"A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits."

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

March 29 - Tuesday


I struggled to find a trade I wanted to take, even though there were periods of movement.

For the past two weeks or so, I have been using a chart of the front month Mini S + P Futures as my way to track the market; instead of the SPY or the SPX. It gives me the same picture of the overall market's behavior and it allows me to follow a moving market nearly around the clock, though admittedly, volume and movement are quite muted in off-hours. Ever since I was in High School, I have been an early riser, up most days around 4:00 am. This is a perfect fit for me because that is the time some volume comes into the ES, allowing me to practice learning a new market. I'm also considering it a "hedge" against my learning curve... if I run out of cash to support myself while I try to learn the stock market, I can still trade the mini futures before whatever job I might have to take. I refuse to ever quit doing this, no matter how many years it takes.

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Two ES trades, a small winner and a small loss, basically offsetting one-another. My trade for the short that I closed for a loss just hung in space and didn't really move so I took it off; time=risk. A couple candles later, it broke down and would have given me a chance at two points. I have to adapt to a slower pace trading after-hours.