Third Post

I seem to have deleted my first post by mistake.  To summarise it:

I have been trading futures since April 2011, however, I am still learning, especially from my mistakes.  I am doing most of my trading on a simulation account on Ninja Trader (NT7) but take the occasional 'live' trade on my real account.

I have only had one losing day on my live account, but unfortunately it nearly wiped out all my previous profit, due to taking off my stop loss and adding more contracts to a losing trade. This is what all newbies usually do. Anyway, my real trades since then have been winners, but I am only scalping 6 to 10 ticks and not taking the big trades.

So, I need to start sticking to my stop loss and not to add to a losing trade.  Easier said than done.

My sim trades entries are improving, but I am still getting in too early and having to sit through too much heat and then closing the trade soon after it goes into profit. Too often I have a good entry and the trades would have got 100 ticks, but I exit with 10 to 20 ticks instead.  I need to improve on my trade management.

So to today's trades (day 3). I only traded Gold today as I believe it is easier to trade when you are focusing on one instrument rather than multiple ones.

My first trade was with trend, which I prefer, and again, I got in too early and had to sit through 7 ticks of heat and took profit at 8 ticks, then watch the trade go another 120 ticks in my direction.

I then started taking counter trend (CT) trades (not my favourite trades) based on exhaustive selling.  The first one was not very good, but I added to it and still came out in profit.  The second CT trade was a much better signal, but as always, I was too early and sat through 18 ticks of heat.  However, I added more contracts when I saw confirmation of exhaustion and was able to take 25 ticks, but should have held on as price moved up over 90 ticks as I am writing.

So I am still entering too early and sitting through too much heat, rather than waiting for the better entries. I need to work very hard on this.

Here is today's summary and also Monday's.