Week ending 11/25/11 +3300 Decent week with pairs at +3100 although I am a bit concerned that I am losing focus on them given my concentration intraday on futures. I noticed that I am not setting my targets for all the pairs on my watchlist which is a big no no given the volatility. Still no complaints here and setting targets for all will be my goal for the week to get back on track. Another 5500 draw on basket strat. Not good and starting to see a correlation with it to the market. Lets see what this week brings. I will pay special attention to performance of it relative to market strength / weakness and make adjustments accordingly going forward. Still slightly positive on strat since I started but never like giving back coin like this. The draw Encouraged this week by ES trading at +6k. Starting to realize the benefits of slow and steady trading them versus swinging for the fences. Funny how it always comes back to the singles...hmmmmm. Want to look at trading them in diff accounts according to type of trades. This will help me track what is working. Hats off to the "super" commitee, 3 months to get something completed and zilch. As I said last week about insanity; maybe they should look up the definition. I am expecting an oversold bounce this week. Technically it is setting up nicely but who knows. My focus will be on ES and setting daily targets on ALL pairs.
Month ending 11-30-11 -4100 Week ending 12-2-11 -5300 I was on track for a positive month until Wednesday hit. Specifically ES monster move where I was caught short. Nothing more to say then plain stupidity. This lead to emotional trading, blah blah blah. Don't need to elaborate much more then that. The positive thing I take away from it is not to hold ES overnight unless it is a portfolio hedge or their is a techincal reason to do so. I think this time I finally learned my lesson. Unfortunately cost me $20k on the week and a positive month. Pairs and basket strat on the otherhand worked out quite well and allowed me to minizmize the damage. I recouped everything I lost the last 3 weeks in basket strat on Monday. I should have stuck to my rules and just held it through end of the week. Would have added an additional $12k to the bottom line for the week. Oh well, something to note and apply next time. Should be decent week coming up with continued activity out of Europe; pay special attention to Thursday/Friday. I think if they botch this the resulting sell off will make 2008 look like nothing. I hope for everyones well being this does not happen but I will protect every portfolio I have so I am not caught. I also noticed that pair ATRs have increased slightly compared to end of last week. That usually equates to forward looking increased volatility.
Week ending 12/09/11 +500 Extremely disappointed with my week due to ES trading; feel like I blew my account out. I keep reverting back to a few bad habits that keep me from making any progress. I was up about 7k through eod Thursday for the week on all strategies when I decided to trade an opinion in the market (bad habit #1). I started adding to my loser justifying in my mind with my stubborn opinion instead of following the tape like I did on Thursday (bad habit #2). I got t'd off with 10 mins to go before cash close and puked my ES short position before it turned down 4.25 pts (bad habit #3). Pairs were up marginally until Friday. They are starting to drift again, not a good sign. Basket strat saved the week. I am starting to see a pattern here, just having a hard time accepting it. I am super frustrated right now and think it is time to take a step back with ES and focus on what is working. This has been the toughest stretch in my short 4.5 year trading career. Although I have yet to blow out my account, I cannot seem to get over what I have given back over the last year and half. I keep telling myself "fight through this, it is necessary to take your trading to the next level". Next week time to focus on what is working and what always works. Don't fight the tape regardless of my opinion, trade with it. Against it eventually becomes a losing battle. As the old saying goes: "The market can remain irrational longer then you and I can remain solvent".
Week ending 12/16/11 -14,000 Yes, that is one too many zero's for one week. My basket strat did the opposite of what it did when the market rallied 10% in one week. Gave back pretty much half what I have made in it. Could be quad witching related, maybe market direction, maybe stock selection...who knows. In light of everything that has happened the last year and a half in my trading in combo with above results and feeling of uncertainty, I made the decision to go back to paper trading the basket. I will change some parameters next quarter and continue paper trading it for q1 and come up with consensus if it makes sense continuing on or trash it. Pairs also contributed to the loss in the tune of 3k. Typical during options expiration. Now that I have it finally documented maybe I will account for this next month in my trading plan... Big sigh. Nothing to write home about in futures, ended up about 500 trading em. Goals for the rest of the year: keep my head up, stay positive, finish year out on a good but safe note, spend quality time with family during the holiday season. Every successful trader goes through drawdowns. It is how we react to them that determines wether we bounce back. No more market predictions from me based on macro events. It clouds my thinking and causes me to form a bias that feeds bad habits from the past. Let the tape and technicals do the talking.
When you say every successful trader has drawdowns, you are implying you will be profitable again soon. Be prepared to not make money for a substantial amount of time. You must focus on your trading and sticking to your rules. If you starting worrying about the money aspect you will get mad and angry when you aren't profitable after your idea of whatever timeframe you associate with a "drawdown." Just play the game and the money shall come.
This is easy to recognize after the fact, often again and again, yet sometimes seems near impossible to break through. It took me months to fill the deep groove worn in the road by my bad habits with good habits so that I could take profitable trips on the smooth highway of my trading plan. I still get enticed by bias and opinion, but one thing that helped immensely was to say out loud reasons for not trading a valid setup and decide whether those reasons were part of my rules/filters or whether they were my opinion/bias. Here are some examples - Reasons that fit my rules: Major news release due in a few minutes. Survivable stop exceeds my max allowable loss per trade. Price is in a range/channel and the S/R level to be tested offers a negative R:R ratio. Reasons based on bias/opinion: Price has run up (or fallen) too far and is due to reverse at any time. Long CL won't get very far, look at the ES taking a dump. That news was really bearish, I'm not buying into this fake rally. * * * * * * * So...I see a valid setup and I now have a choice of whether to place my limit or stop order at the price trigger point. I either place the order immediately or I do not place the order. If I do not place the order I have to say out loud why I'm not placing the order. If the reason isn't a rule/filter out of my playbook, I have to hold my nose and place the order. Now, if I'm tempted to trade against my plan based on bias/ opinion, I remind myself out loud: "The net result of trading my opinion instead of my plan is negative. Trade the plan or take a break." I can have a very strong opinion and still trade the plan. It's uncomfortable because the ego works very hard to convince you your opinion (ego) is more important than what price is actually doing. Last week I had a trade setup appear where I was absolutely certain this was going to be that end-of-leg or end-of-trend trade that's the loser (an experienced trend follower will keep trading/adding in the direction of the trend until finally taking a loss on a leg that fizzles). But my plan says to start with a buy stop above the high of the day. The buy stop triggered with almost no pullback (meaning it's a really strong trend) and the result was the best trade of the entire week on a move that took barely over a minute . Now after that impossible push up to a ridiculous new high, my opinion was that price was absolutely positively due to put in a deep pullback, maybe even a reversal. Price had run up over 3 points ($3000/contact) from the overnight low, but then another continuation setup appeared and my plan advises that I trade every continuation setup until a loss is taken or a breakout fails. So I trailed that buy stop once again, was swept into another long position and captured a profit 2 1/2 times my minimum target per trade. There was a time when I would've fought that trend and shorted. Then I learned hard lessons and graduated to simply not trading when I had a bias that ran counter to the price action. Finally, I learned to trade the price action according to my well-researched plan and the rewards are huge. Once you see the consistent profitable results of this exercise of talking to yourself out loud, it eventually becomes second nature to do the right thing, even though it may continue to feel very counter-intuitive to your ego-driven opinion.
you ever think of downsizing right now? you obviously have money but remember its easier to not lose 50k if you trade smaller than make 50k back. its just friendly advice.
M71, your trading is all over the map and the equity curve is full of potholes. step off the wild mouse ride and re group. you are trading way too large and spinning in the dirt. read your posts.......... all the answers are there to get back in the saddle.... navel gaze and balance out. cheers, s
Downsizing just lets you play the game longer. If your trying to MAKE money, downsizing is not the right thing to do.