Oil Futures 3/13/12

Today I totally screwed the pooch. LOL. I ended up with about 25 pips, but I could have had over 200. Another "woulda coulda shoulda" type day, Mercury Retrograde and all.

First of all, I stayed up too late talking to my buddy on the internet. Well, actually I was watching the overnight market, but it never made a move. I entered twice, but nothing came of it. Just sideways action.

Anyway, I woke up late, and had to chase the morning wave. This is dangerous. You need to nail these moves at the top, because when you do that, your stop loss is 20 pips above that. If you jump in half way down, then you need to either put your stop loss way up at the top or you need to risk your stops getting hunted. This actually happened to me later in the day. It's very common. Anyway, I caught the morning wave and got 45 pips out of it, which isn't bad but I only really caught less than half of the wave.

I entered at 106.36 and Got out at about 105.90. I calculated the 100 pips from the top of the move, but the initial entry was at about 106.70. I put a green X there on the chart. And it actually ended up going down to 105.70 too.


Ok now, one of the reasons I got out of the trade at 105.90 was that there was also an entry signal there for a trade in the other direction. I didn't trade it, because I had a headache due to lack of sleep, so after that first trade I just slept for another hour or so.

It's not easy to deconstruct what I "would have" done if I'd have been in a trade, but there was another entry signal there for a trade going the other way. You try to catch the bottom after that large first wave and ride that back up to the top. So I had one entry, but that got stopped out. Then there was another reversal signal at that lower level, so I'd have gotten in there and rode that up for at least the first 100 pips. Being that it was charging hard at the 100 pip level, I would have probably just stayed in. Sometimes it goes for 150 or 200 pips. Anyway, entry was 105.70, so at 106.70 it was still charging hard. Therefore I'd ride it up to 107.20. That was pretty much the top.


Anyway, if I would have just reversed the trade at the top of this last trade, I would have been fine. Price went up a little from there, but not enough that it would have hit my stop. It went up to about 107.38.

Anyway, it went mostly sideways for awhile, then started to break downwards. Afternoons haven't been very eventful lately. There was another entry around 107.20, so let's say I entered around there. Price moved downward within a channel throughout the afternoon, with a couple of spikes, which stopped out all the people who were chasing this trade, including myself.

I ran an errand for a friend, then came back and got in late. I used the regular 20 pip stoploss, and price broke right out of the channel, went up and hit it! That sort of thing is uncanny. LOL. Brokers know where most of the people put their stops. You really have to get in at the top. If you get in late, you risk getting stop hunted, OR if you use really wide stops, you risk price action reversing and losing a whole bunch of pips when it goes all the way up and hits your wide stops.

Anyway, I entered a couple trades in the afternoon, but I didn't hit it at the top. The first one got stopped out for -20 pips, the next one I just jumped out for +1 pip.


So this is a good lesson in trading psychology. Be ready. Pay attention! LOL. I missed out on about 55 pips in the first trade, 150 in the second one and in the third trade of the day, I should've had 60 but I actually netted -19. (Lost 20, but gained 1.) THAT, is not the fault of the system. That's the fault of the trader!

Still, I had a great time trading, and that's what demo accounts are for! Getting into the zone.