Here's a list of some worthwhile Blogs

These Traders post there trades or P/L each day they trade-

TraderAM - He Trades Morning opening GAPS

PRD Trader - He trades Forex pairs and has set a Million dollar challenge for his 20K account

A list of US index Futures Traders that post daily P/L-

MBAGearHead

Jay's Futures Trading Journal

Other Worthwhile Blogs-

Capital is Scarce- By Trader Solfest - Trades Crude Oil

Long & Wrong - Index Analysis and stuff

For more Trading Blogs Checkout Market Roll

Bollinger Explains Four Ways to Trade the Markets

Trading Psychology and Common Problems for Traders


Traders - What's the Squeeze Play?


Trading Expert Explains Intermarket Relationships


Wayne McDonell Discusses How to Benefit from the Carry Trade

The Interactivebrokers main webpage has a new design.

Now how about improving the charts?

For some odd reason the Live account data feed is having problems and the Sim data feed is running on Interactive Brokers and I'm not the only one with this problem- The time is currently 3am EST.
Tradestation and Zen Fire data feeds are running smoothly.

UPDATE- IB working FINE again.

The 5 year note bond futures ZF looks very weak considering yesterdays late day selloff. Watching the CAD, EURO, and Crude Oil for direction.

AIG broke first on yesterdays afternoon selloff. Lets not forget the rest of the banks and REAL ESTATE (IYR).

I've put together a list of posts I find particularly helpful when it comes to trading psychology.

Dr. Brett goes over A Few Trading Psychology Observations

I'd like to highlight a few key points I like from his post-
- Traders develop plans and trade patterns that simply don't work; they're based on randomness.
- 90% don't/can't sustain the process of keeping a substantive journal. Among the group that does journal, well over 90% of the entries are about themselves and their P/L. I almost never see journal entries devoted to figuring out markets.
-In every performance field of note--from Olympic athletics to Broadway--performers spend more time in practice than in formal performance. That is how expertise develops. The ratio of "practice" time (time spent on markets outside of trading) to trading time is a worthwhile indicator of a trader's prospective success.

-"It's a common observation that traders fail because they don't stick to their plans. My experience is different. Traders develop plans and trade patterns that simply don't work; they're based on randomness. When the patterns don't work, traders become frustrated and abandon their plans. So it looks like lack of discipline causes trading failure. But planning doesn't create success; sound planning does. Sticking to plans based on randomness is no virtue."

How do traders enhance there trading skills while the market is closed?
-Back Test your strategies (are these strategies profitable?)
-Review your charts and setups (Are you taking Impulse/emotional trades or backtested planned trades?)
-Review your past trades, look at trade frequency, share size, max drawdown, max gain
-Review the trading day with tick replay feature if your charting software provides that feature
-Trade on a trading simulator if your broker has that feature
-Review your trading journal to find trading mistakes you keep making, so you can focus on improving those problem areas
-Record the Trading day and review it later using screen capture software like Camtasia studio or !Quick Screen Capture

Denial as a Trading Motivation

Trading on Tilt: Regaining Self Control

I'm still working on my ATS. I plan on posting its results on my blog on a regular basis to give this blog more content and help me track its progress.
I have the ATS sending orders to an Interactive Brokers Simulated Account.
Today I took the same trade that the ATS fired and it worked.
I am still working on this ATS for trading NQ.

The ATS only signaled 1 trade today. A 2pt set stop and 3 pt target we're fixed in place. I manually adjusted the stop down and the stop was hit for 1.5pt profit. The trade statistics can be seen in the picture.

I think I will provide a full view of the ATS trade statistics for all the trades taken at the end of the trading week/month and put these results in an EXCEL/ GOOGLE Pivot table as shown below. Perhaps when I accumulate more statistics on the trading I will provide a chart of the P/L performance along with the corresponding trade statistics. I love Pivot tables.

HPT ATS TRADE STATISTICS

PIVOT TABLE

How to run two instances of QuoteTracker

Make a copy of the entire QuoteTracker folder, not just the stocks.exe file. (Ex. If your current folder for QT is "c:\program files\quotetracker" make a folder "c:\program files\quotetracker2" (or whatever)). Then copy the entire contents of the "c:\program files\quotetracker" folder (including sub-folders) into the "c:\program files\quotetracker2" folder.

After that, make a shortcut to the stocks.exe file in the new c:\program files\quotetracker2 folder. Your original shortcut should point to "c:\program files\quotetracker\stocks.exe" and the new shortcut should point to "c:\program files\quotetracker2\stocks.exe"

Both of these shortcuts now need the "allowdup" command line argument added to them in the Target box, so that they will look like this:
"c:\program files\quotetracker\stocks.exe" allowdup
"c:\program files\quotetracker2\stocks.exe" allowdup
(Note: allowdup is outside of the quotes and there is a space before it.)

After that final step, you can double click the 2 shortcuts and each will start a separate instance of QT.

For more answers to FAQ go to the QT forum.

Jeff Quinto has a video on the CME website on how to setup a trading plan.
Here are the key topics Jeff suggests and my answers:

Which contract or stock will I trade?

I'm trading stocks and futures.

What time period will I trade?

I trade the first 3 hours of market open primarily, while liquidity is best.

What setups will I take?

I discretionary trade the automated signals I have created. I determine if the current market condition suites any trade signals my system generates and then I choose whether or not to take the trade.

What Risk parameters do I use?

I have a max daily stop loss in place in case I make too many bad trades.

What do I do after 3 losing trades?

I determine if I should stop trading based on if I'm feeling frustrated or if I should keep trading my signals until my daily max loss is reached.

What is my strategy for increasing or decreasing my trading size?

I trade 1-2 contracts for the initial position and only add to winners on clear trending trades (market internals heavily favor bulls/bears -ie TICK and NYSE A/D favor bulls/bears).

How many ticks or points am I trying to make per day?

I don't have a set target, I only take what I can get.

How many trades do I make per day?

I only make 3 to 5 trades per day on average. Most trading days only make 3 significant swings, so my primary goal is to be apart of the primary move or catch a reversal swing or continuation trade.

How long do I plan to hold winners or losers?

I hold winners as long as possible, scaling out as I see fit. I hold losers for as long as I need to as long as my stop is not hit.

How do I record my progress?

I keep a journal of my trades with trade statistics and a chart showing where I placed my trades.

Who do I call if my computer or internet has a problem?

I have stops in place for all my trades so I'm covered, however I can also access my account from my phone or call my broker.

Gold is nearing 1000, JPY is the most bullish currency, the Canadian dollar and Peso are weakest currencies. Bond futures (ZN -10 yr bond future) has good correlation with JPY lately. ES and Crude correlation has also been good lately.

The Trading Library- Basics of Market Profile-
Today was a Double distribution trend day, characterized by two volume nodes and the session ending near its high/low.

12 Economic Bubbles That May Burst from Business Pundit

Economic Data Blog

Brace for a Wave of Foreclosures, the Dam is About to Break From Mish Econ Analysis

Bubble Meter -A housing bubble blog

The math of gambling From NewScientist