Merry Christmas folks!  

Good trading to you in 2012!

MP3 : http://www.carlvasta...s_carols320.mp3

No trades yesterday, currently considering whether to adapt the existing strategy or look at trading different types of set-ups.  Between now and the start of January next year I will have limited time to trade so there may not be many trades, if any, taken.

Where 'm at?

Where am I at?  There's a good question, I've been trading futures since 1st March 2011, using some tools I developed that work well on a daily timeframe basis, my impression was that my tools would also work well on an intraday basis, this led me to trading futures.  I traded from then until ThinkorSwim's TDAmeritrade corporate master decided the UK market was not for them (8th September 2011).  I picked up the baton again on 14th November with Mirus Futures, using the Multicharts platform. From then until now my futures trading is just above breakeven after commissions.  It's acutely embarrassing for me really, but I prefer to confront reality, rather than avoid it.

If you were paying attention you will have noticed that I live on the shore of a river, many times I have looked at the movement of the markets and the water outside and found them to correlate, figuratively speaking, so why am I trying to kayak up the river, against the flow, rather than with it, that's the question I have to find an answer to right now, because so far trying to kayak up the river isn't making a lot of sense.

Stay tuned because

WILL PREVAIL

Buy signal at 19:26, filled at 2233.75, market chopped around quite a bit.  Initially heavy volume changed to minimal volume later on, but I thought I'd try it anyway. Stopped out for a 0.5 point gain. 

Buy signal at 16:59, filled at 2221, this was a decent entry with the market rallying steadily higher.  Since there was quite a sharp sell-off earlier on I opted to trail the stop up, using the middle Keltner Channel as a reference point (Difficult to see on the chart posted here).  Previously I've seen occasions where the market can rally quite a bit on very little volume after heavy selling has been exhausted.




Market rallied before taking out my trailed stop for a gain of 7.5 points.

I'm using Keltner channels on my charts right now, partly as an experiment since it seems to define trends quite well and for an entry point to get onboard a trend it looks quite useful.

After 1 month's trading my new strategy;



Net result is down 4.25 points.  A fair difference from the backtest.....so far.

Sell signal at 18:11, filled at 2232.25, market rallied up taking out my stop at 2234.25 for a 2 point loss;

Sell signal at 19:28, filled at 2279.50, market sold off down to as low as 2275, moved stop to breakeven, market then rallied up taking out my stop at 2279.25 for a 0.25 point gain;

No trades/signals yesterday.  Will be trading full time next week though...

Sell signal at 15:38, went short at 2313.75, market sold off a couple of points before rallying up taking out my stop for a 3.25 point loss;

I wasn't available to trade today, there was only one signal anyway, it would have resulted in a break-even trade...;

This is from http://quantifiableedges.blogspot.com/



This is based on a study of similar set-ups from 2002 onwards.   Over the next 10 days the probability of the market going higher is diminished. 


Also...

This from www.forexfactory.com.  They have a tool on their economic calendar that allows you to chart previous numbers.



This is non-farm payrolls over time. From November 2010 there was a continuous trend of underestimated forecasts, a similar type of situation has developed over the last three months.

One signal today came an hour before I returned from work, it came just after the low of the day, at 16:53;

No trades the last couple of days.


Only one signal today at 13:35, a short, before the session open (and before I was at my desk);