Introduction and Strategy

Hi!  Just wanted to say welcome and thanks for visiting this blog.  I wanted to share my market view of the roughly 30 liquid futures markets most everyday to help educate those trying to learn or looking for information and also put my thoughts onto paper.  I feel this exercise will serve as my "trading journal", which I feel is a very good tool to use and a must if serious about your trading. 
My style for trading is simple.  I use a discretionary trend following approach to hold "core" positions in the markets and trade around these positions when I see a favorable risk reward scenario.  My basis premise with this is you should be buying dips in strong up trending markets and selling rips in strong down trending markets.  The stronger the trend of the market, the better your risk reward is. 
So how do I determine the trend first off?  I keep it as simple as you can, and use the 50SMA.  This seems to work very well for me but some others will probably work if you need be.  The only other indicators I have on my chart set up is the 10SMA and a 3,10,16 MACD.  The 10SMA is a good guide to use for strongly trending markets, as it tends to follow this very well.  The MACD I use is roughly the indicator used in SMR charts and their charting service.  I started using this set up after I read Chick Goslin's books Trading Day by Day.  It is truly the book that changed my trading and my approach...I would strongly recommend reading it.  How this MACD indicator works is you have a fast line and a slow line.  The fast line is the one I tend to look at more, as I use this as my overbought/oversold indicator.  The slow line is a secondary trend indicator, or roughly a 3 week moving average of the fast line.  During my posts, you will understand how I use this set up more in detail. 

So how do I plan to use and set up this blog??  My intention in starting the blog is to have a "model" portfolio to showcase how I would trade my plan, but no actual trades or positions.  One thing I have learned on my trading journey is you have to think for yourself.  You have to own your own trades and position size according to your own risk tolerance.  This is the single piece of advice I would give to new traders who want to become a great trader.  Everyone gets what they want out of the market.  If you truly do want to be successful you need to stick to this. 

More to come, but thank you for the views and follows, and I hope you and I both grow together on this trading journey!