DON'T GIVE IN

The above chart is that of Hogs, a market I am looking for a possible short sale in this week. You can see my COT indicator has been a bit better than 50% but nothing to write home to mother about. In any event it is back into the sell zone at the last trough, and we have a seasonal down bias, so short side it is. As I always say, I don't enter at the market, so we will have to have some type of test and reversal back down here for me to get into this.

As I have state during this month, I have not traded nearly as much as I would prefer. I have received emails suggesting other approaches since so many other traders are supposedly killing it. Do not be folled by this type of stuff. In all honesty, I half assed the Robbins Contest last year only being in it for 6 months. I really traded marginally at best, yet I came in third place. Keep in mind that many top traders enter this contest hoping to make a name for themselves. If everyone was just killing it the results in this contest would be different. In spite of what most people claim, they do not do as well as they say they do. This contest is proof of that.

Do not start chasing your tail. I may have some annoying qualities. Some readers I am sure hate my politics, and other snide remarks I make. However, one thing I do better than most is stay to my discipline. I know there are periods of time when my methods do not generate a lot of trades. Generally they are V tops and bottoms, and running markets like what we have had lately. I am comfortable with this. The one thing I will absolutely never do is chase my tail during a quiet time just to generate trades. I trade to make money, not to trade. I hope everyone can understand this distinction. I don't love the action, in fact most of the time I don't like the action. I don't trade for a thrill. I trade to make money. I stick to what I know because I am not a seat of the pants personality.

I am very diligent and persistent, I am ICE not Maverick from Top Gun. You have to know your personality and what you are comfortable doing. I know the just wing it approach does not work for me. I have proven strategies and I follow them. At times it is boring. I fill in that boredom time with day trading, which is an entirely different animal. I even got so bored with a Crude day trade today, I just placed an OCO bracket order with a stop and a limit order for a target, and walked away for an hour and a half. I came back to see my target had been hit for a nice gain. The price action had been nice in that the trade went my way the whole time I was in it, but it just crawled. There just is no volatility right now. Here is the trade I did in Crude.

This was about as good as a day trade gets for me, so I executed this pretty well. My favorite thing about day trading is that it gives me reps, practice. The big money is always made trading larger moves.

The final point I wanted to make today is that when we are exchanging ideas on trades through emails or I point out something I am doing here, I am looking for moves that last 3 to 15 days. If I think a move will last less time than that I do not do the trades. If I happen to say I don't like something please keep that in mind. I may like it for a few hours, but that is worthless to me. If I don't think something will move for a minimum of 3 days or more, it is not a trade I am interested in. Obviously, many trades do not work out like I plan them to. With that in mind I sure better catch some decent sized moves.

When markets are running like the ES was until the last couple of days, the odds for that continuing for a large move are not great. The odds are also poor for fading it other than scalping. As a result, I know it is best for me to save my capital. Keep in mind just a few good trades a month with the right trade management, and you can make all the money you will ever need. Why push a bunch of marginal trades just to do something?

I don't now, won't tomorrow, won't  next month, won't next year. I also won't panic during slow periods. I know I can't catch my tail, so why chase it? Do not give in to this temptation. I do see a few market potentially setting up something by the end of the week, so stay tuned things may pick up.

CJ Out!