2011: Rebuilding My Battered Account

you don't know his method, you shouldn't comment on his trading.

I am sure neke is smart enough to be trading a good method. There may be a few mistakes (I know why he made mistakes, because I made the same mistakes EVERY DAY), but if he does a few more 40k trades, he will be up 200k for the year. 200k is several times of the annual wages of many wage slaves.

all is well that ends well.

 

Doesn't change the fact that his portfolio volatility is too much. Neke knows what he is doing but that does not make him infallible. Naturally, his "make it or break it" approach is very interesting to follow.

 

Based on whose trading risk parameters! Is his method right or wrong or maybe just different?

Perhaps being constructive would help - not so much critical based on your own risk tolerance.

 

I don't see any "break it" in his trading. If he broke it, he wouldn't be here by now. For 4 months, he managed to hang in there, and that speaks a lot about what kind of trader he is.

If you want to know what "break it" is, you should look at my trading in the past few years. I blew up fantastically a few times (they were large sums of money).

 

Neke is clearly not scalping, therefore he has too much weight on each trade. His position size appears to be almost 100% of equity, that means every losing trade causes severe pain.
Notes123, if you read the previous year's thread by neke then you will see that the drawdown period is much longer than just 4 months.
Not to discourage, just an observation.

 

Again, another helpful observation based on the fact that there is only one way to trade and scalp properly otherwise he is doing it wrong!

Sarcasm aside - why is his way that fits within his parameters "too much"? As they say there is more than one way to skin a cat and I will add that none of them are right or wrong - just different.

I know neke does not need any defense and I'm not trying to defend - just mostly curios as to why people believe that his way is the wrong way?

 

Lol. Some people like volatility in their trading results. I wonder if his life is as volatile as his trading?

+1

 

I don't really know anything about him either. We all try to project our own mentality onto someone else. If I traded with swings like that, I would sleep well at night. If he does, then far be it from me to tell him he is taking on too much risk.

I will say that he has a gnarly P/L chart though.

 

what did u change since then notes

 

I just can't resist not to have another "highsight" analysis, this time after exceptionally positive week. Hopefully this will level the field for people that complain about the comments only on the bad weeks.
Also, I appreciate you reading the comments, kudos for commitment and engagement in journal.

I have pulled the chart of the trade that you have singled out, the WMS. I know, I know... you don't look at charts, but picture helps to cut the long story short (if nothing else).
The only thing I can say is, well it's a freaking carbon copy of the AMSC trade from the last week. So why the AMSC was loser and this one is a winner? Mystery to me. If I remember correctly, you said you couldn't get in the trade in AH period and from then on lost the rhythm. As I said before, I do not trade stocks, let alone AH period, but I still feel reasonably educated to comment on. To my mind, it's nothing but a fist fight between bunch of drunken guys after everybody left the bar. Of course, somebody will leave with the money and if you feel comfortable in such environment it's nobody’s business, after all it's your money. I do not see any setup there, besides the third bar after open showing really good buying volume and price action, so good move in closing the trade at the end of day.

While my analysis from previous week was largely aligned with the analysis provided by NoDoji, in terms of outcome regarding when to take a trade, I do not read the chart in such, let's call it, “traditional” technical analysis way. Absent the opportunity to peak over the Goldman's shoulder, I am looking at any given chart as a live show of past and present actions by market participant, trying to decipher what they are thinking and where they are going (so I can follow up the winning crowd). Depending on circumstances for some people it's HDTV and for others not even the BW quality. Along those lines I have suggested that you might take a look in such type of analysis, but again I have no intention whatsoever to debate or try to convince anybody. We are grownups, I believe.

This leads me to several questions. Of course, Neke, you can ignore them, no issues there, but if you decide to respond I thank you in advance. Obviously, if something ventures into the proprietary area, no expectations there as well, however it's always interesting to see which part of strategy/analysis people consider proprietary.

1. First about the charts. By dismissing the chart analysis, I wonder if you look at charts at all? In case you do, are you pulling any conclusions from what you see there (I am assuming it's a plain chart without indicators)? In case you don't, would you say that you are just not the “visual person” or you can better comprehend what's going on at the market by just seeing the numbers and quotes?

2. Consequently, how do you come to conclusions that trigger your trades, i.e. something is overbought/oversold, etc? By some percentages, analyst recommendations, rumours, gut feeling or by looking at the moon? I am under impression that many people end up analyzing vapour because mostly you post only basic trade description without the “real” analysis of the conditions, whatever the “real” we could agree upon.

3. I am curios if you could elaborate how do you conduct your analysis? As I've mentioned in my very first post, I am under impression that you put a lot of weight on news and fundamentals and I continue to be confused about the, rather, short term trade duration and particularly your automation. I am not aware of many successful implementations of news and fundamentals in automation, even more so by the retail trader. Are we talking about some fuzzy logic?

4. I went to first page of your journal (for this year) trying to find the reason why do you have a journal. It says that you want to record the journey towards making some money and list a bullet points with the amounts of money you want to make. Well, I want to make some money too, and I wish good luck to both of us. However, for some reason, I expected for a while that people might find some of your trading ideas, strategies, analysis, etc, albeit on academic level (don't want anybody's proprietary stuff nor trade calls). By focusing mostly on the PL alone and risk management (on bad weeks, nobody elaborates is it good to be overexposed on a good week, and I know you disagree that you have too big positions), what kind of aspect of your trading you are trying to deal with by having a journal? You admitted yourself that many losses were due to lack of discipline and emotional trading, so is the rationale that by putting it at public will force you to respect your rules? If the above is not correct, why do you have a journal?

In conclusion, I am going to see if you are willing to comment on the above questions, but down the line I will probably unplug myself. One thing for sure: your willingness to diligently post live trades deserves big kudos, specifically the fact that you never balked out even in a bad times. That should definitely help you in facing your issues (whatever they are). I think there is really not that much in this journal for people who are looking for some analysis, even if we could agree on one. Lately it turned into a cheer fest when you have a good week and a sh**t fest when you have a bad week. I feel that people who comment on bad weeks are at least showing some legitimate concerns (even as analysis prove to be difficult as described above), while cheerleaders tend to come for the show and have fun. Understandably so, it's not their money.

I wish for both of us to reach the 7 digits goal. In your case I think the chances are equal on both sides, which is not to say that 0 digits can't happen to me as well. In case of such undesirable outcome, I am pretty sure your demise will be violent and fast and mine slow and bleeding out.

Good luck and all the best...