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.