What I love alot about trading is it forces us to think intently. If it takes such hard work to become a winner, if it becomes that we need to totally radicalize our beliefs on how to win, turning our heads upside down, why shouldn't the same thing apply to our other assumed perceptions? Nothing can be taken for granted.
ES, With all respect, I would try and move away from a discretionary form of trading and to a more rigid systematic rule bound approach. Your updates/musings as I interpreted them were overly emotive and dopamine filled. Thanks for bringing more light to the Earn2trade Gauntlet process. All the best with your future trading.
There is far more wisdom here than I think you even realize. I am not the smartest guy on the block but I have an MBA degree and a had a successful career and have done OK in "non daytrading" forms of investing. But my day-trading, be it stocks as a "pattern day trader"or futures has been a disaster for 15 years. And, the Gauntlet, big losses every week for 9 straight weeks. So I have spent a lot of time "thinking intently". Why is it so hard to trade successfully? Why is it so EASY to lose. You don't even have to try. Losing just comes naturally. You start to lose then it even gets easier to lose; everything you do is exactly the wrong thing to do at exactly the wrong time. You become an expert at picking tops and bottoms only you are the sucker for the winning traders. Why do I continue? I love to "think intently". I love the challenge. I love the fact that trading is one of, if not the hardest thing to do on the planet. I love the profit potential that Handle so well described in post #406. I am too old to achieve my Major League Baseball dreams. I did try out for the Pittsburgh Pirates as a teenager but they told me they were looking for guys that could hit with power and run fast. Ohh, I didn't know that was important. The bottom line is that you are never too old to learn and adapt to become an "Elite Trader". If it is so easy to lose then there has to be a systematic way to learn to win. My plan is to take the Gauntlet again from mid November to mid January and post all my trades on this thread. I have a planned months vacation at that time in a warmer climate so I will have plenty of time to "think intently" and formulate plans to try again.
I see trading as a type spiritual journey. It seems to reflect life: The Ups & downs. Emotions like dissapointment, elation, excitement, pain and ritual. Pride gets knocked out of you. Enlightenment comes with perseverence. Forces one to think & not assume, question everything. Destitution & riches are ever at the back of your mind. Risk has its rewards and penalties. If you cannot be honest with yourself, chances of success are (near) zero. Those who reach the top are few, those at the bottom many. Hope & prayer is not a solution, only the actions of hard work. (Let me pray for you doesn't work/"My thoughts and prayers are with you" cop out.) The scene is continually evolving, the strong and those who can adapt have higher chances of success. Trading like life is a journey, not a destination. There is always an enemy nearby, it might be yourself, it might be smartmoney or a broker willing to rip you off. Dumb money are sheep ready for the wolves to slaughter, just like consumers who are easily ripped off/scammed/duped. Noobs start trading with very high self expectations in their abilities, what is not known is the problem. Etc
The bottom line is: as long as you keep hoping, believing, guessing, feeling, ... one will never be successfull. Trading is all about a statistical edge, discretionary traders can have a statistical edge but at least they know what their edge is. They do the same thing over and over again. ES is just gambling. If you cannot provide profitable stats (longer term) you are not profitable, a few weeks/trades doesn't count. There are plenty of examples here on ET, however ES is one of the best ... "traders" who did a few profitable trades and think they are going to make it. Once they did a few profitable trades they act like they are the new trading god here on ET. The only thing they do is changing their system every few weeks ... and then the only thing they do is fail, fail and fail. Some even for 30 years in a row ... where is Padu with his new great system that he can teach Goldman Sachs traders? Traders who change their systems everytime when things go wrong will never succeed. If you are still making the same mistakes after 30 years of trading, you are better of in a casino playing blackjack. Funny how people here still see more value in the number of posts ES made instead of looking in to the actual value of what he really posted. Anyway, i tried before and i can try a 100 times more, he/they will never realise it. However i must say, he survived even longer than i ecpected ..
I think most of journals are waste of time, they seem to be more of "at a boys" pats on the back instead of showing charts and why they entered/exited. Too often they get defensive, I can understand not fun to be attacked, but if they are trying to get help on becoming a better trader, no better place as others offering reasons to go another way. And everyone thinks when starting out they "own" the market and they have designed some incredible secret system, takes years of being profitable to come up with systems that are better, I have never run into anyone trading without programming skills to make it period in their first few years. Knowing the stats of where your edge is with sample size of min of 3,000 gives better idea that a "Hot" month of manual back testing. I don't see trading as a "spiritual journey", I see it as "Do upon others before they do it upon me", take every frisking cent in their accounts they want to throw my way, I have no remorse of seeing they lost their kids college funds or next years vacation monies, they dumb enough to put those monies into the ring of fire, so be it. Very surprised ES writing he giving up the Gauntlet, those committed to trading would work their asses off over the weekend and try again Sunday night with strong commitment of succeeding. "Giving up" like feeding the brain more reasons it is ok to lose. You want to "pay it forward", do that after 10 years of being profitable. Trading more than one market when never profitable, each symbol has different personality, and takes years to discover nuances, they all react differently to news, topping/bottoming formations, retracements are different, congestions, time management different, reoccurring patterns, megaphones, some market do well on H&S and others not so much, can't discover when bouncing from market to market. I just keep seeing same type of people pay to play in the TST and Gauntlet, they have hopes and dreams instead of hard stats, many seem to lack several months of sim trading their systems and tripling it three separate times, THAT prepares you much better.
Gulp, Trading in front of you guys would be the real Gauntlet. You dish it out like it is. Like one poster said, this is not the place for TLC. I may not be ready by mid-November like I said earlier but when I feel ready I will give it a go. Posting a chart or two of actual trades is a good idea to see what went right or wrong and what others see in the chart that I did not see.
One or two charts not going to make you better, when learning how to multiple, did you study one or two times? More times of seeing same corrections imbeds into brain to look for better opportunities. Take your time and sim trade it honestly and after tripling a $5k account, then try the gauntlet, otherwise you blowing entrance fee, and always subtract a tick from the sim as slippage to be more honest. If you risking more than $100, you risking too much. Figure out risk of ruin so you know daily and weekly what are too much in stats. Know your probabilities, know your probabilities of risk management. Yea, posting what you do each day can be most stressful, put people on ignore if they not adding to your benefit. I really doubt those who willing to post ideas to try to make you better will be negative but expect honestly, we are humans, would rather have me tell you "poor Illini Trader the markets screwed you" or would you rather know "Hey, what were you thinking and explain why you entered there"? And if it is wrong, what do think be better. People more likely to help if you are pro-active, but people who just post results cheats us an opportunity to help out. Am not going to sit next to you or have you watch my screen as I simply don't trust people, plus you have to watch me for 2 years to understand concepts I use to trade. I am not that sharing, but most people are off a few segments of their trading to make good improvements. Make a Flow chart as most traders don't have one, flow charts excellent tool for designing automation, this way, and it always ongoing-but when a problem arises-you eventually have all the answers.
Well, it ended badly. To those who are new, you can learn a lot from this, and as my Opa Gerry use to say "better to learn from someone else's mistakes than your own". Before I get started, a lot of folks think that I hate ES or want to see him fail, nothing could be farther from the truth. I want him to succeed, to do well, to become a trader. This is the only reason I bother, I hate to see folks get destroyed by an unforgiving market due to ignorance. But at some point, well it is no longer about helping someone, but it becomes what can we learn from the mistakes and shortcomings of this person. So here we go. "What detractors?...I have many people on Ignore..." This goes hand in hand with another discussion that came about due to myself, Des, and others questioning the validity of Spot Currency and Futures volume. The thinking is that if he ignores the "negativity" his trading will somehow be better, because all of the negative thoughts, are to be blamed for his poor trading outcomes in the past. Well I guess not. Bottom line here, trading should be about as emotional as putting gas in your car. Think about it, how many times, when you fill your tank up, do you drop to your knees and thank the deities for being able to fill your tank. So why would someone else's negative comments affect your trading? "Thank You to my LORD & SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, BARON, RYAN, FRIENDS, FORUM MEMBERS and guests." There is so much emotion in the comment that it is dripping off of the page, thanking a deity for making a good trade shows a level of charged emotion that always leads to mistakes and bad trades. It's not about believing in a deity, or not that is the problem here. It is the emotional context, thinking that you have a "special" relationship with said deity and they have singled you out for a special blessing because you are so special, obviously this is not a good start to trading. You cannot think there is an unseen hand guiding you, and you have special dispensation, and you will not have losing trades. "in the end...you will have an entire group of profitable traders over at Helios. Sure they come and go...but the churn will cause the good traders that stick with you to rise. Your business model is fascinating". 09/21/18 Friday $24,873.20 -$126.80 (1st week aggregate loss) 09/24/18 Monday $24,908.71+$35.51 09/25/18 Tuesday $26,105.62 +$1,196.91 (4 trades - 4 win, 0 loss, 0 scratch) 09/26/18 Wednesday $26,164.00 +$58.38 09/27/18 Thursday $26,247.86 +$83.86 09/28/18 Friday $26,510.98+$263.12(12 trades - 9 win, 2 loss 1 scratch) 10/01/18 Monday $25,900.09 -$610.89 (14 trades - 0 win, 10 loss, 4 scratch) 10/02/18 Tuesday $26,032.22 +$132.13 (8 trades - 6 win, 1 loss, 1 scratch) 10/03/18 Wednesday $26,582.03 +$549.81 (21 trades - 18 win, 0 loss, 3 scratch) Two out-sized gains and the rest lackluster, instead of realizing that that two outliers were random circumstance, just being in the right place at the right time. We see the following emotional outlet of words- "will have an entire group of profitable traders", Meaning E Savant will be one. "cause the good traders that stick with you to rise". Again meaning, I will stick with you, because I am a good trader. "Your business model is fascinating" Finally, yup I am winning and feeling so good about myself, that it is your business model has helped me to truly succeed. The 'Ol VIPER, at times makes out-sized profits, but I know better, "wow 50 pips in 4 min" someone once said to me, I said "right place, right time with the right idea, this had less to do with skill than with being directionally correct, and a whole heap of unexpected momentum, again, right place, right time, right idea. I was never convinced that this would be the norm for how I trade, just random chance. So anyway I hope this has helped some new traders in whatever product they trade, emotions will get you everytime, remember trading should "feel" like filling the gas tank, it's just something you do. The Ever Looking Deep Into The Void VIPER
I've just realised that ES has me on block hahaha! For a view that offers an alternative to his own I assume. So I wonder what ES does when the market proffers a different reality... blocks it? Work on yourself before you work on any systems. And definitely lay off the discretionary play. You haven't got the game to make it with that angle