Week 2 Review Longs: 9 Shorts: 6 Winners: 6 Losers: 9 Net P/L:-124 pips Failures: Impatience, again. In this case, not sitting on my hands to wait for a better entry and not letting winners run longer Overtrading again as well. I need to wait for better setups and minimize my exposure to "meh" trades I let my anxiety during a few positions affect how I managed the trade, usually causing me to close too early (winners) or close too late (losers) Successes: I did well paying much, much more attention to price action and not allowing my fear to interfere during pullbacks and retracements I effectively eliminated what wasn't working last week and worked to change my approach in a positive way Planned every trade and traded every plan I lost much less than last week, woot woot Summary: This week went much better than the last. I made some really spot-on trades, did overall better at managing, and didn't let my losing streak get me down. On Tuesday, after reviewing what I did wrong last week, I scrapped a lot of useless signals and started to dig in to reading price action more carefully. The difference afterwards was like night and day. Nonetheless, I still have a LOT of practice and chart time ahead of me before I build confidence and self-trust. I've made some changes to my rules that will "officially" go into effect next week. The decision for each change was based on what I perceived to be more of an obstruction than a safety net. Changes are as follows: For the time being, I will not have a hard 4-trade weekly limit. I need to get as much practice as I can and being limited to only 4 trades obstructs my need to test and adjust. In the future, I may bring a trade limit back if I notice that I'm taking too many crappy trades. I will allow trading when I am away from my computer. This is simply because the window I have at home to plan entries leaves me missing more opportunities than I'm comfortable with, especially during the low vol summer season. My daily/weekly/monthly pip goals are now 20/60/200. My winners tend to fall between 10-20 pips; I see no reason to give myself any additional stress trying to reach for gains that aren't reasonable for my current level of development, ESPECIALLY during summer. Position size: I have changed my position size rules to accommodate for a more flexible % risk model. Standard = 2%, Homerun = 3.5%, Probationary = 0.5%. Position size will be calculated before each trade based on where I would logically place my stop-loss. Also, as a side note, I have started calculating my own results in a spreadsheet/journal so I can more clearly see my progress. Myfxbook is useful for generating my equity curve, but counts pips and trades independently of whole positions. Right now my focus is on determining how often my bias is accurate, what my average expectancy is, and what each position nets in pips. I can worry about equity curve later, once I've accomplished some semblance of consistency and positive expectancy. I look forward to putting more data on the table next week. Baby steps...
Week 3 Review Longs: 9 Shorts: 2 Winners: 2 Losers: 9 Total Cumulative Net P/L:-210 pips (-86) Failures: I couldn't have traded my way out a wet paper bag this week. If I would've done the EXACT opposite of what I did every time, I would've been sitting pretty! Successes: For the first time, I traded without emotional distraction, followed my rules flawlessly, and overall had the ideal "robotic" mentality each day. This is a big success. Win, lose, up, down, didn't matter. Summary: This week was equal parts frustrating and rewarding. My equity curve took a nosedive. I had some confidence from the previous week's end coming in- I thought I had started to better spot the edge I'm learning to work with- but as my results show, I would've been better off taking a week vacation LOL. But, in spite of my performance, I feel like I'm in "the zone" psychologically. Now, if only I had some level of consistency... So, as it stands, I can confidently (and unfortunately) say that I do not possess any noteworthy edge. I have knowledge of a couple edges, but my ability to recognize them and execute them properly is subpar. I'm going to work more closely with my mentor going forward to try and address this issue, but until I've got it down it's practice, practice, practice. Have a good weekend.
Month 1 Summary Longs: 23 Shorts: 11 Winners: 10 Losers: 24 Win Percentage: 41.67% Pip Expectancy, Per Trade: -7 Total Cumulative Net P/L:-228 pips Myfxbook metrics: (note: the colossal dip in equity on July 14th is a result of changing my position size to a 2% rule; before then I was risking perhaps 0.25%) Summary: My first month back was purely psychological in nature- I spent most of the time getting rid of the influence of my emotions, getting in a mental routine, and hammering out trades according to a written plan. Nonetheless, my performance thus far reflects an ineffective trading strategy and clear lack of edge. As I said last week, I have knowledge of a couple edges, though as of present they are vague to my knowledge. I suppose the next course of action would be for me to simply continue putting myself in front of the charts and focusing more on my win rate; what works and what doesn't. At some point in the future, whether it is tomorrow or next year, I may have a light bulb moment and better understand what it is I am looking for. All that lies between now and that moment is time and practice. At any rate, I would describe my current mood as discouraged. The gravity of realizing that I perform worse than a coin flip is difficult to deal with- yet a necessary fact to grasp if I have any hope of learning and improving. At this point, I am pushing forward solely because I realize that this road is not an easy one. . . a trader is defined as an individual who continues to do what he does in the face of constant adversity. It's not easy, but it's far too soon to consider giving up! With any luck, I'll refine my execution this month and make a little progress towards breakeven. Thanks for reading.
Week 5 Summary Longs: 2 Shorts: 1 Winners: 1 Losers: 2 Total Cumulative Net P/L:-232 pips (-4) Failures: I was less disciplined in terms of routine/schedule. I'm not as motivated as I was previously, so it's much less exciting to get out of bed on time to put trades in. Successes: I didn't overtrade and sat on my hands most the time, only taking trades that looked worthwhile. Summary: This is the first green week (in equity) I've had in a while. I had my biggest win thus far (27 pips), which was good. If I can continue to make my winners big and those losers small, I may be able to wrestle that equity curve back to B/E and beyond. We'll see. :eek:
Can you post a chart of one of your trades showing where you entered a trade and why and also where you exited. This would be much more enlightening of how your trading than showing us profit and loss
Sure, why not. I don't have much to lose either way. I use a couple indicators: ZigZag 3 Level Semafor- Displays the highest highs and lowest lows over a set number of periods and marks it with a 1, 2, or 3. A "3" is considered a significant price level. This indicator also draws pivot points. Higher Timeframe Candles- This one is simple, it simply overlays the higher timeframe candle over your current chart. In this case, I use the 4-hour overlayed with the daily. Here is my win from last week, in AUD/USD. Once price crossed below the old low, I waited for a retest of that level as resistance and entered short. My TP was set near a pivot level. And for posterity, here's one of my losses, in USD/JPY. Price crossed above the old high, longed after the test of support.
Week 5 Summary Longs: 0 Shorts: 0 Winners: 0 Losers: 0 Total Cumulative Net P/L:-232 pips (+- 0) Failures: N/A Successes: N/A Summary: This week was spent preparing a spreadsheet for manual backtesting and running a few trials to see if I can get a handle on making good trades. Truth be told, I am a bit demoralized, so my motivation has dropped as a result. It may be a bit before I get back into the full swing of things.
After some discussion with my mentor, it's been decided to switch to futures. My work schedule has changed and I will have more than adequate time to work closely with him and be active during market hours. I will update this thread once the switch officially occurs.
Week 6 Summary - Transition to Futures Failures: - I need to be much more patient. I don't need to be in the market every day at all times. - I need to be looking LEFT, at higher timeframes, and make sure I have a good gauge on what's going on. Successes: - I've been much more disciplined, emotionally, than I have been previously. - I'm not bleeding money out the nose. (lol) Summary: My transition to futures went very well, better than expected. I now have the time available to be in the market from open to noon, which allows me to focus on scalping- something I (surprisingly) seem to be more suited for than swings. That said, it's only been a week. Time will tell if I am truly beginning to see things more clearly. Note: I'm using Ninja Trader for execution, thinkorswim for charting. I'll be using Amp Futures if/when I go live. Still in a demo with 100k starting equity. Enjoy your weekend.