The Student Loan Ranger

I keep saying it but I am a brilliant trader. I gave myself a month to double my paper account on TOS but 15 minutes into the trading day (equities time) I had made more than $126,000. I'm not really sure how it happened, as it just showed up when I was long bonds at one point. Which makes me wonder if there are expiration type deals that go on with /ZB which mean I would have had extreme risk and exposure outside my trading rules. Either way I'm delighted. Without that huge bonds windfall I am up over $6000 on the day anyway. Realistically I don't count this error in bonds as part of my P&L for today, but over $6k is around 6% of my value - not bad at all for 2 hours!

Blotter 1 (around 5 minutes after opening bell)

Blotter 2 (14:45 GMT)


Some charts:

Why I shorted Dow futures this morning;

Why I was long wheat premarket (anticipated full formation of ascending wedge). This sold off hard when Chicago opened but bounced back nicely. Should have held as the measured move is 550.


Bonds (/ZB) is really where the smart and quick cash is in the markets. Very simple setups worth a lot of dough. Here are my entry/exit points so far today. Generally scale in and out of a 10 contract position. I have reversed twice (covering 5 and buying 5) today after realising my entries were either wrong or late. This tactic really does benefit me and I have no hesitation i admitting I am wrong.


My trades in oil and gold were scalps. These two are hard to trade, especially gold where I had a $175 loss at one point. I am planning to move to a longer timescale for gold and I might cut out oil as it is too choppy/has been too choppy the past few days.

My trades in RIG and GS were shorts over the weekend, RIG panned out well and I shorted again shortly after close. GS was a hairy trade as it was trading at $101.6 premarket having shorted at $98.89. I scaled out of my 200 in 50s with my last 50 in the green. That tactic works significantly better than exiting on a market order for 200 at the bell (-$500).

My FX trades were all scalps on size, the best being a 123 setup in EUR/USD with support at yesterdays high.

Up about $131000 today so prob calling the closing bell!

Update 17:00 GMT
Added around another $2000 in profits. Nice trade at 7200 long on dow and another at 7250 and 7300. Pretty easy trading. Added some nice profits to gold and oil. Traded RIG based on oil move for a nice profit and scalped out over at KFT. Nice trade in soy bean futures too on a pennant formation. Wheat ended up 3.5 points short of the measured move so far and has been increasing on declining volume which I don't like - so might short soon.

I am becoming bearish on AUD/USD on a bearish wedge pattern here at .663. The only thing going for it is the new highs.

Currently looking to short dow soon, looking for 7300 again.


Edit 17:40 GMT
Trading with techno music is sublime. Added another $350 to dow and $375 to RIG. Dow trade was a long just over 7300 - I missed the short down there while blogging. Held for 15 points but could have easily continued to hold out for this move (bull flag right now). Entered large on RIG based yet again on a gut shot that the rally was overdone. Here's the chart of the rig short. The dow trade was purely a 123 pullback with moving average support and some seriously wicking candlesticks.


Trading music at its best yo!

Update 19:00 GMT
OK probably done for the day lol. Finally cracked +$1000 on the dow with a short at 7295 scaling out from 89-81. The final RIG trade added another $900. Not including the weird bond thing I'm up about $9-10k gross today with just over $2500 in commissions on 174 fills - and I didn't trade as much as I could have.

New wave trading. The period where I made the full transition from anything UK to everything US. New psychology, new rules, new abilities, new guns.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/2009-trading-and-daily-action.html announced my comeback into market watching and trading. Signed up for a new data source and charting package and began watching just a few stocks. I also draughted a very concise and clear set of trading rules that I intend to stick to. Also begin to post daily blotter on elite trader to gauge consistency.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/intra-day-action_16.html Began a series of successful scalps, still selling too quickly though.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/excel-programming.html continued to develop my trading spreadsheet and incorporated a r:r calculator for added automation. I also incorporated a fictitious logo to add more discipline to my game. Lost quite a bit on AA based on a typo at this stage, so now everything is double checked.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/intra-day-action_19.html Nearly a year after I bought it at around £4, RBS is trading for 10p. The biggest disaster in UK company history is what they called it. I was, and still am, delighted at this decline.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/week-ahead.html this post resembles an early crystal balling post. However I have little confidence in TA at the moment and didn’t trade any of it. The price levels are too choppy for me, and those 2 weeks seemed to be the third wave of fear after June-July and Sep-Oct.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/intra-day-action_25.html I begin to monitor Forex, starting with a nice trade in GBPUSD.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/intra-day-action_27.html detailed FX setups included in a post for the first time. Start to spend more time watching FX than stocks.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2009/01/intra-day-action_29.html sever all ties with UK and UK companies after cmc lockout debacle. Sign up for TOS and entire a new era in my trading career.

It's now March 12th 2009. My account with TOS is days from funding and I no longer operate through the UK. I spend most of my time watching futures, which is a far far cry from my beginnings in small cap UK industrials and speculative oil stocks.

I've learned a huge amount about trading in the last year, enough to fill a huge post, but that's for later. The most important rules in my opinion are as follows:

1. Have a trading plan and mission statement and follow it rigidly.
2. Calculate and accept risk before any trade based on your trading rules.
3. Excel at technical analysis.
4. Maintain and reflect upon an in depth trading journal and learn your mistakes.
5. Fear and greed are irrelevant in trading.
6. Get statistical information about your trading habits and develop new ideas from them.
7. Stay away from anyone or anything remotely linked to the United Kingdom financial and trading industry.

Apy poly loggies for the lack of charts yesterday, ran out of time to post them. Up $2100 today trading mostly futures (dow, gold, oil, bonds) with a decent profit in a well managed trade in CAL based on oil.

Spent most of the day finding over extended rallies and shorting them. Had a great one in oil mid afternoon and another into the closing bell and beyond on the dow futures. I am up $11000 gross on the week which is 11% while still following my trading rules. Needless to say I am gagging to get this account opened and funded asap.

Charts;

Dow futures rallied all day. I don't feel it was really tradable until 18:30GMT with these consolidation ranges, retests and formations. Best trades of the day as I caught the shorts and bounces on the second range. This image was taken before my last trade which was selling 5 of those double tops around 7130 again and closed out between 7118-7115. Talk about high probability emotionless trading!


To most this oil trade might seem very high risk, but in my opinion it was a very safe entry if you take the trade knowing that you should exit within 5-10 minutes.


Blotter;


Started with $100k on Monday, paper money so you ken fit like but trades are trades and I've made all of them.

Got the RIG trade wrong by selling to early as the cohesion with oil disappeared and I didn't want to expose myself to a pair out of symbiosis. Oil trade explained, relatively lucky on the bonds today was prepared to go long but shorted instead, just one contract though and cashed out before the big drop.

Elsewhere gold was hard work and is in my opinion probably the hardest contract to scalp at the moment.

PS things look up when you consider these singles are all released soon;

I am absolutely lethal when it comes to futures. Shame it's on paper. Applying my trading rules to substancially higher capital has really payed dividends this week as I am up $8345 on the week starting with $100k. TOS platform maintaining high standards especially for quick trades.

Currently trading the stupendous bull flag in 30 year bonds and scalping gold futures. Not much oil action. Did well in USD/JPY and had a nice breakout trade in EUR/USD.

Charts to follow.

Absolutely fantastic day for trading despite being caught out by a clock change somewhere in the World.

/QM /ZB /YG USD/JPY is where the money is today. Terrific technical patterns. Too busy to post charts, will do later. Up $750 at the moment.

Update 10 mins later:

Probably gonna call it a day for just now. Traded well and with skill today so well chuffed. Here are some of the setups and trades from this afternoon.

Oil

Dollar Yen
Gold futures
30 Year T Bonds (15min/5min/1min)

End of day up $600.

Severe volatility of the market forced me to the sidelines during this period. It was too hard to the best position was no position. Spent a lot of time working on trade management ideas, spreadsheets etc while I was on the bench.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-post.html the briefest of all my posts features a chart of the S&P with notation on recent financial sector news. After this, my monthly average for posting dropped to 6 from about 22. I stepped out of the market for several months, the volatility was too much for a beginner like me.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/09/trade-tracking.html despite being out of the market, I continued to work in Excel to create a trade tracking spreadsheet that would fully analyse my completed trades. This was to work out which setups were working, whether i was a bull or bear, my win ratios, average net etc.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/09/trade-tracking_29.html Continued to work on the trade tracker spreadsheet. This is a huge asset to the trader.

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/10/continued-selling.html September 10th 2008 and we are in the middle of the biggest financial collapse in nearly 2 decades. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-MXxXeLq_6h549RP8D7JcTw0PA_UZkytPMOGnp-1zH-V9gi0oGDomLTwCYNQaWaI37j0jecSN17ikzpVSgERJ8qisladGoG6vjKcMgB7pT5JHqFs_J3zdvoBaxdZNGBcgqNWpO0_RR0/s1600-h/londontownisfallingdown.png https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdw-aDBC9SJsH7ujeS3gs6HCFicutjg_Sjs7YcC-prF-DNx8B3qXR8PoSr_MOKVn6VA9lKA_qKP3u9fTJn89KAHUtY4csdBMYdapJpcwcolLsB-j67ysr6TKANW0gtS5UOWHSMRLS35-o/s400/maprecover.png

http://thestudentloanranger.blogspot.com/2008/10/intra-day-action_21.html despite the mire, I was still able to practice my TA. I was working with smaller time frames and my analysis was good – mostly because I wasn’t putting my money on the line. At this point I think I realised I would rather be an analyst than a trader. I made 4 posts in November and December, the 1 in November was pretty much a token gesture.

Just back from college. Looks like there were some excellent trades today. Just closed HD at $18.06 for +$300. Was working with limits and stops on this one, it jumped at open as predicted yesterday but has since sold off after a great signal to short at $18.80 earlier.


RIG has suffered a similar fate by restesting a support range as resistance and I would avoid a long in that right now.


USD/JPY fell hard out of yesterdays ascending wedge into the close with a nice retest on a dead cross and has fallen to a support area. Overhead is 98.50 with support at 98 for now so watch for signals accordingly.


Oil doing much the same with a top out yesterday as predicted. Has fallen to support range at 43.5 and has formed a short term head and shoulders formation. Would like to see this under and retesting 43.5 for a short entry as I am not looking to take a long here at the moment either.


Intra-day I'm watching X with a descnding triangle with support at $17.50 and it looks bad there.


It's been a good couple of days for technical analysis and low risk high reward setups. These happen every now and then so I have to anticipate that these setups will phase out this week and the market will revert to choppyness. Not watching anything else at the moment and I'm off to the gym.

Update 20:00GMT

RIG flag really following through. Measured move says a drop under $50 coming.


X looking weak. HD forming a base at $18. STLD looks good for low risk entry here at $8 for quick scalp. Something dodgy over at JBLU too.

Pretty decent day for trading today. Lots of stocks in very clear consolidation ranges, particularly at the moment RIG which is desperately clinging onto $55. For the next few days consider trades short at $55 and loner over a retest of $57.5 as per this chart;


I am also impressed at the continued strength in USD/JPY lately. However for the short term I think the rally is over with 98/.05 the key levels here;


Oil has lots of medium term support but feel it will be extended around $46 with some longer term resistance looking to limit it soon.


In the shorter term this was my best trade of the day. Bit of an ascending wedge starting to form just now in the close so let's see if we top out tomorrow.


For those that caught it, HD at $19.3 was a nice short even though it bounced about 7 cents higher than I expected. I hold 250 of these overnight at $19.26. I would really have liked to close out before close but I was away without setting a limit. Watch HD for a rally tomorrow based on 123 S move with moving average support. Think there are a lot of shorts here.


And this is why I have to anticipate a bounce tomorrow. Dangerous candle at dangerous support levels. Although on closer inspection I could be ok.


Got gold wrong a few times today, the only solid entry today was a 123 S move at 922 resistance - the rest was untradable.


Pretty comprehensive summary of my trading day.

Poor start to the day for my paper account, was caught at the open on commodities shorts which retrospectively were too volatile into the bell.

Nice trade in USD/JPY though, was waiting for it to break 98 and it did so with a pennant formation and my entry was more or less parfait as the French say.

Here is what I was wanting to trade on the longer term with USD/JPY. More often than not these moves occur overnight in the forex markets and I missed it. Nice horizontal retest of the wedge breakout price for the entry supported by the moving averages. Nice trade if you can catch it!

Currently short crude (/QM) on a bear flag setup, feel I may have entered too soon. Stops are quite tight too so we'll see how this one works out.


Nothing else catching my eye at the moment.

Update 16:40GMT

Crude flag setup following through nicely of the 20EMA. Pretty easy trade. Technical target is 39.5 but I'm trailing a stop tightly to guard against any sudden rallies. Currently 40.125 as this chart is now 5 minutes old.


Quick trade on a reversal candlestick pattern at the 20EMA on JBLU at $3.16 too for a quick scalp that I should have held for another .10 at least.

Update 19:00 GMT

Spectacularly boring afternoon. Only action I caught was a no-brained gap closing short on PFE at $12.20 and rode it down for 30 cents. Crude flag really followed through quite nicely with lows at 39.5 - it's just mucked about since some reversal candles and I don't see it doing anything into close.


On the FX front USD/JPY is forming a big pennant formation but I'm not convinced on it's strength, especially with some substancial recent overhead resistance in the 98.5 area.

And to close, this is how the crude trade turned out, nearly perfect but not quite - lows were about .039 points off the target lol;