Trade Summary
20121128
Long 2 TF 798.4, 798.2, +0.5, +1.2
Long 2 YM 12783, 12783, +7, -4
Long 1 TF 797.5, -0.7
Long 1 YM 12767, -7
Long 2 TF 796.3, 796.5, +1.1, +0.5
Short 1 TF 702.8, +1.0
Short 1 TF 703.7, +1.0
Total YM -4
Total TF +4.6
Journal
"Trade your Plan" is not a golden rule violated or conditioned on whether the streaming news seems favorable or not to the trade signal. We take the trades that match our plan, and if they do not show a profit premium at or near the time of the scheduled economic report, we dump the position and go flat. Flat is the safety position for handling news reports. Holding a position from a signal that occurred some minutes before the scheduled news event is permissible in our trade plans, first, if we've already exited partial units to pay for the trade, and second, if the price some 20 to 15 seconds before the scheduled time still shows a profit premium to our entry. The initial long TF position taken today was entered some 10 minutes before the scheduled New Home Sales number due out at 10am ET. I had taken 2 contracts of the TF (mini Russell), and 2 units of the YM (mini Dow 30). I exited both TF's with minimum mechanical profit targets, and did the same with the first YM unit, but held the 2nd YM with about a 10 pt profit into the news. Although I had a -1 stp-loss order for that position, the strongly negative news caused my stp to be slipped by a few ticks when the news hit.
Another long signal then appeared across the board in all 4 contracts monitored (the ES, YM, NQ and TF) as the negative news drove prices to new lows and the next support numbers from our Price Number Grid. The question to some outside these techniques might have been "Is the strongly negative news now a filter to ignore these new buy signals?" Absolutely not. In fact, possibly just the opposite. We trade the plan, not the news. And once the news is out, and has had its way emotionally with price action, a countering signal might be even more valuable to us than one taken before the news. Have a plan. The news is not a qualifying filter. Trade the plan. Stay disciplined!
