Not Capturing My Ticks

I have been working the kinks out of my futures trading game for a month now, trading the old 1 lot.  I never achieved the win rate I desire, but something curious is peeking out from the stats.  Over 70% of my trades achieve a 3 point MFE.  Today was even more pronounced, where my trades were earnings over 20 ticks in MFE.  The problem lies in the hypothesis.  I can read auction action better than the average bear but I am still learning.  I expected more from my trades today and when they flew back on me super duper fast (the mark of OTF activity, the very activity I have been tracking) I was forced to take scratches or worse small losses on otherwise quality trades.  With a bit of trade management via scaling profits, these were winning trades.

The overtrading dilemma of weeks past too—thinking like a 1 lot chump.  I have been coming into consolidations with a position, closing it out, and then chopping myself to bits trying to time an entry inside the consolidation.  What if instead I could take my scale and then watch the consolidation already in the money.  Much better.

Thus the conclusion—I am close to feeling prepared to increase to a two lot.  According to my stats I should be able to capture a scale which would then allow me to manage the other piece.  This is the only logical progression I see after cultivating the patience to only take high quality entries.

I am not so trigger happy anymore because I have seen how much it infuriated me and ruined otherwise normal days in the life of Raul.  I am generally a happy guy, but not when I start thinking, “this looks like a good spot for a try” without any preplanned hypothesis.  The hypothesis is the answer to overtrading.  I am prepared to be wrong on a hypo trade.  This gives me tons of information about the auction which then helps me direct my stock swing trades.  The entire process is very informative and makes me be better overall trader.  I like this.

A commenter once opined that they could not watch this car wreck any longer, this endeavor to day trade index futures.  They said they tried the same thing, clearing one hurtle only to find the next and the next.  I am not singling you out like you are a jerk, it was an honest and appreciated comment.  However this process is the way you achieve something, how we perceive the obstacle.  The obstacle is the way and I am fully prepared to be wrong.  Anyhow, here’s today’s trades, some beauties if only for some scaling:

In other news, TWTR traded a bit aloof today but found a bid.  I watched X with steel in my heart, and I am anticipating some follow through tomorrow.  My only trade today was closing out some UNXL and buying some FEYE calls.  It felt like the FEYE calls had some SPLK move priced into them, is that possible?  I would appreciate any thoughts from the more seasoned options guys.

GRPN is still dead money and I am still in some August calls, SINA worked from the rip yesterday but sitting in these China calls is a bit sketchy, especially with WUBA in tote too (from lower).  I have some DDD calls I expected to be out of ahead of earnings but are nearly worthless thus will roll through, and an AMZN yolo.  In short, I am leveraged to the hilt amidst a tumultuous Nasdaq tape.