Doug Green

It's Tuesday of my second week of trade blogging.

1. I was up late last night (working on ZoneTrader) so up late this morning. I peeked at charts at 7:00am and again around 8:30am, but won't get started until the open.
2. The 8:30am "International Trade Balance" news wasn't even a blip on the charts. However we seem to have slowed the fall around 1133.25 with Macd divergence on the last two lower X's. The next X series is setting up for a potential A-B if we can get the A around 1136.50 and the B around 1134.50. Waiting...
3. Now at the open, on the 1152, we're trying to form an A. It would be nice if it got above the midband and even above the previous A, but not required. The big triggers have narrowed beneath us, but are not starting to scrunch together; this isn't ideal. Mx and macd trends on almost all charts are positive. I thinking of taking zsr trade long, but watched the small triggers start to roll down, and decide to wait for the B.
4. At 9:41am I try to catch the B long at 1135 take a 2 tick loss. Price had come down to the B projection which was just above the big triggers. On the 233 we we're flirting sideways with a 1:1 below, the small triggers had just rolled up, and I went long at a zsr. It moved 4 ticks in my favor, and I moved the stop up to -2. I should/could of closed this out for at least break-even, if not for a 1 tick profit. But because of my Ninja "Vol Trigger" setting, I actually lost 3 ticks.
5. At 9:46am I try long again this time at 1133.75. I was wrong to close this early, and gave up a 3 point run. We had just bounced of a 1:1 at 1133 on 1152, and had a lower X on the 233 with the small triggers coming through the big triggers. This entry was a bit late.
6. By 10:03am the long run might be over, short term trends are down and long term trends are still up but moving down, with upper X's on the short term charts. I originally thought to look for an A-B condition on the 288 to go short, thinking we might have some resistance from the long term big triggers. But when I look closer the S on both long term charts is close to an X, and had that been an X, we would be looking for a long off those same big triggers that I'm concerned about. So I'm going to pass and quit for the day -2 ticks.
7. I'm rethinking the Ninja "Vol Trigger" setting. I need to either remember to set my stop one tick higher, or stop using the setting.
8. At 11:35am I peeked at the charts, definitely choppy today, only trades right now are off the the short term charts. The 233 and a B and an F that each ran for 6-8 ticks; the 288 also had a B of equal magnitude and was setting up for an F, so I took it short at 1136.75 I targeted the zsr and lower balance line at 1135, but closed it out at +4 after it had resistance here for several bars.
   • I didn't expect it to run as far as it did, but with a little more patience and I'd of reached the target, and had a runner going further. The good news is that this is the first long run of the year which was possible to get using my trade rules, meaning markets are getting back to normal.
   • I've drawn a vertical line where the small triggers started to cross down. And I've drawn a rectangle around the 1:1's which was a good expected area for the F short.
   • I trade using the development version of ZoneTrader for NinjaTrader 6.5. The version I post in this blog (as seen in the upper left hand corner) will always be 1 or 2 version numbers ahead of the released version. Today I've posted a chart using ZoneTrader for NinjaTrader 7; while Ninja 7 is still in Beta, I'm not using it to trade, but I've posted today's chart using it just to show that I am close to a release of ZoneTrader for Ninja 7.

I liked all my entries today, but believe that I mismanaged the exits. On the first trade I should of closed at break-even or +1, and I let this mistake carry over to the next two trades, both of which ran quite a bit after I closed them out.