Bad luck, stress and huge positions

Gawd my head aches.. yesterday I was up 370 euros with minimal costs, went to the local shop came back.. saw the spread was on its high, sold the euribor, 2 seconds passed I didn't lift the schatz because there was no need, then... the US was given a negative outlook I was just short euribor outright and it climbed and climbed, I clicked buy, everything jammed and I couldn't put any orders in. 2 minutes passed and I was finally able to buy and bought it near the top of the initial move. I blew my day and was now reasonably negative, I was frustrated and sold the spread where I intended, sold it 1/2 tick higher with full size instead of half the size out of frustration. It's crazy what happens to me in these markets what more is there to say. I seem to be gifted at putting a position on seconds before unexpected news or big stops.

The spread moved up further and I went to sell another spread and bought the bobl which then instantly fell 4 ticks, the most extreme move in a couple seconds I had seen since returning over a week ago and doing 14 hours a day! I sold a price so low it was ridiculous, I sold the original spread and got 1 lot out of 10 and missed the next price too. I was printing down just under -1500 euros. I decided my stop for the day would not include the money I lost on the news as it would just mean I get stopped out too often. I brushed past my stop very slightly and held maximum size overnight.

The next day the 2nd spread I had sold was printing 20 ticks higher and I was feeling numb, but luckily it didn't open that high. But because of this I missed an opportunity to get out of my massively offside position. The opportunity lasted seconds so didn't feel so bad to have missed it. I got 1 clip of my 4 off and put it back on at the same price, the spread slowly came down throughout the day and I managed to get it all off. I was confused what my PNL really was as settlement prices make it complicated. I traded based on prices of last night knowing roughly what my PNL was, and early on my PNL spiked to -945 and now I have only 1 position on and it's showing +465 as I write. I believe I am quite close to scratching the two days now, a near 1500 euro recovery and a seriously stressful experience.

Update: Flat and done, up 40 euros over this two day period before costs. w00t ^^

First 6 days trading remotely

The graph is net and it has indeed been a consistent week! It has been a long first week back, putting in just under 60 hours, so I guess my hourly rate after costs isn't amazing, but I watched loads of online TV, countless msn conversations and enjoyed every hour!

Spread trading!

Nothing going on right now in the markets, so great time to show you what and how I trade.

I trade using ladders (shown below - click to enlarge) which is a very normal way to trade. the coloured numbers are the prices, on the left are buyers and on the right sellers and the numbers on far right is todays volume at each price. The green block highlights the last traded price.

The darker shades show the high and low for today which is quite narrow because I screenshot this less than one hour after the markets open. I trade the first two against each other and the last 3 which is a spread of two speads, also known as a fly. Below is the fly spread for monday, the idea would have been selling high and buying low because the spread is quite mean reverting intra day.

Although if you look at the bigger picture, the fly over the past few weeks.

You wouldn't realistically be selling this fly intra day on monday, although I remeber doing so for a quick profit. Its relatively low so you would be trying to buy the dips during the day. Right now the fly is really low, I picked up 205.94s last night which was nice. Long the schatz (2nd ladder), short the bobl (3rd) and long the bund (4th) makes you long the fly.

Today I am looking to see if it breaks down to 90s otherwise maybe buying something below 206.00. Although likely gonna miss out if it goes up.. but I bought below 00s loads of times last night and it never got past 206.05 so just watching for now as its very tight and could make a move down as its been trending down for a week. It opened up where it is now about 206.01s and as the range has been so tight I don't want to buy what could be near the high for the day because I think it's best to trade todays prices and only to keep in mind yesterdays.

Reflecting on the last 2-3 days

Well the spreads are really tight its been just over 2 days since I came back to trading. It's been tough to make money and so far I have found myself hovering around breakeven almost all day and then within half an hour I make a reasonable amount. So it's kinda of hard to leave the screen because you don't want to miss the move. I have spoken to friends who trade same thing and it seems to be how the markets are behaving. I have been doing 14 hour days, taking 3.30pm to 4.30pm off and taking a small break around mid day.

I have left a position on overnight every day so far including the weekend when markets are closed and all have worked out. It's already been quite draining but plan to stick to trading 7am to 9pm so I can give myself the best chance possible.

Today I traded pretty well I had a couple of spots where markets shot through me and I had to take an instant loss, the bund-bobl-schatz was very tight and I managed to get amazing prices by either luck or watching the markets carefully. The euribor-schatz spread trended up all day, retracing most the way but in a very tight range which was challenging to watch for hours incase something happened!

Regular updates to follow :)

Started trading!

Yesterday at 4.30pm I was up and running and traded that day till 8.30pm. Nothing much happened but I made a couple of profitable trades. Feels good to be back after a long 4 months.