$300 in futures day trading paper profits, after $800

Friday about $800 in paper profits after commissions, today about $300 after commissions. Most profitable was Crude Oil, which experienced a nice trend and net 360 after 4 trades...very first trade was a loss of $70 though, so had to make that up.

Was using some tools today.

• Minute charts for entry/stop positions, 15 minute to see longer term trend (saved me on crude oil!)
• Support/resistance lines, Very useful for targets and areas of potential caution.
• on balance volume...noticed that ws and ms are useful in the analysis
• Uptrend/downtrend (higher highs, higher lows)/reverse was VERY helpful
• 9 period exponential average to help clarify the current trend
• fibonnaci analysis, both retracements and extensions.
• LOTS of stops, and moving stop up aggressively with price, also letting winners "run"
• some bollinger bands, although they weren't that helpful.
• RSI indicator, the overbought/oversold can be helpful

It was obvious that several tools worked well together to produce a good result. It was hard to come up with 3 reasons for a trade like Brian Beamish recommends, but 2 was usually possible.

On /ZN the Conigy method doesn't seem to work, instead breakout trading typically seems far more effective. A close use of stops must be utilized however!! Using protective stops aggressively is very helpful, perhaps I best use them even more often.

I did some advanced analysis on end of day behavior for the S&P. Basically for 4 days in a row the market was trading down at the end of the day. It did this for 4 days and the times were as follows: 4:45, 4:35, 4:25, 4:20...and then the current day broke this cycle by a long shot, almost as if market participants were hinting that the end of day downward behavior was over and the opposite would occur. I didn't take this seriously and missed the end of the day uptrend. Volume analysis also threw me off, should have remembered that it increases on the end of day anyhow, so not to judge a change in trend by more volume. And I also ignored a clear uptrend...plenty of time to respond. The higher high, lower low trend analysis can be very powerful. Use it frequently!

"I trade the q's, QQQ, I trade 'em tight!" --that is the result of aggressive protective stops.

Looking forward to more trading! I have been my most thoughtful and used my most advanced analysis today. Used the stuff I've learned. Very happy about this!