?, but also grinding upwards?.

Wednesday:

Nifty M3 Price Action Chart (Wednesday)

Initially, the price traded within previous day's range. The price had been rangebound in the previous days. So, held back.

The first DP was the low of the day. I did not want to miss a potential sudden drop. So, went short. But then, it began to look like a Breakout Failure, and I immediately reversed. This second trade was the only trade that I got directionally wrong in the last 2 days. If I had kept the Initial Stop Loss of the 1st trade intact, I would have caught the fall.

The next trade was the Breakout Failure of 10600. Booked when momentum appeared later. Then went short when the momentum stalled.

Thursday: 

Nifty M3 Price Action Chart (Thursday)

Again, the price was dull at open, with a small range within previous day's range. Then, a Master Candle happened that covered the Day's High and the Previous Day's Close. I placed triggers at both ends of that Master Candle. When the long triggered, I tightened the Stop Loss. In hindsight, that was a mistake. Also, in hindsight, an aggressive entry with smaller Stop Loss within the Master Candle's range would have worked. The lower risk on the tight Stop Loss would perhaps have kept me from tightening the Stop Loss prematurely.

The next long worked. I was able to book at the momentum candle, even though my data feed painted the candle after some delay. Then, the long tails inspired me to go short. The Stop Loss just 1 point higher would not have been hit. Later, I went short again. This time it worked, but not before a scare that almost took my Stop Loss.

The fall was good and took out 10650. I reversed to long when the momentum stalled.

Observation:

So, I only got one trade directionally wrong in the last 2 days, but still did not earn much. Now, would it have been wiser to keep the Stop Losses wider and avoid SL hits in many trades. But then, what would have happened if the direction was wrong. After all, at the point of entry, I never know if the trade is going to work out. The perpetual dilemma continues....

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What worked yesterday did not work today - Day Trading - NIFTY

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On Friday, I tried doing the exactly same thing that I tried on Thursday (expiry day). But the day was different and I was seared.

NIFTY M3 Price Action Chart

At the end of the day, it is very clear what I should have done or not done. It is just that this clarity isn't there just before the end of day. Today, I tried to take close entries with tight Stop Losses. The recency effect of the previous day was quite strong.

Though I was trying to be discretionary, my mechanical trading predisposition forces me to stick to pre-decided rules even when some them are not working. Squeezing the Stop Loss tighter and tighter for every small move - even without a pivot formation, turned out to be a bad decision today.

The aim of this discretion is to be able to generate entries will small Stop Losses, so that any one loss does not have a big impact. It was true that none of the losses had a big impact. On the average, each trade had a loss of less than 3 points + costs. But since there were multiple losses, the impact became significant.

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Day Trading - NIFTY - 30, 31 August 2017

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Since my last post, I had been system hopping, and trying out different trading systems - mainly mechanical trading systems.

NIFTY M3 Price Action Chart

Since yesterday afternoon, I decided to try the Range Compression Trading System once more. This time, though I have rules, I have kept the system discretionary to a larger extent. Also, I do not intend to restrict myself to just the Range Compression Trading System, and will also use other methods. However, for now, the majority of the trades have been based on Range Compression.

Update:
1. Today's second trade - the Stop and Reverse to Long... I think that was really brave of me to go long when there was 9850 just below. Forgot to mention this on the chart.
2. I do not keep watching the chart all the time. This has caused me missed entries, and trails. The first 2 trades entries were almost missed, because I wasn't watching. Also, I was lucky to have avoided a SAR to short of trade 2, again because I wasn't watching.

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Discretionary Day Trades - Monday, 28 August 2017, Intraday

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Today, I wanted to be more patient than I was on Thursday. In the end, I did get into many trades, but with slightly better entries than on Thursday. The objective remains to take entries with small Stop Losses and trail the ones that work out.

NIFTY M3 Price Action Chart

Did not short the first bar: The pre-open had indicated a higher open. If it opened higher and fell, I wanted to short at 9900. The opportunity was there but I avoided it. Had I taken that entry, I would have exited in the 2nd bar at the entry price, and not made anything.

Ignored BOF of PDH: Was being patient... also, was confused about the direction, though the trend was clearly up. That probably would have been good entry.

Trade 1: Long as Breakout Pullback of Day High. Could have bettered my entries, but I was being patient. If I had followed my original trailing plan, I would have been in the trade until Day High, but would exit with just 5 points, and miss the downmove.

Trades 2 & 3: During the upmove, I decided to look only for shorts, though trend was clearly up and everything told me that it was going up. The first short hit SL immediately, but the second moved. M1 bars of the entries are shown on the chart.

Trade 4 & 5: Was looking for a break of 9900 with high volume to go long. Neither happened, but I still took the Long that I thought was risky. Then, reversed to short.

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Discretionary Day Trades - Thursday, 24 August 2017, Intraday

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NIFTY

Context: At open, I was undecided on the bias.

NIFTY M3 Context Chart

NIFTY M3 Price Action Chart

Held back: I was tempted to go long on the 9:38 and 9:41 bars, as a continuation of yesterday's up move, but held back.

Trade 1: Took short hoping for downward momentum into yesterday's fluid zone. Lost. Then decided to look for shorts only at Day High or below 9850.

Trade 2; Was trying to improve my short entry after breach of Day High. Bad.

Trade 3: Took breakout pullback above Day High. Another loss.

Trade 4: SAR to short on breakout failure. Could have improved my exit.

Trade 5: Another breakout failure entry with small Stop Loss. Lost.

I took one too many trades. Maybe, yesterday's missed trades were playing in the back of my mind. In the afternoon trades, the resistance at Day High held, but the reversal there could at best be scalped, and I was targeting at least 9850.

Not good excuses. Got to learn how to earn with discretionary trades after almost an year of trading the Princess System mechanically. That is, if I do not System Hop before that.

INFY

Context: Nifty was being boring, so I decided to look at Infosys, which showed up as the most traded underlying in NSE at that point of time. I did not bother to look at Bank Nifty.

Infosys has been trying to move up after the crash last week.

INFY M3 Context Chart

INFY M3 Price Action Chart

Trade 1: Opened the chart at around 11:55. Though the bias was up, I immediately liked the Breakout Failure at Day High. The low of the big red bar had already been breached, but I took the short when the price went up in the next bar. I have not been tracking INFY or any other stock for that matter, but what I saw from the previous day charts was that INFY often spikes down with stopping volumes. I was hoping for that, if not a ride to the Day Low.

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Discretionary Day Trades - Wednesday, 23 August 2017, Intraday

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This month, I paused trading the Princess System. I had traded the Princess System continuously for 11 months. That's the longest that I have traded any single system, longer in duration than any of my multiple attempts with the Opening Range Breakout system. So, back to system hopping.

Yesterday, I tried discretionary trading once again. I am attempting to take trades with small stop losses, and try to trail as best the ones that work out.

Nifty M3 Context Chart

I have removed more clutter from my charts. I thought that the bias was downward, and so was looking on the short side... probably a break of a pivot low.

Nifty M3 Price Action Chart

Price started off by hanging around 9800 Spot, in the middle of previous day's range. So, had nothing much to do. The Spot Prices that I have marked on the chart may not be accurate, because I wasn't thinking of posting a chart. Also, it is tiresome to watch all numbers all the time.

Trade 1: Then there was spike. Took a short when price fell. Could have had a better entry below the 9:56 doji low, but I did try to improve my entry slightly to 9820. The target was 9800. The exit too could have improved, but I had pre-decided my trailing until 9800, and the trials did not happen.

Trade 2: After the exit, the price again started moving down, but I would not enter as there was no room. So, my bais was still down. Took trade 2 as a reversal from range high. Target and trailing plan was the same as in trade 1. Had I been patient, I would have taken the better entry below the higher volume 12:23 pin bar.

Avoided short: I avoided the short below the 12:23 pin bar, and the attractive short below the congestion marked on the chart, because I already had 2 losses on the short side. At this point, I was looking for a breakout pullback entry at day high. That order converted into trade 3 later. On the short side, I decided to wait for action below 9800. In any case, had I entered, I don't think that I would have gained much, because I think I would have exited on the 1:53 spike.

Avoided long: 2:20. Breach on 9800 and reversal, but I had my doubts. Instead, I decided to try a momentum short downwards.

Trade 3: The price zoomed upwards. I had my doubts about price continuing above day high, but I decided to let my long stop at day high stay, and put a small stop loss when hit. Trailed well, but exited by a typo. Turned out to be a good exit.

Trade 4: Tried a loss of momentum short. The stop loss was hit quickly, but I was not aware of that for more than 5 minutes because I was watching the chart only, and the price never touched Stop Loss in the chart.

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This week's Paper Trades - Nifty Futures

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The mechanical day trading system that have been using since August has been giving good results. It is the princess that I found. However, it does not give trading signals every day. My backtests with it indicate that it trades between 5 to 14 days per month. In November, it gave me 7 trading days until 15th November, and then no more trades for the rest of November.

I have been evaluating additional day trading systems. One of the systems that looks good is a filtered version of my Opening Range Breakout, but even that filters out many of the trading days.

To fulfill my itch to trade daily, I decided to test other systems. Currently, I am paper trading on the 5 minutes timeframe with 35 EMA. Many points of the system are inspired by Smart_Trade's Swift Trading System. The lines (Decision Points) on the charts are mostly according to the Decision Points Trading method. Although inspired by the those methods, the way I have been paper trading is markedly different.

Why Paper Trade?

I am not used to paper trading. In fact, this is the first time that I am paper trading. Earlier, whenever I needed to 'live' test a system, I would put in real trades with at least 1 lot. That was when I was kissing princesses, but nowadays I am kissing frogs - so I would need some real confirmation before putting in real money.

I could have just restricted the evaluation to backtesting, but there are many reasons why I am paper trading this system. First of all, it relieves boredom, and gets me feeling involved with the market. Secondly, there is no system. The system rules are still work-in-progress and completely fluid - even discretionary. I could have run multiple backtests, and each time still felt that a different tweak would be better. When I paper trade in real time, at each twist of the market, I decide my trade levels/actions, just like I would do in real trades. Whatever tweaks I may do to the system later, are not going to change the real time paper trading decision that I took.

Thirdly, backtests, even a bar-by-bar replay is cannot show me how the chart appeared in real time, since the time frame is 5 minutes, and I only have 1 minute historical data.

How I Paper Trade 

Fourthly, I am totally involved (to the extent possible) while paper trading. I am totally honest to myself while paper trading. I could have been wishy-washy, and decided on the trade that I would/could/should have taken after the event. I could have been indecisive and confused in real time, and later decided on the action that I would have taken. But no, I am being honest to myself, and my paper trades happen only in real time, and those are what are marked on the charts.

I even got those queasy feeling when the paper trades were not going right. I was very uncomfortable with the paper trades done on Thursday and Friday, when they were not going well, almost as if they were real trades (to the extent possible)

Limitations of the Paper Trades

Paper Trades are after all, not real trades. However, honest and well intentioned I may be, they are still not real trades. In real trades, there's going to be slippage, there's going to be missed trades, missed fills, none of which appear in the paper trades. Also, paper trades can only take into account the ticks that appear in the data feed. Missing ticks that do not appear on the charts, could trigger trades in real time, and completely alter the trading system results. I have the feeling that at many points in my Paper Trades this week, my Stops would have been hit, except for those missing ticks.

Also, however honest I may be to my myself, my feelings will often be different when real money is on the line than while I am paper trading. While paper trading, I do not look at the charts all the time, and mainly observe the bars during bar close or a on significant price movement. My intention is to behave in the same manner if I trade the system with real money, but who knows whether I will be able to restraint myself?

Paper Trades on Monday, 28 Nov 2016

1 trade, +19 points (pre-costs)

This was my first day of paper trading. The EMA indicated a continuation of the uptrend. I went long above the pivot inside the Initial Range, and exited on channel break after multiple attempts to push higher. With my subsequent tweaks to the system, I probably would have delayed the entry until the high of the Initial Range was broken, but the chart shows the decision that I took in real time.

Paper Trades on Tuesday, 29 Nov 2016

4 trades, +22 points (pre-costs)

With my subsequent tweaks to the system, the first trade entry would have been iffy and probably delayed, the 2 losing trades would not have been taken, and the last trade would probably have been delayed.

Paper Trades on Wednesday, 30 Nov 2016

2 trades, +37 points (pre-costs)

Caught a nice move with the second trade, though the entry was perhaps delayed.

Paper Trades on Thursday, 01 Dec 2016

3 trades, +5 points (pre-costs)

Was not much bothered by the first trade, but the wide Stops for trades 2 and 3 gave me the queasy feeling that I mentioned earlier in this post.

Paper Trades on Friday, 02 Dec 2016

4 trades, +16 points (pre-costs)

Nothing worked. The exit of trade 3 was a nice Breakout Failure entry in the Decision Points Trading method, but the way I have currently tweaked the system rules did not allow me to enter short until much later.

Next steps

I am already backtesting this system (with fluid rules) on historical data. I hope to continue that this weekend. If my backtests are satisfactory, I might continue to Paper Trade this system for some more time, or even trade it with 1 lot. If not, I should drop the frog and move on.




Update on Dec 13, 2016:

weil ich habe keine Lust

I have given up on this system, at least for the moment. I was happy with the paper trading results at the end of the first week - trades which are shown in this post. The plan then was to paper trade for one more week and then begin trading the system with a single lot. I also wanted to mechanize the system as much as possible.Sadly, that is not how it worked out.

Click the link below to see all my paper trades with this system:

Nifty Paper Trades - Dec 2016 series

An additional reason why I am not to keen on continuing with the paper trades is that my current live day trading system has again started giving me frequent trading signals.

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