Today lasted a lot longer than I wanted it to (especially compared to yesterday) but it was a great day none the less. The market has really been giving us great runs which led me to cancel all targets other than the 5pt max target. You can even see this behavior in the pre-market so I was anticipating a big day in terms of volatility.
The behavior of the market quickly changed once it officially opened. Take a look how there was a shift in the market’s behavior, there was only a 6 point range until 10.40am EST. One big lesson that most traders don’t understand is that you don’t have to make a million points to be successful day trading. The only thing that you need is a few points a day, you can even make a living with 1 point a day in the futures market. If you don’t believe me read how much money can you make day trading.
The reason I mention this is because I could have easily been done at 10.30am EST with a comfortable 5.25 points. Its not the number of points that’s important, its not even the amount of money you can make, it’s simply being consistent. With a simple 2 points a day you can add 10-20 contracts and make anywhere between $200,000 to $400,000 a year. Not bad for 12.5 hours of work a week.
Day Trading Charts Nov 2nd
T1 to T3 were great trades, notice how I doubled up my contracts on T3. I haven’t done that in a while because of my set target strategy but it worked well here. Once we get to T3 the market his showing a different dynamic, it clearly has changed. Whenever you see these differences it doesn’t mean that the market has changed permanently, we must understand that nothing is set in stone in the market.
After 10.40am EST, the market reverted back to the behavior that we were expecting for the day. You can really see how the world news is affecting the markets and how decisions are being made here. You can see the indecision and fear in the pre-market with the huge swings and volatility, then the indecision sets in and there is barely any movement, quickly followed by a big run up which could have been good news about something in the world.
I did hear that Mc’Donald’s brought back the McCrib, that could have been it. Sadly for me they don’t have Mcdonald’s here in Somalia, Somaliland to be exact. Another thing that really affected the market today was the FOMC statement that was released at 12.32. I completely forgot to check news which is why I took T8. This could have easily led to me lose everything today but luckily I was stopped out before the market reacted to news.
Trades T5 to T8 were also very good trades that were with the market momentum and stregnth. Overall it was a good day other than the mistake I made for news. When I have to leave the city of Hargeisa with two armed guards can you blame me for forgetting about news?
Day Trading Results
Results for Today
- 8 Total Trades
- 6 winners
- 2 losers
- 1 bad trade
- 75% win ratio
Click here to see the complete list of Market Recaps
I love reading your blog post .. I have a question since you use tradestation what indicators do you use. I am new to this and trying to learn and I have ninja trader.
HI Lena take a look at my day trading strategy page I have them listed on there 🙂