Fellow Traders:

I earned my personal Grand-A-Day before the ROOM even opened.  As for our trading in the ROOM, we had yet another profitable, GADGET day but it was a real roller coaster ride score wise.

I had made over $1,100 in the TRADING ROOM demo account by the time we opened at 7am PDT.  But a short time later, we got caught in a complex correction that faked me out twice on the short side and once on the long side.  By about 10am PDT, we were in the hole -$3,965!

So, I changed from my basic multi-target, peeling-off strategy to my consolidated target CFB* Mode (*Come-From-Behind).  By 12:30pm PDT, the score was +$98.50 – no king’s ransom, but way better than the alternative.  Even though I was back in the money, such as it was, I decided to stay in my more aggressive CFB Mode.  And by the time the day session ended at 1:15pm PDT, our final TRADING ROOM score was . . . wait for it . . . $1,057!  That’s right.  I got the TRADING ROOM account back to our GADGET goal.  Are there still any of you who think that making $1,000 day trading the S&P Emini is an impossible goal?

There are a couple important takeaways from our experience today.  First, a trader’s trading plan must include an exit strategy.  Will you trade until you reach a monetary goal, or for some specific period of time, or until the happening of some event, etc.?  You need to know in advance when it’s time to quit and then stick to the plan.  In the ROOM we trade for the allotted time, 7am to 12 noon, and I will often continue to trade thereafter if we haven’t reached our GADGET goal by noon.  In my personal account, I typically shoot for $1,000, and then call it a day.  Having a plan is more important than the contents of the plan.  The second point is this:  if you get in a hole, never risk more than your normal Money Management strategy dictates.  I climbed out of hole today that was nearly $4K deep, but I never risked more than my usual 9 contracts.

Have a pleasant evening, everyone.  I will see you back in the ROOM on Thursday.

Today’s Charts

Here are today’s screen captures.  They may include my personal chart, the TRADING ROOM demo platform, charts submitted by students and/or my running intraday Elliott Wave count in the S&P Emini.  Please click on a chart to make it larger.