Today's ER 3 minute chart. 9 paper trades (6-2-1) for $220 (-$41.84 comm).

Price bars added again. The CCI looks like a melting painting. Those are the added ribbons mentioned yesterday. I also added an indicator that I found somewhere changes the 14 CCI green and red. I'm not clear yet on what the color change specifically indicates, but it's obviously some up/down thingy more indicative of trend than being a setup signal. The turbo CCI is in white. The indicators look messy, but somehow it wasn't that difficult to focus on the CCI and turbo.

Today was basically an uptrend day with the usual prolonged periods of chop to drive you nuts. The big winners today were ZLRs with the trend. They've fallen off in effectiveness recently. From Woodie's renowned 80% success rate down to around 65% the past couple months -- or so say the recordkeepers in chat. In the hands of botching amateurs (like myself), they've been epic adventures in buffoonery. Today was good though, and nobody can complain (much) on a day like this when things work pretty much as advertised.

I was a bit pissed early on, having started with a couple winners, but having very little to show for it. The problems with scratching out chickenshit winners is that 1) you need a fairly high win % and 2) you need to stay extremely vigilent and make sure your losers are of the chickenshit variety also. This is always the agony of trading a small account. That "let your winners run" stuff goes out the door. Perhaps in this simulation stage, I shouldn't even be this concerned with the final dollar totals pulled in (or thrown away) each day, but I am. Profitability is the bottomline, and I'm concentrating on that as much as learning the setups, mastering trade executions, and trying to hone a psychological edge.

I'm going to practice hard with 2 contract entries now, using one for my chickenshit quick target and keeping one on as a runner. I did this successfully twice today, first on the dreaded YM (which I always fuck up on), where I was able to get 14 combined ticks in a situaton I'd probably get 5 from normally. Then on the ER, I got a combined 11 ticks. On a subsequent ER loser, I took off the 1st at b/e, and the 2nd at -2 ticks. There have been many times the past couple months my entries go nowhere quickly. Volume is gone, and the next price movement as to when and where is anyone's guess. Other times, a loser appears immediately. The reflex has to be to peel off one contract immediately, and make it a regular one contract trade. I'll be jumpy on dumping a loser or potential loser and risk having it turn for the positive, but I think immediate damage control is best for me at this stage. Hopefully, the positives of carrying the runner on clear winners far outweigh the nervous nellie bailing.

Another positive is it's a better way of reaching my 10 daily trades. I've found it hard to find setups recently because 1) they've been hard to find on many inactive days and 2) I've missed a lot of action being lulled to sleep by the prolonged chop and slop ranges. I'm surely to fall prey to inventing trades the longer this type of market exists. Perhaps 5 trades a day (of 2 contracts each) is a better number to target. I also need to figure out how to budget my market hours screentime, because the slimjim stuff is numbing me. I'm thinking of 2 hours trading 6:30am-8:30am (my local time), 2 hours of break, then 2 more hours of trading 10:30am-12:30pm, which is Woodie's 3:30pm EST end of trading. The purpose isn't necessarily to accurately avoid the midday lull (as sometimes they don't happen or they occur at different times on different days), but to keep me fresh and focused when I am in front of the computer to more effectively use my (lagging) energy.