Philadelphia & ES trades for 9/25/13

I did not trade yesterday, as I had to go down to Philadelphia to take care of some business. Specifically, to file a Satisfaction of Mortgage with the Philly County Recorder. After doing the 3S, I went over to Columbus Park and waited for Sai Yeung Choi to arrive. We started heading out at around 10:45 AM. Usually, it's a 2 hour drive from NYC to Philly. However, we got stuck in traffic, due to construction and a nasty accident. After a 3 hour drive, we finally arrived.

We headed for City Hall to the Records Dept. Get this, to file the Satisfaction of Mortgage, the city charged me $198...mein gott! While in the city, SYC and I also walked over to Chinatown. I like the Philly Chinatown. It's small, but it's clean and nicely laid out. Had lunch at a Malaysian place call Penang. The place was not crowded, which I like. Food was decent. Prices were higher than expected, but the larger portions sort of made up for it.

Also, there was this cute girl eating alone. Besides being cute, what caught my attention was the amount of food she ordered. She had a veggie dish, a beef dish and a ginormous whole fish dish. I'd initially thought she was ordering for her and her friend(s). However, she started digging into the food, which led me to believe all of it were for her. 

Anyway, the drive back to NYC was brutal. We left Philly at around 4 PM. Got stuck in traffic at the beginning. I was behind the wheel for over 4 hours - double the usual travel time! My back and gluteus maximus were hurting. Due to my bad back, I can't sit, stand or sleep in one position for too long. Ideally, for every 1.5-2 hour behind the wheel, I would need to take a mini break to loosen my back muscles. After 4+ hours, we finally got back to NYC a little bit past 8 PM.

City Hall

Now onto today's trade recap. The market was in a range the whole day, which suited me fine. For some reason, I tend to do better in range days than trending ones. Did a total of 4 trades. All were winners. I missed out on 3 other solid trades, because I used limit, instead of stop orders. Didn't get filled and didn't want to chase any trades.

Trade #1 - 2nd entry long with prices bouncing off of support and trend lines. In at around 9:38 @1688.25. Prices hung around for a couple of bars. A Gravestone Doji happened to be one of them, which caused me to think about bailing out early. Good thing prices shot up and hit my 1st target. It then retreated, after meeting upper trend line resistance and I got stopped out on the 2nd contract. Ended the trade 1.00 + 0.25 = +1.25 pt.

Trade #2 - Basically, this was almost a repeat of the 1st trade. It was a 2nd entry long at support. Got in at 10:13 @1685.75 and out at 10:18 @1686.75 & 1686.00 (stopped out). Of course, almost immediately after I got stopped out, the market shot up another 5 pt! 1.00 + 0.25 = +1.25 pt.

Trade #3 - Prices had broken through the upper resistance earlier and then retraced. It then tried to break through again, but prices (4 bars) hung up for awhile. When the 4th bar broke down, I went short at 13:22 @1692.00. My 1st target was hit fairly quickly. Then the market just nose-dived. It hit my 2nd target of 1689.00, then dropped 4 more pt. 1.00 + 3.00 = +4.00 pt.

Trade #4 - I immediately regretted entering this trade, even though it was a 2nd entry short. The market was very volatile at this time and also prices have not reached the upper trend line yet. Sure enough, after my entry, a bullish bar formed and I was within 2 ticks of being stopped out. I manually adjusted my targets, hoping prices would retrace and I could bail out for a 1 tick gain. It did. However, had I not made the adjustments, I would've gotten my 1st target, as prices slipped a bit further down. I rather be safe than sorry, though. 0.25 + 0.25 = +0.50 pt.

ES chart 9/25/13