Trade Journal for the week of 5/3-5/7

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged. The market as been really fickle lately. Economic meltdown in Greece, the government going after Goldman-Sachs, and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has caused a lot of movement in the market that often has overshadowed scheduled economic announcements. Last week I lost on a couple of trades where the market didn't react to the announcements as it normally does. This week I decided to be more conservative and to only trade on corrections after I had a chance to see how the market would initially react. I had a much better week this week. Out of the 6 announcements, I only traded 3. I won on all three and was up 3.5 points for the week. I'm only trading with 1 contract ($500) right now, but I still made $155.80 after commissions. Not bad for about an hour of trading.

Below are my 3 trades for the week.

Durable Goods, New Home Sales

This has been a slow trading week. There was an announcement on Monday, but I had to go into work early so I didn't trade. Lance won 1/2 point on that trade. There were a couple of announcements yesterday. I won on the first and lost on the second. I was down 1/2 point for the day. Lance did great and won 2.25 points (22.5%). This morning there were two more announcements. I got a point on each, so I was up 20% for the day. Lance is trading on a laptop and his battery died, so he didn't trade. Lisa tried paper trading on the New Home Sales announcement this morning and won 1.5 points on her first trade!

Unemployment Claims, Philly Fed Business Index

I made some stupid mistakes on the Unemployment Rate trade at 6:30. I got in late, at the bottom of the movement. I won 1/4 point and then tried to play the correction. I accidentally got in the wrong direction...twice and lost 1/2 point. When I finally figured things out, I got back into a trade and won 1/4 point. I ended up breaking even on that trade, before commissions. At 8:00 was Philly Fed Business Index. I made 1.25 points on that one, which I am happy about. I'm up for the week and gaining confidence. Lance won 1/2 point this morning.

The P&L numbers below are cummulative, so I lost $19.20 on the first trade and won $52.90 on the second, for a net profit of $33.70 for the day.

Consumer Price Index, Retail Sales

All numbers came in better than expected and the market move upward. I made 3/4 points overall on the initial movement and correction. I thought there would be a bigger movement based on the numbers, but I'm happy with a win.

Econonomic Optimism

I was on vacation and then sick, so it's been about a week and a half since I traded. It's good to be back. There was a low impact announcement this morning with very little impact on the market. The news was good, so I got in long. The market wasn't really moving, so I got out at break even. The market dropped, so I expected a similar movement trade. I got in long again, and again there wasn't much movement so I got out with 1/4 point. Had I stayed in another minute I could have squeezed out 1/2 to 3/4 points. Lance was more aggressive and patient than me and made 1-1/2 points this morning.

ADP Non-farm Employment, Chicago PMI

Three announcements this morning. First was ADP Non-farm Employment. The numbers came in much worse than expected and the market dropped 4 points. I only made .5 points on that one as I had a lot of slippage. Next was Chicago PMI. I made a point on that one. At 8:00 was Factory Orders. I made 1/4 point on that one. Overall, I won 1.75 points (17.5%)...my best single day since going live. Lance won 1.5 points for the day. Other MMT traders I know of made anywhere from 1.5 to 4 points on this morning's trades.

Consumer Confidence

This announcement was kind of strange. The news was quite good. With these numbers, I would have expected the market to rally at least 3 or 4 points. Instead, we only got 2 points of movement. I'm hearing that big time traders are staying on the sidelines due to uncertainty about how Obamacare will affect the economy. I mean really, consumer confidence is up 6.5 points over last month? How many people do you know who are more confident about the economy now that Obamacare has passed? I don't think many traders are buying it, and neither am I.

Anyway, enough on politics. I got in at good price and won a point after about two minutes. I got back in after a full correction, looking for a similar movement trade, but there wasn't much there. I got out after about a minute with 1/4 point. Overall I won 1.25 points, which I am very happy with on this trade.

Unemployment Claims

This was a strange announcement. Unemployment claims less than expected, but the market barely moved. I got in long, but the market flat-lined. I waited 30 minutes and finally got out with 1/4 point. Had I waited a couple more minutes, I could have won a point. I was a little too eager to get out of the trade.

Durable Goods Orders, New Home Sales

Today's trades started out great, but didn't finish so well. At 6:30 was Durable Goods Orders. The news was a bit worse than expected and the market dropped. I made a point on the movement and another 0.5 point on the correction. At 8:00 was New Home Sales. Again the news was worse than expected, and the market dropped. I made 0.5 point on the initial movement. After about two minutes, the market rallied above where it started. I thought it would turn back around since the news was bad, so I got back in short. It dropped a bit and I could have won 1/2 point, but I thought it would keep going. I was wrong and it turned back around and rallied about 3 points. I got stopped out with a 2.5 point loss. That put me at a 0.5 point loss for the day. The 0.5 point loss doesn't bother me as much as losing the 2 points that I was up. It was setting up to be my best day of live trading and I gave it all back because I got greedy. Lance had similar experience...he was up for the day and then lost on the last one. He was down 1 point for the day. Other traders I spoke with did much better than us and made anywhere from 1 to 1.5 points on this morning's trades.

Existing Home Sales

I've decided to start posting a screen shot of my trading chart for each announcement. You can click on the image to expand it to full screen. There was an announcement this morning at 8:00 on Existing Home Sales. The numbers were slightly better than expected and the market moved upward. I got in and out in 20 seconds for 0.75 points (7.5%). There was a great correction and similar movement, but I didn't get in on either. Lance won 0.5 on the initial movement and 0.5 on the correction. I talked to three other traders and they made between 0.5 and 1.5 points on this announcement.

Unemployment Claims, Consumer Price Index

There were announcements on Unemployment and Consumer Price Index this morning at 6:30. Unemployment came in worse than expected, and CPI came in slightly better. The market pushed down a bit, so I thought the bad unemployment numbers would move the market. I got in short, but the market turned around and rallied about 1.5 points. I stayed in the trade for 50 minutes (about 10 times my normal time) and got back to even. I was trying to squeeze out 1/4 point of profit, but got stopped out with a 1/2 point loss. I should have been happy with breaking even and gotten out. Lance did better than me and won 1/2 point.

It was a slow week with only four major announcements. None of them had much movement. I finished the week up 2.25 points (22.5%). There are six good announcements on the schedule for next week. Hopefully, they will be good market movers.

Producer Price Index

This morning there was an announcement on Producer Price Index, which is an indicator of inflation. The numbers came in better than expected, but the market didn't move very much...probably due to the Fed's statement yesterday. Their statement seems to overshadow the other announcements a few days before and after. Anyway, I won 0.5 points (5%) and Lance broke even on the trade.

Fed Day

Today was Fed Day, where the FOMC meets and then announces interest rates, economic outlook, and monetary policy. There was an announcement at 6:30 this morning on housing which was rather subdued (probably because of the FOMC meeting). I made 1 point (10%) on that announcement. At 12:15 was the FOMC announcement. There wasn't a lot of movement on this announcement either, but I made another point. That's 2 points for the day (20%), which is my best day since I went live. So far I'm up 5.25 points in about a week and a half of trading live.

Retail Sales, Consumer Sentiment

There were a couple of announcements this morning. Retail Sales came in better than expected and the market rallied. I made a point. Lance straddled and made 1.5 points in about 5 seconds. The second announcement was on Consumer Sentiment. The news came across my news server late and I missed most of the movement. I only made 1/4 point. Lance straddled and made 1/2 point. I was up 3.25 points (32.5%) for the week on only 3 announcements. I think Lance was up 5 or 6 points in his first week of trading.


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Unemployment Claims, Wholesale Inventories

There was an announcement on Unemployment Claims this morning. There was a textbook movement-correction-movement and I won 2 points (20%) overall. Lance won 0.75 points (7.5%). There was a low impact announcement yesterday on Wholesale Inventories. I did not trade this announcement, but Lance won 1 point (10%). In his first week of trading, Lance has traded 3 announcements and won all three for a total of 2.25 points (22.5%). In his words, "This is freaking sweet!" I agree.

Economic Optimism

There was a low impact announcement on Economic Optimism this morning. The numbers were not very far off of the consensus, so I did not make a trade. My son, Lance, signed up for MMT last week. He made his first trade this morning and won 1/2 point. There is another low impact announcement tomorrow and then a couple of high impact on Thursday and Friday.

My first few live trades are in the books. There were 5 announcements that I traded live this week. I won 3 and lost 2 of those trades. The ones I lost were my first two live trades. I attribute those loses to nerves. After losing those trades, I was really apprehensive on the other trades. I got in too late and out too early, which resulted in very small profits. I only ended the week up 0.25 points, which isn't much but at least I was positive! I need to get as comfortable with the live trades as I was with the paper trades. That will come with time.

I started trading live yesterday. There were a couple of announcements. I lost 1.75 points on the first announcement and made .25 points on the second one. Today was much better. There was an announcement at 6:30 on Unemployment Claims. There wasn't much movement, but I was able to squeeze out .25 points. At 8:00 there was an announcement on Pending Home Sales. I made .75 points on that one. I'm still down half a point since going live, but it was good to get a couple of wins today.

Trading live is waaaaay more stressful than paper trading. It's going to take some time before I get as comfortable with live trading as I was with paper trading. 

Today was a rough trading day. There was an announcement on a Purchasing Manager Index that included data on spending, manufacturing, employment, and prices. There was also an announcement on Construction Spending that came out at the same time. The news was mixed, but the data that I interpreted to be the most important was bad, so I went short. The market went down about a point and then moved right back up. I kept waiting for it to come back down, but I got stopped out for a 3 point loss before it did. I won 1 point back on a correction.

I talked to 7 or 8 other MMT traders and everybody lost on this announcement. The lesson I learned from this is 1) you can't win every trade, and 2) whenever there is mixed data that I am not sure about I will wait for the correction before I jump into a trade.

There are no announcements tomorrow, but there are two high impact announcements on Wednesday. If I can get my live account set up and tested by then, I will trade these announcements live.

Trade Journal 2/26/10

It was a wild morning of trading. At 6:30 there was an announcement on GDP. The numbers came in mixed, but I thought overall it was pretty good and I went long. The market didn't agree with me and it dropped. I got stopped out with a 3 point loss. I made back 1 point on the correction.

At 7:42 was Chicago PMI. I won 1.25 points on initial movement and another .75 points on the correction. At 7:55 was a consumer confidence announcement. I made a point on this trade. At 8:00 was the Existing Home Sales announcement. I made 2.5 points on the initial movement and another .5 points on the correction.

Overall, I won 3.25 points (32.5%) on the day, but it was tough to start out down 3 points. I was up 11.75 (117.5%) points for the week, which means I would have made $2,937.50 on the 5 contracts I was trading. Commissions on those trades would have been about $275.00. Defintely my best week, so far.

I'm planning to start trading live next week. We'll see how it goes!

Trade Journal 2/25/10

Another good day of trading. There were announcements at 6:30 on Durable Goods and Unemployment Claims. Both announcements came in worse than expected. The market dropped 2-3 points in about 2 seconds...before I even had a chance to react. I decided to wait and see if the market would come back a bit, which it did. I went short and made .75 points. I made another .75 points on the correction and .5 points on the similar movement for a total of 2 points (20%).

Trade Journal 2/24/10

This morning there was an announcement on New Home Sales. The news came in worse than expected and the market dropped. I made 2 points (20%) on the initial movement. There was a correction after about three minutes and the market came back close to where it started. The housing news was pretty bad, so I anticipated another drop. I placed an order short and the market dropped. I made another 2 points on this movement. In all, I made 4 points (40%) in about 5 minutes. This movement was a classic movement-correction-movement as Market Mover Trading teaches. It's a beautiful thing when the market moves just like it's supposed to.

Trade Journal 2/23/10

There were no announcements yesterday, but this morning there was an announcement on Consumer Confidence at 8:00. The numbers came in worse than expected and the market reacted. This announcement typically has pretty good movement, and this one did not disappoint. The market dropped significantly, and I made 2.5 points (25%) in about three minutes. That's $625 on the 5 contracts I was trading. This was my best single trade to date.

Trade Journal 2/19/10

Another good trading day. There was an announcement on Consumer Price Index. The results were better than expected, and the market moved up, although not quite as much as I expected. I was able to win 0.5 points (5%). That win put me at 6.75 points (67.5%) for the week. That's a $1,687.50 profit on the 5 contracts that I am trading.

Last night there was a social gathering of Market Mover Traders in South Jordan. It was great to meet other people who are on this same journey. It was a mixture of people who have been trading live for months, weeks, or even just a few days. Others are still paper trading like me. It was very educational to talk with other traders about their strategies and successes. Every person I talked to is having a very positive experience. There were even a couple of people who have been day traders for years. They have been amazed at the success that Market Mover Traders are having in such a short time. It was very motivational and got me really excited to go live in a couple of weeks.

Trade Journal 2/18/10

Today was a very good trading day. There were a couple of announcement times. At 6:30 was Unemployment Claims and Producer Productivity Index. I made 2 points (20%) on that one. At 8:00 was Economic Indicator Index and Manufacturing Index. I made 1 point (10%) on this one.

This has been a good week. I am up 6.25 points (62.5%). That translates to $1,560 profit on the $2,500 (5 contracts) that I am trading. Since I began three weeks ago, I have made 28 trades. I have won 24 and lost 4 for a winning percentage of 86%.

There is another announcement tomorrow morning that traditionally has good movement. Hopefully, I can finish the week with another win.

Trade Journal 2/17/10

There were a couple of announcement times this morning, each with multiple announcements. At 6:30 was Housing Starts, Building Permits, and Import Prices. The news was mixed and there was not a lot of movement. I was able to squeeze out 0.25 points (2.5%). At 7:15 was Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization. The news was very close to the consesus, and again there was very little movement. I decided not to trade this announcement due to the lack of movement.

There are some good announcements coming up Thursday and Friday. Hopefully, there will be more movement with these announcements.

The week is off to a good start

This morning there was a low impact announcement on long-term purchases. The news was better than expected, and the market moved accordingly. I made 1 point (10%) on the initial movement and another 0.5 points (5%) on the correction, for a total of 1.5 points (15%).

The movement on this announcement was exactly as expected, based on the Market Mover Trading training. It was relatively slow, which gave me plenty of time to think through things before placing my trades. It's nice to be off to a winning start to the week.

The Straddle is Killing Me

This morning at 6:30 was an announcement on Unemployment Claims. I was very anxious as this has been a very slow week for announcements. I used a straddle, but it was too tight. The market spiked down and then up and got me into the trade in the wrong direction. I lost 2 points (20%) in a matter of seconds. I played a correction and made back 1 point (10%). It's frustrating, because it's a trade where I should have easily won 2 or 3 of points.

Tomorrow there are a couple more announcements. I need to re-think my strategies and get a couple of wins.

Today there were two low impact announcements at 8:00: Wholesale Inventories, and Economic Optimism. There wasn't much movement after the announcements, but I was able to squeeze out 0.5 points (5%). Tomorrow there is just one low impact announcement, but Thursday and Friday there are some good, high impact announcements. I'm looking forward to finishing the week strong.

A Rough Day

There were two announcements at 6:30 am: Unemployment Rate and Non-Farm Payrolls. The unemployment rate was lower than expected and payrolls were down. This mixed information caused the market to spike up, then drop, and then rise again in a matter of seconds. I used a straddle technique, which I have been warned not to use in this type of announcement as movement is fast and volatile. Since I am paper trading, I decided to straddle and see what would happen. Wow! In a matter of 3 seconds I was entered into two separate trades in the wrong direction. I lost 2.5 points on the first trade and another 2.5 points on the second trade. There was a bit of a correction after about 7 minutes where I made back 1 point. Overall, I was down 4 points (40%) for the day. That wiped out most of my profits for the week and I ended up 2.5 points (25%) for the week.

There are no announcements on Monday, but I can't wait to get back at it on Tuesday.

My Best Day Yet

Today was a great day trading. There was an unemployment announcement at 6:30 am that came in worse than expected. The market reacted as I expected and took a big drop. I used a straddle strategy and got in and out of the trade in about 20 seconds for a 2 point (20%) profit.

At 8:00 there was an announcement on factory productivity. This is a low impact announcement, but I decided to trade it anyway for practice. The announcement was better than expected and the market moved up. I used a straddle again and made 0.5 points (5%) on the initial movement. There was a small correction after about six minutes where I made another 0.5 points (5%). That's 3 points (30%) for the day.

Back in the Win Column

There were two announcements this morning. I won both trades and made a total of 1.5 points (15%). The first announcement was at 6:15 am on Employment Change. The news came in a bit better than expected and the market moved upward. I used a straddle strategy and made 1.0 points (10%). The second announcement was at 8:00 am and was a Purchasing Managers Index (which I always like as I am a purchasing manager in my day job). This announcement came in a bit worse than expected and the market moved downward. I made 0.5 points (5%) on this trade, also using a straddle. There was very little correction on either of these trades, so I only traded on the initial movement. I guess I'm a little gun-shy on correction trades after my loss yesterday.

After six days of trading, I've already doubled my money (on paper). I am up 10.25 points (102.5%) and that's even with a loss yesterday. I have won on 12 out of 13 trades. I know it's going to be a different ballgame when I start trading with real money in a few weeks, but this is pretty exciting.

My First Loss

Today was a decent morning of trading for me. There was an announcement on Pending Existing Home Sales. The numbers came in a bit lower than expected. There was a bit of a sell-off before the announcement, so perhaps the information was leaked early. I went in short and made 1.5 points (15%) on the initial movement. After about two minutes it looked like the price was bottoming out, so I bought long on what I thought was the correction. Turned out this wasn't the bottom. The market continued downward af couple more points and I was stopped out with a 1.75 point loss (17.5%). That is my first loss in 10 trades. My stop loss was set at 2 points. Had I set it a little lower (I normally set it at 3 to 4 points) I would have been fine. The market turned right after I was stopped out. I bought in again near the bottom of this movement and made 1 point back. So overall, I was up 0.75 points (7.5%) for the day. Not bad, but I really hated losing.

This morning there were three announcements at 8:00am: Construction spending, and two announcements on manufacturing. One of the manufacturing announcements was high impact and the other announcements were low impact. I placed my trade based on the high impact announcement using the straddle technique. There was movement immediately after the announcement and I made 1.25 points (12.5%) in 47 seconds. There was a correction after about three minutes where I could have picked up another point or two, but I hesitated and missed the opportunity. I need to learn to trust the prediction points that MMT provides and to go with my gut instincts.

First week of trading

My first week of trading is in the books. I took The Exchange Boot Camp course this week, which is 12 hours of training on how to use the trading software and MMT strategies. I couldn't imagine trying to trade without this training.

My first trading day was Wednesday. I made two trades on the Federal Reserve announcement. I made 3.5 points (35%) total. 2.5 points were on the inital announcement, and another point was on a correction.

On Thursday I made a trade on the Unemployment and Durable Goods announcement and made 1 point (10%).

On Friday I made trades on two separate announcements. I made 1.25 points (12.5%) on the GDP announcement and 1 point (10%) on the Chicago PMI announcement. That's a total of 6.75 points (67.5%) for the three days that I have traded. I have been paper (practice) trading with 5 contracts at a time. Each contract is $500. So, if I had been trading real money, I would have made $1,687.50 before commissions.

I never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait for Monday!