Continue cataloging each occurrence of a valid setup until everything that can be known is both written down and committed to memory. Practice visualizing it's nuances until they are so familiar and anticipatable that a smile or frown forms depending on how the current case of it is setting up. A+ for organizing your efforts. Thanks again for sharing your journey. You're an inspiration to my own efforts.
Well, I'm done. The week started off ok, but honestly, seeing the big moves and getting none of it really plagued me. Then I got caught up in following all the stuff that emini was posting and I got sucked into the lower time frame point of view again. (nothing wrong with what he is doing, it just doesn't fit me at all) My version of reading behavior is trading by my emotions and every push and pull of a lower time frame chart gave me anxiety and made my emotions put on trades. The week started ok, but lets face it, my profits were just being lucky and then too scared to get in on the major moves. By Wed Dec 17, I was lucky to just finish a bit down, and then the week finished off horribly. I always knew that holding through losers would end up costing me one day and that day finally came. The thing with exits is that usually they are always at the worst place for me, right before price finally comes back to me. Not that the trade ends up working out, but that my exit could be much closer to BE, because once again, my exit either hits the 5 points stop loss, or is based on watching price surge up, and hence an emotional exit. The news release trading on Wed made me focus so much on the 5 sec chart, the lowest time frame I can load up on IB, and this is what started my downfall this week. Its funny how I can pinpoint just two actions that started the cascade down, but its certainly misguided fundamentals, so I'm not saying its just a little tweak that would have made all the difference. I have been mad at missing so many of these great moves. Some I couldn't help because they happen over night and I'm sleeping. Others would take a couple of hours to develop and by then I'm either not watching anymore or already at work. Today especially I kept holding that short because I had trouble exiting at first, but also to prove to everyone else out there that SIM is tricky because you just don't get the fills you think you might. How crazy is that? I suffered over a $400 loss on one trade just to try and prove something to everyone else out there. I also kept holding the short because I'm mad at the economy once again. This huge rally seems so stupid to me, but of course I should just be watching price and trading accordingly, regardless of it going up or down. I'm also mad that I won't have a good update to tell my sister over the holidays when I fly home because she thinks this whole trading business is not possible, and I so wanted a good update, and there are also stresses with the girlfriend. I just want to be single while I struggle through this. So as you can see, so much going on in my head. MOVING FORWARD So honestly, I think I'm gonna go cry now. Its not about the money though. I'm down over $800 in the past couple of days now I guess, but only about $400 since I started two weeks ago just doing my weekly updates. What hurts the most is not doing anything right. Trades that worked I was out of so soon, losers I kept holding onto, and I spent so much time being mad at all this opportunity passing me by. I'm by no means giving up, and after I have my emotional release and let it all go, I'm gonna work on fixing the problems. I will go over these past two weeks over the weekend and see what would have happened if I just followed the static bars without letting how they form influence me. Watching price actually move is not good for me, but watching how far it goes (the high and low) and what it does on the next bar I think I can deal with. The more I actually focused on price movement the more panicked and emotional it made me. If I could just focus on the highs and lows of the bars, and then run a so called script in my head (if this, then do this, etc...), then I think I might be much better at this. I really do see so much opportunity on the chart, but there is a huge disconnect with how this all unfolds in real time. I can't say when I will update next because frankly, this journal is now causing me too much stress. The idea is to have a couple of good weeks and get my shit together and then get back to posting.
That sucks KP. COUPLE of ideas that are helping me but take a lot of time to work on. Why are you mad? You are missing moves. You are afraid of that for some reason. You now perceive this simple and also very COMMON market action as threatening. (Douglas) Work on that. You hurt you. The market doesn't. I know you know this. BUT, like myself, you don't KNOW this, and are not completely/neutral/ok with this. If you are trading to perform for another, you also need to figure out the ego/intentions behind this. I wish you luck man, and also understand the feelings. -js
Thanks js... Yes, fear is a huge. It really is unfortunate that the last 3 days were so bad, and what made them this way was simply not following rules. Whenever I got into random entries, it completely put me into the random trading zone. Yesterday was especially bad when I saw the first level of support at 4208 be respected shortly after the open but didn't act on it, and then the order entry problems that magnified the losses. Today when the hinge exit was made and the clear entry for a long as outlined at D would have easily made up for the losses up to that points. So just following rules would have made a world of difference.
First off, it takes a ton of guts to post your failures on this public forum, which you have been willing to do and for that - much respect. Second: we have all gone on tilt as far as refusing to take a stop loss and paid dearly for it, every single one of us who has actually traded anyway. The market many times lets us get away with such activity as a 10 pt loss turns into a b/e or 1 pt profit and the p&l recovery makes us think we did the right thing. Then after allowing us many transgressions in the past, BAM, it beats us mercilessly into a pulp. Then we inflict further psychological damage on ourselves often far worse than the p&l damage. So my advice: you have beaten yourself up enough. Learn from your mistakes, do everything possible not to repeat them. Take some time off because the low volume holiday trading will suck for the rest of the year. Come back in 2015 with a clear head and ready to do it right
Hang in there KP. We've all been there. Like JS says try to let go of the frustration. You are going to miss a lot of moves. It's part of the business. As your skill improves you will catch more. Until then be patient with yourself. I used to hate missing moves 'cause that was going to be the only one that would make my day. I think it was me not trusting my method so I felt I had to catch big ones to make it work. So make sure you understand your method and you'll soon find there's always another good trade coming.
Thanks bh_prop Thanks for the respect. I knew deep down inside that this "holding a loser" would eventually get me. I almost didn't mind for the first 10 or 15 minutes because nothing made me think to go long yet, but once we broke out of that hinge and I saw the RET for clear long entry, that's when I really got scared but didn't hit the reverse button. I also knew that $50 win days would eventually kill me as well since my losses I am much more generous with than my gains. So deep down inside, even though the first week went well and I was up for the first 2 days this week, hence 7 up days in a row, I knew that my time was coming because everything was still being done wrong. And yes, I am past self inflicted torture. If anything, this random trading just reinforces the need to have solid rules and to follow them. The emotional exits and entries take a toll, but if the entries and exits are based on where they should be, then losses will take less of a toll on the psyche because there won't be any blame attributed to me. I knew on Wednesday after the rapid fire trading of the FED news that I was in trouble. I got lucky with a small loss that day, but the rapid fire trading planted a bad seed. I am excited to get right back up on the horse after I do careful review of these past few weeks. I just know the answer really is contained within the charts.
Absolutely right. Patience is what I'm lacking but often I see at the end of the day that the best trade never comes in the first 5 minutes anyway. Today it really was 32 minutes after the open, that nice RET after the hinge exit, good for a solid 10 points. I am excited to know that I can see stuff, just acting on it in the proper manner is something that I am shocked I am not able to do just yet.
My testing only 19% of the time the first signal is the best signal. More times than not you're dealing with some type of open range/consolidation or the open high or low "breaks" first before the "bigger" move happens. These are my stats though yours might be different. I find I am at my best when we range overnight vs trend. The limits are defined and I know what to do with them ala amt
I totally agree. When the overnight is a nice and tight range, the first RET after we break above or below is a solid trade. When we trend overnight, it takes a while to work through all the trades until a solid direction is picked, or worse, it just goes back and forth for hours.