Memorable Trades of 2012

Does anybody have any good or bad memorable trades from 2012 that they'd like to share with us? What made them memorable and what did you learn from them?

Oh geez DT.. You had to ask.... This will most likely be sooo lame to most of you, but a TREMENDOUS step forward for me. It is a good, bad (ha ha & ugly )and a very memorable trade for me.

Following last years Psych drama that made spaghetti out of my brain, I mentioned a very successful practice account with my boss in another thread. After doing so I wanted to make my first REAL trade since last year.

Having very little in my account, making this stupid little trade was a VERY BIG DEAL. I had to get back on the bike. I did so for a very little profit target... 1 contract... 1 point and a high probability, so I thought.

I waited for the market to reach the area I was looking. It did... The market turned as I anticipated. I hesitated in fear.

It bounce back and sat on my number.. DO IT... DO IT... I had to freakin do it... My finger... on it's own (or I blacked out for a moment) made the click for me. OH GOD!

The market bounce off, bounced on, bounced off, on and off again. I went to cancel my trade. I was too late, the market took my bid. CRAP!

Profit and loss both set for one point. I know, I know VERY BAD ratio. I just had to disprove the trolls in my brain. Trolls don't exist on practice accounts.

The market immediately went to my profit target. YES! But bounced off. It bounced back to my entry and to a half point a few times and then reversed to a half point negative. I waited... Three quarter point in the negative and back to entry. Repeated the same process hitting my profit target and back to half in the negative. Freakin trolls just would not give it to me. (For the record... I don't really believe in trolls, but I've got to have a name for the process.)

I panicked and cut my profit target to half. The process repeated once again. Now sitting longer in the negative. I was thinking... You can't even give me a half point you cheap *#&#& &$#^#&'s!

I moved my profit target to a quarter point. I just needed a freakin win! The price came back and sat on my quarter point target. My heart was pounding and I was about to EXPLODE... You've got to me F*#^# kidding me (remember that one?..) and my daughter walked in to room to ask a question.

My eyes left the screen to redirect my attention to her and the glorious sound of $7's filled my ears. My daughter paused to my look of surprise.... WOOOOOO WHOOOOOO! I just made 7 bucks kid and gave her a great big hug. Now what can I do for you, I asked... She needed twenty buck to go out with her friends. Seriously...

Even though this was an intended scalp... I entered the short thinking the market was headed down for a new low. That didn't happen so I was lucky to make the meezily seven dollar gain(after commish!)... Did not see that price again that day. whew..

This was just over a month ago... I haven't made a trade since.
In 2013... I'll do things a little differently! Cheers!

Originally posted by TradeQueen

...Trolls don't exist on practice accounts...

That's a great quote TradeQueen and so true. We've all been there. Sounds like you were lucky to get out of that one.

No memorable trade per-se, but a few stats & comments.

I trade 2 automated systems of my own design - aside from that, I only took 1 "manual" trade this year, a setup that my reversal system didn't "see", and I ended BE on that trade because of emotional conflict for breaking my trading plan (which is automated trading only).

- Reversal system: 54 trades since I (re)started trading the V2 of this system late April, 2 discipline errors, 2 missed trades (both wins) for technical (& laziness) reasons. Net +4230 (since April).

- Other system: 151 trades, 1 discipline error. Net +2665 for the year ; last P&L peak: 8 May, current DD: -1335. I have the feeling this system is "dead" ... the CME changed their margin requirements for their "big" clients late April, and I pretty much knew it would kill the market inefficiency this system is trading. I am sad but think it is reasonable to stop trading this system now, I made +9790 net trading it since July 2011. I will monitor its "simulated" performance over the coming months, though.

My reversal system has been far from the prior 2 years' performance ... about 1/2 the number of trades of 2011, and a lower average per trade. On the bright side, I made a small number of improvements on that system, essentially working from historical data for 2007..2009, which are giving me the confidence to go "all in" for 2013. If I have to guess, I will say I have about 15 months of full time R&D on it (24/7 ;-), since its inception in March 2011.


For me, the event of the year has been the transition from Ensign to NinjaTrader ... I had differed that for over a year, arguing that I would "waste" a few months to ramp-up in Ninja, the reality is that I wasted 1 year by differing that transition. For the type of trading systems that I develop (PA-based), the flexibility of C# is 100-times better (I include the .NET libraries in that statement). That doesn't make creating a profitable system an easy task, but certainly a faster one in Ninja than in Ensign.


A final word, after reading TradeQueen's mental debate around a 1pt stop in ES ... I had a similar debate during my only "manual" trade this year, which I ended-up closing at BE. In contrast, I watched a number of trades go against my systems throughout the year, being pissed-off by yet another losing trade, but very-much convinced I have no other choice than following my systems rules - which have the best long-term statistical outcome I could achieve. My emotions are quite different in nature in the 2 situations, and much easier to deal with in the case of my automated trading, even though a max loss can be anywhere between -$600 & -$1000 per "unit" (1 or 2 contracts) depending on the system & the setup.