Euribor froze

It really sucks I was qued just 1 below the bid on the schatz, I got filled as everything fell and couldn't get out the euribor, -425 euros in seconds. Couldn't make it back did 1160 lots (record amount) and finished -15 euros. I sized up on the fly and I am going to just trade 12 by 15 now on the Euribor-Schatz. It was pretty cool at the end of the day I had to sell 38 schatz and just took out the entire bid lol! really want that 4 figure day.. just did 13 hours at the office, feel fucking tired but looking forward to tomorrow really want to make some decent progress. Last day of the month, normally would worry about messing my month up but just gonna push at it tomorrow!

40 by 50

Now back and trading again, today the market was very unusual, there was a lot of flipping in the schatz and the euribor was moving very fast. Legging resulted in missing prices, so naturally I missed prices and kept trying for the same price and failing, the spread was going away from me and I averaged in super tight due to frustration of missing prices and had for quite a while 40 by 50 on. It was too much and I was sitting on -1000 euros knowing I could be at -1500 just from a large trade going through. I couldn't make much money on it, and ended up scratching so much of it. I had a reasonably good day in the end, which was cool because I was really sleep deprived and also hadn't eaten much. I didn't want to size up before going away because it sucks to lose a lot before something important, but now I am going to trade 12 by 15 once I am up 100 or more euros each day and then if that goes well just trade 12 by 15 instead of 8 by 10. Hopefully then I can have my first 4 figure day!

FOMC

Each month we have the rate decision for the US, currently at 0.25% it was unchanged. The figure was released last night at 7.15pm, so of course I stayed. Last time I didn't do that much and realised if I had just done what I was thinking I could have made some good money. So this time I wanted to get involved, there is a lot of room to make and lose because the liquidity dries up massively around this figure. Prices move fast and you can easily sell something and immediately click buy at a cheaper price and be out all within a few seconds.

I watched the markets as I heard it the rates were going to remain unchanged and the markets moved.. I didn't know which way they would go so kept watching, I eventually sold the euribor and waited on the schatz and got filled pretty fast. Then the price below the euribor vanished and the one below that went down to 12 on the bid so I clicked on the 12 and then the one above got taken and I was feeling a little stupid for not just taking it, but I don't think anyone sold it at that price anyway. I got out for 1/2 a tick and then sold the fly, then reversed and bought it for a few ticks. The bund had a stop but it happened in a blink of an eye literally, I didn't even see it go up and down just I could see it had done so...maybe I was looking at the schatz at the time though (but it was really fast). Then soon after the bobl did a similar thing and shot up and the liquidity dried up massively so I just clicked on the higher of the prices which had no one willing to sell at, it had already retraced by 2 ticks so I assumed I wouldn't get it, but it did a little spike upwards and filled me at 28 and I immediately could buy it at 26, for 2 ticks profits. I was done and up 145 euros from the 40 minutes of fun I had trading over FOMC.

I am now up 1100 euros for the week but I am taking a couple days off trading :)

Didn't expect to improve on the previous week...

... but I did! I was too busy over the weekend to write a post but last week I had my best week ever! 2400 euros. That's now two weeks of making £1000 net profit and today I started this week off well and was out the office by 2pm.



I have been waiting for the day where I stop out, it probably should have been on Friday, it went about 7-10 ticks a lot of people I know who trade the same thing stopped out, I was in it and was in it very early too but made 100 euros from the trade and finished up 355 for the day. It was really close to stopping me out though so I am feeling really quite lucky but also I felt I traded every opportunity and did a good job overall. The only reason I didn't stop out was there were some opportunities (at the time you would be thinking about getting out) to get in and out, spinning 50-100 euros each time. After that it came back in our direction so you could scratch loads of your clips and take a small hit on the earlier ones, giving you a scratch or small win.

Always wanted a somewhat exponential graph ^^

Profit before costs since I started in May. Please keep going up!!

Need to size up!!!

I spoke to the other guy who backs me and he said I should aim to size up, and do it after I have made money in the morning, so start on 8 by 10 each day then do 12 by 15 later, I think is a great idea to do it this way. He said within 4 weeks I should aim to trade 20 by 25! but I think it's perhaps too ambitious, but it would be amazing!

Now that I am starting to make money I feel really annoyed having to pay such big costs about £3000+ a month. Why can't people play zero sum games for free (poker, trading etc) let us gamble our money in peace... the exchange rapes you, desk fee's etc what a joke. I get pretty cheap commissions although I pay a lot for my desk. So I could get it cheaper trading somewhere else all in all but it's not that much better, plus I think the atmosphere and possibilities for the future (for example if I backed someone I would get money from the round turns they do, which I hope to do one day) make it worth staying. Either way trading is expensive sigh.

Keeping to 8 by 10 for now

So I traded 12x15 and was down 1100 thinking what a shit time to size up. Luckily it came back and I found myself up 100 euros and flat. I then made a tick to bring it to 250 but my boss said I should keep on 8x10 for now and having seen just how much damage I could do on this size I decided it was the right decision. Although there is no need to stay on 8x10 for too long! Just I decided I should get my account a little more positive first because I could feel myself feeling uncomfortable averaging in which is not good. I still stand by my last post but I don't think I am ready for 1500 Euro losses quite yet. Anyway it was a good day and I crossed a milestone today, which is 10,000 euros gross profit since I started in May. Although I am excited I have to remember just how hard it is when the spread blows out and how much it sets you back! but feeling good about my execution and understanding and knowing I can take money out the market.

The big question! when to size up?

No doubt my approach to sizing up has been "relatively" aggressive. I think I am immensely lucky to be backed by two people who's attitude is, to not put any blockers in the way of my progress and who believe the same as me. I believe is it is nice to have money before sizing up, you need some cushion to be able to keep yourself in the game. But sizing up isn't necessarily a one way process, just because you sized up doesn't mean you have to stay on that size. My costs are big and I don't want to spend half the month covering them each month. Thing is soon I will need to draw money to live off as well and then it becomes tougher to size up, it becomes mentally harder too. Okay so there is no rush, I can do it slowly and gradually but I know people who are not sizing up who have been there as long as 4 years and trading my size or lower. Now why wouldn't you size up! you make money gross.. just trade twice the size and in a months time you won't look back, your "cushion" will increase relatively to your size and hey if you have a bad few trades on that size just size back down, you will have a worse month but so what you gave yourself a chance to make twice as much.

I think having played poker before it has made me really appreciate some things in trading more than others. In poker to make more money you have to improve and beat better players, in trading you just trade twice the size and you make twice as much as long as you don't trade differently and as long as twice your size isn't really big and then has problems being absorbed. I find that people who are there for a number of years really don't struggle to make money in the markets, they struggle to live of what they make pay £2000 in fixed costs and then pay their variable costs. I honestly think people are making a huge mistake and I find a lot of people disagree with my approach and think it's a little reckless. Why risk your trading career just to make more money, well two things EV (expected value, in the markets) is positive just abuse this fact and also secondly greed! and also you can do it without risking your trading career.

I am now at a point where I could go and get my account nice and positive before sizing up or try the next size for a day. If I size up and it goes bad I can just go back to the size I was on. Then try again next week. It's somewhat rare to lose money but when it does it's big, and it will only be 1.5 times the size, which seems well worth the reward. Pretty sure I am going to try out 12 by 15 on Monday, although Mondays aren't great because the big guys are whacking on positions but I'll be first to admit 1500 losses will suck so bad but my daily target would be 450 euros which to me seems insane!

Edit: After writing this I was reading an interview on Paul Rotter (aka flipper) the most successful futures trader, in fact he traded what I am trading now. He says:

Q: what are your strengths as a worldclass trader and where are the differences between you and other traders?


A: it´s the ability to get more aggressive in winning phases, taking bigger risks, and scaling back in losing times. this is against human nature. the best thing is to have somebody around who is neutral to trading, that switches the terminals off, when a certain loss level has been reached for the day.

Which is cool because its what I was getting at! If we were robots we should just be getting aggressive when we know we are profitable but because we are humans it's best to do it in winning phases because we will be trading our best then. That's why I think he says "in winning phases".

New best week ever!

My 19th week trading! £1100+ after all costs.

Stressssss

Yesterday I was up for the day but I decided to leave a position on overnight, today in the morning I sold 1/3 of my schatz on the netting and it came rocketing down, it was such a good price but I had worked at the office 14 hours yesterday and 11 hours the day before that and just wasn't feeling totally with it at such an early hour. I should have made 375 euros leaving it on overnight if I just took it all off on the netting, but instead just made 150. I was pissed off at myself and took a break outside and for some reason was feeling low. I am obviously too hard on myself, just a couple of weeks ago I miss clicked and cost myself 50 euros and decided it was better to leave early than carry on trading, for some reason I couldn't forgive myself. So after this I was feeling shit, it wasn't about the money, obviously 50 euros isn't a big deal it's just that I want to do well. I think I was feeling low because I felt like there was such a fine line in having a disaster week and doing what I have done, I guess I just have high expectations, sigh.

Recently the TED has been so awful and it's been a struggle but after my 15 minute break I came back feeling a little better and got involved in the markets, they were the best they had been all month for spreading and I made exactly 600 euros, which was really needed as I felt I had worked so hard recently but couldn't book a nice win because the spreads were trending and not ranging. All in all a good week so far and not far from hitting €2k gross on the week. I really want to push my size up but the stress has been higher than I could imagine.

Terrifying to be honest but felt relatively calm also

Before lunch I was up 400 euros, was really happy with my trading and felt I had made the most of each opportunity. Then the TED went 11 ticks!!! brutal. I didn't even start buying it until it had moved 4 to 5 ticks, and I used my profit for the day to keep myself in the trade otherwise I would have stopped out. My worst print was -1100... fucking -1500 in 1 trade... stupid. The terrifying thing was my size was so big, 1 tick was worth 400 euros at this point, the biggest size I have ever had on (32 by 40) The euribor didn't move and the schatz kept going up like 12 half ticks... infact the euribor eventually moved but down! and they normally move together.. I don't understand why the euribor just didn't move. It was just awful to trade, trading the TED was basically just trading outright on the schatz today. I was sitting there still down a fair whack and I sold 109.620 in the dec 10 schatz and bought 98.940 in the euribor sep 11, and then bought 109.615, sold it again at 109.620, bought 109.615, sold 109.620, bought 109.615, sold 109.620, bought 109.615, sold 109.620 and bought 109.615 and then sold 98.940 on the euribor (to scratch it). Never done anything quite like that before and omg it helped so much, each time I did it I made 50 euros. The spread came back some of the way and finished up 376 lol.. couldn't believe it. Dodged another bullet! give me luck! all those bad beats in poker being repaid??? haha.. I mean really I did good today but I was literally hoovering my mouse at one point getting ready to accept the loss and the prices never traded so I was able to stay in.

Euribor on it's high Schatz on it's low

Yesterday started so bad, Euribor on it's high Schatz on it's low, it was 7.15am and I am down 600 euros, thinking oh god. The fly ended up going 50 ticks! and I remember at that point I was thinking my first clip is 40 ticks offside, which is -400 euros alone but I was printing only 100 down which was awesome and it meant I had done pretty well in jogging my position throughout the day. The fly barely came back but the TED did and in the end I had one of my better days! It's just 5am so today I am going to be a little more cautious as I have almost stopped out every day of this month so far, and feeling pretty lucky but I also really hope the markets improve for spreading because they have been awful recently.

Was about to stop out

I put my last 8 by 10 on at 2, giving my position a tick value of 350 euros, I would have to be fast to stop out, I was showing a print of -700, but I sold at 2.5 and bought 2s again and then legged some 3.5s and bought 1.5 selling 2.5s, I then sold the rest of mine the highest sell was 4.5 having bought all the way from 5.5 very aggressively. During this I had made 170 euros on the fly and I got flat for non farms and over it I made 130 euros on the fly, bringing my day to +320 thank god! Stopping out twice would have sucked.

Stopped out

Today I stopped out and because I was so tired I came home. Down 950 euros, it sucks but for the week I am down just under 300 euros which is okay. This week has had very few opportunities. Losing so much in one day hurts and it wasn't great timing to lose because yesterday 2 friends of mine quit and someone just left our team, the guy next to me quit a month ago and the person behind me is leaving in a month. I also heard someone who has a fair bit of respect from others could be leaving too. That in itself is depressing but it's been quite a while since I stopped out so there's no need to worry, I can keep trading 8 by 10 and put off 12 by 15 for now. I traded 8 by 10 today and wasn't that aggressive to average in, but it went about 10 ticks and I didn't even puke it at the low, it went further and no idea where it is now. :)