Re: Trading the DAX (Live)
I started this thread a long time ago, May 2012. Since that time i really fell for the Dax. I've spent thousands of hours in front of the Depth of Market and a few charts trying to figure out how to consistently pull a living out of this market, as well as a few others. I've not traded the whole time as i took breaks for career assignments for roughly half the time. The other half i played with the Bund, the Eurostoxx, a little Crude Oil, the Xina50 and the HSI/HHI. Generally i like the direct feedback a fast market can give, it suits my personality.
In August this year, with my wife's blessing again, i start to trade the Dax more exclusively. I was flat to slightly up in my other accounts but i had started to experience profitable weeks, even a profitable month. I knew i was making progress. So i started trading my AMP account exclusively on the Dax. I didn't have allot of success at first and the frustration led (as TH says) to over-trading and a large draw-down. During that time i knew i had one particular play that i could always count on. My directional sense of the market was good, but i just couldn't get in and hang on long enough.
After the worst day, i took a week off trading and just contemplated my next steps. I put together a plan on how i was going to refine my little momentum play. I spent time developing a preparation checklist to help me make sure i had enough information to form the bias and put things into context each day. I re-played days that my play showed up the most, trend days. I replayed Range days and looked for new plays to put in my book. As i started trading again, i was more patient in waiting for the right opportunities. I researched back to see how the other markets were trading on my successful trades/days. I wanted to know how to do more of what worked and get rid of the random stuff that wasn't working. I found different little spins on the same sort of play that i could use. Now let me be clear, there's no secret sauce here, just a way of getting in on, as well as staying in on, my directional bias that suits my tolerance for risk. My bias is flexible too, i need to be able to flip if its clear that things have changed, but i still need work on this.
My winning days increased and my equity increased slowly, then i had a larger winning day, a 3/4 daily stop, then my account was again at an equity high.
Its still not enough, i need to improve on what I've done in order to prevent the harsh draw-downs and over-trading. So from now until the new year I'm going through all my trades again. I'm also improving on my record keeping, with a more complete database and journal. I also need to be confident on rotational days enough to flip bias and trade the other way.
My goal is still to get a track record together in the next 12-18 months. Its either this or its back to work.
I'm not that articulate when it comes to explaining this so likely the significance of this to me may not resonate with some. The results i experienced, while still really incomplete, were realized very quickly and it was by far my biggest break through in my lone journey.
To really make the next big breakthrough, half a year to a year of solid results, I'll need to be working at this harder. At the moment I'm putting several hours of prep, trading for only two hours, then a little bit of postmortem. I need to be doing more preparation, sitting through more of the open, more of the post lunch period looking for opportunities and keeping better records. I'll need 8-10 hours each day for this. Right now, with my little one, its just not possible. Also, once i see my consistency is there in the results, i need to add some size.
These are live trading results, I'm happy to submit statements.
Cheers,
CanOz