NetPicks e-Mini Futures

The Euro Futures wins nine out of ten sessions and is on track to establishing itself once again.  Sticking to our tight trade plan has made all the difference.  After a wonderful performance through the latter half of last year, we had to struggle for the first few weeks of 2010.  Perseverence, and sticking with our trade plan has begun to pay off. 

Yesterday was tough.  We had to make hard choices between tighter stops and greater risk.  No approach is perfect.  Our plan calls for tighter stops and keeping our risk managable.  That way, it is easier to overcome and with a couple winners we are back on top.  Usually!  We just couldn’t quite get there yesterday and we wound up down 21 points.  That was the first losing day in nine sessions though.  We bounced right back today, winning 2 out of 3 and wound up positive for the week, +34 points.  That is on the heels of a + 57 point net result last week, to end February.  February totals left us with a + 94 points.

We continue to struggle with the Russell 233 UMT Core.  For some reason, we just can’t seem to make it work for us.  Up, down, up, down..  No traction so far this year.  We ended January and February, both, with a +1.8 and +1.9 total, respectively.  Flat on points, but definitely negative after trade costs.  The irony is that we are still not far from our all time equity point level.  But to be sure, it has not been a happy 2010.  This past week was particularly difficult with a 7 trade losing streak and a weekly net of – 9.2.  I never thought I would say this but I am very close to putting it on ice.  I’m sure once I do, the wicked winning streak of all time will begin.  I think we can do better though and I would look forward to a change, one way or another, before too long.  One comment I want to make though is that I believe that it is a testimony of how poorly the Russell emini has traded as of late vs the UMT Core itself.  The UMT Core is showing great promise on other markets.  If you are a UMT Core owner, it would pay to look at other charts, and find markets that are ranging better.

The Russell Simple 2, 222 chart on the other hand has been doing what it always does.  On a week frought with ugly expanding range formations, and slow price action with false breakouts in both directions (thus the expanding ranges), the 222 held its head up, ending the week with a modest gain of +3.1.  It ended February modestly too, up +3.5, and while we are up +28.4 on the month, I can’t help but think that we can do better than this one too.  Stand by for changes.  The Russell has not been the market we had grown accustomed to over the past couple seasons and perhaps a change in strategy, timeframe or even market is going to be what the doctor calls for.

The HVMM 2010 looks great!   Below is the link to the webinar where you can learn all about it.  I am wagering that it will find its way into our traderoom and could be exactly what the doctor ordered, along with some other not yet ready, possibilities.

I want to thank all my members for hanging in there.  I realize how hard 2010 has been.  The EC is paying off for those stoic enough to stay with it.  We’ll bounce back in a big way before too long.  We’ve been doing this long enough to know that all systems will experience tough times once in a while. 

One last note:  The Russell tracking page is down for now.  I will try to get it back up as soon as I can.  If we do make a change though, we’ll begin a new tracking page with whatever approach and market we settle in on.

Have a great weekend.  — TJ

Grinding it out is what it feels like, trading futures these past few months.  Especially this past January.  It felt like we had to just hunker down and grind.  In the end, we were able to finish the Russell 233 basically flat, with a +1.8 net profit.  After commissions, we were a bit down.  But the thing to keep track of is the fact that we are still within a short stone throw’s distance from our all time equity highs.   And while we did end the first week of Feb flat as well, we did put together a nice string of winners.  In fact, the TF 233 won the last 17 out of 21 trades.  Some of those trades were partial winners, and trades that just barely missed their full targets.  Call it bad luck.  Call it whatever you want.  The fact is that sometimes we just have to take what the market will give us and keep taking out trades.  

Meanwhile, the TF 222 tick chart we trade ended last week with a nice +9.3 points.  We ended the month of January up, +21.7 points.  We were able to catch some nice big trades too.

Our Euro Futures trades are also hanging in there, although like the TF 233, we’re still grinding it out.  We ended last week up +58 points.  We were slightly down in January, -28 points.  Again, like the TF 233, we are a stone’s throw away from our all time equity highs and its only a matter of time before we break out to new profit levels.  There will be tough sessions, whether it be days, weeks or even a month here and there, where it feels like we are not making much progress.  That can be frustrating but it is an inescapable fact of daytrading.  If you quit, and throw the baby out with the bathwater, you’ll miss the next wave of positive gains.  No one can ever really know when that will happen.  That’s why we use tried and true trade systems.   Times and always changing and things happen in the world every day that move markets.  We’ll be there to catch the next leg up.   The edge of  our system will kick in and we’ll soon be at new equity highs again.

Our Russell and Euro futures trades are beginning to take shape and wake up as volatility begins to find its way back into the markets.  The first few weeks of January have been sleepy for us, not really making any headway up or down.  Finally, as the swings started to come back with better range, we found ourselves on the right side of some very good trades this week. 

We still struggled a bit with the EC on Tuesday, when the market traded so tight that we couldn’t get to a full target.  We staged a pretty strong comeback though the rest of the week and find ourselves in a good position for this Monday’s coming session.  We ended the week down – 17 points.  You could almost feel the winning streak poising itself to take shape, as we have seen over and over again after tough sessions.  We have won the last 9 out of 10 sessions and it is only a matter of time until we breakout to all new profit levels.

This is also true with the Russell 233 UMT Core.  That market has also been flat for us so far this year.  It too though is coming to life for us again.  We were up +8.6 last week, and up again another +3.3 this week.  We could have added to that a bit but after a long, gut wrenching nail biter of a trade yesterday, that got us a big partial profit of +2.5, we decided to call it quits while we were up on the week.  That trade took a lot out of all of us, as it came to within 1 tick of a big stop out, and almost stopped and reversed a few times too.  The system did a great job of keeping us in the trade but it was really all about our discipline and confidence in our system that made all the difference.  Thank goodness that we have the bigger picture vision of over 700 live trades to know, that you just have to stay with it.  The market works at its own rhythm.  We have won the last 7 out of 10 sessions on the TF 233.

Our star of the year so far though, has been our Russell 222 chart, trading our modified UMT Simple 2.  It has been a great few weeks for us.  Using our 2 contract approach and agressive trade management style, we have been able to post a nifty +25.5 points already, just three weeks into 2010.  We had a great Tuesday the 20th, posting +5.4, and then on the 21st, we posted a whopping +17.3 points on just two trades.  We ended the week up +19.3 and are poised to post an excellent result for the first month of the new decade.

All in all, this year has tested our patience a bit, but only because we are human beings and relate things to our day to day way of dealing with the world.  The market is of course, no human and trading is a non-human endeavor.  Thus, our trade system and trade plan.  Let your tradeplan and trade system do the heavy lifting.  It’s all in the day to day course of doing business. 

I am feeling perfectly good about things as they stand and as long as we lean on our system, and take the pressure off of ourselves as traders, the ultimate outcome will continue to be very favorable for us going forward.  Those of you who stick with it, will be able to witness the results adding equity to our accounts and when you compare the last post of the year, with these early posts, you will see exactly how far you have come and will be a much better trader, with a higher account balance, as a consequence of your hard work and disciplined approach of just leaning on your system, and letting the edge of that system work its magic.