Lots of good insights given by someone (mbt3) who has obviously done a lot of personal development. I agree that the biggest obstacles in EMini trading are of our own making, specifically when we will the market to do such and such and it does as it pleases. We can only trade what is there, otherwise we are trading in a fantasy land (where Monopoly money is about all we will see). There are lots of self-defeating trading problems. The key for me is to slow down what I'm doing. Reduce the # of trades you are taking each day. Only take those trades that have the "perfect" setup according to your plan (nevermind if you watch several good setups come and go, just wait for the best and take it). If that is the only trade you make that day then that is fine. Only taking trades during preselected times is another good way to cut down and focus on the quality moves. Something that has helped me to keep from tripping over my own feet is to have some overarching filter that prevents me from looking for both long and short entries. While I may be limiting myself profit wise, experience has taught me that this prevents a lot of bad trades and helps me focus and be ready when my good setups come along.
One other thought is that we all need to fully understand our trading edge. We aren't locals in the pit. We don't have to trade or make a market. One of the biggest advantages that off-floor traders have is that they don't have to trade, or in other words we can wait on the sidelines until the odds are in our favor before we enter. If you don't have any other edge, make sure you utilize this edge by being patient to wait for your good setups to come along before entering the market.
mbt3: â$I have found it absolutely imperative to have logged the result of each and every trade on each dayâ¦â Excellent advice. â$1000 is possible per week. 10 ticks a day on the mini nq on one contract even or 5 ticks per day on 2.â For new futures traders, a tick is the minimum price fluctuation in a futures contract. A point is composed of ticks. In the NQ a tick is equal to .50 or $10, therefore 10 ticks would be $100 a day or 500 dollars a week. I have to admit it is a bit strange to see a 7-year futures veteran confuse ticks with points. Once again, though, the issue revolves around the probability of averaging $1000 a week per contract and not the ability to simply make $1000 a week. TriPack: ââ¦have some overarching filter that prevents me from looking for both long and short entries.â More excellent advice, IMHO.
to continue with the advice of tymir i took 6 months of daily intraday 5 min charts and completely analyzed each trade I took. The result was that I eliminated all my afternoon trades and decreased my morning trades.The result was a transformation from a modest losing traderinto a modest winning trader whose results have been getting better thru constant trade monitoring.I wish i had a shortcut to success but at least i feel i am on the highway. Also, elite trade forum is a super valuable forum for keeping us on the road. just my 2 cents.
hello.. Tymjr..my appologies for my reference to a tick.. I was refering to a 1 piont move in the mini nq, say from 1450 to 1451 as a tick, which has a $20 value..(and always have done, a tick on the footsie and dax has always been refered to in this way)..perhaps it was the lateness of the hour here in London..As for being a veteren..I am a private trader, self taught..and by no means a veteran..in fact Funsters reference to how long he has been "trying" is important.. Imo..it is easily overlooked that success and failure is in our own hands..we each, however start from a different place..(as in life )depending on many things..ie.background, upbringing, experiences etc..but a setback is only an opprtunity to learn and some need to learn more/different things. The rate of success is only determined by the rate at which one accepts ones setback and learns..I say this to encourage Funster, in that he is nearer the beggining, rather than the end of his road to success if he changed his perception.. The market IS the SAME for all, what differs is each traders individual perception of the market..the more success I have had the harder I look at the mistakes..there is the opportunity to improve..but I would also say that it is important to know why you made money on a trade.(and not the amount).the inexperieced will merely be happy/relieved that they got it right..tymjr reference to "the probability of averaging "..is correct..there is no piont making a $1000 in one week if you can't repeat it..that is why the amount is not the issue..how often do we hear "don't think about the money "..? in fact successful trading is about not thinking at all..!!but thats another topic. This ties in with logging your trades..not just the result but the experience and knowledge of "why"..the hard work is in finding your "edge"..it is necessary to brake the trade down and install in your mind every step that led to the success of that trade..after all we are trying to find a repeatable consistant appraoch..this is the same for lossing trades..brake it down ..why did I open then /close then..what was I thinking/looking at..Learn, and grow..It is better to make one trade of 1 tick (point) profit than 13 trades and end up on a loss... 1 and 2 contract trading ought to be used to learn..find a consistant approach and leverage will take care of the future profits.. Try to look into the effects and power of some "spiritual techniques"..to visualize and obtain a more positive thought process..in one of your posts you "predicted" giving back a profit..and that is what you did..I'm not going off on a tangent here..its very powerful stuff and the way we talk to ourselves can be an insight as to what we truely believe..some of the Ari Kiev stuff is v.good on this..and Van Tharpe.. Lastly I would like to say this..how often do we call the market right on paper..providing we are fair and true with our decissions..? The endevour is to seperate ones emotion from the action ..only then does ones "perception" follow as truely as is possible the fact..only then do you trade "beyond " thought and without the "need /desire" to be right..trading is not about being right..but rather its about doing the right thing..another seeming contradiction? ..no..just chose what you focus on..put another why..trading is about knowing what NOT to do.. regards..
If I may add..Tripack is correct, regards patience and an edge.. THis is the "art" in trading as oppossed to the science..an internel centered balance, its about being focused.. and staying or accessing that "zone"..
Guys, putting your spiritual theories to one side for now (I have never run a successful business in my life based on anything but calculated execution... execution...execution!). Rather than trade today I decided to do something I wish I had done a long time ago. Enclosed is an excel 2000 file that charts the following: PRICE(tomorrow) = PRICE(today) + (RANGE * DIR) Where RANGE is a random number representing up to 10% of PRICE (chosen out of the hat, but feel free to change this). And DIR = random 1 or -1 for direction. If you unzip and open my xls file all you have to do is press the "delete" button in an empty cell. You will then change the visible chart. Now this shocked me. I assumed that you would mostly get pretty much an oscillating line for the most part. In the few hundred samples I scrolled through MOST exhibited clear trendlines and all manor of definite elliot waves, patterns, extreme market peaks (like nasdaq 2000). This is why it is an "artform". It seems to be all random. Those that are ahead are just very lucky so far IMHO. PS: So that it fitted within the 100k upload limit I only have 400 data points. You can add as many as you like though by simply "filling" the cells down. I was testing with 1000 data points.
I never have much of a problem with anyone figuring the markets are random, because for the most part they are. Its random like the flight path of a fly. If you have a fly in the middle of your barn and try to swat it in midflight, you will miss because its always shifting paths and whatnot. Its random and you can not calculate its next location. However, if there is a pile of horse shit laying in the corner, you can be fairly sure the fly will end up over there. It will land and give you a chance to swat the fly. So, just like success in the markets, there are certain places you are more likely to be able to hit the fly. Brandon PS. Here is one of my favorite quotes. Its from Ed Sykota in Market Wizards."Common chart patterns transcend individual market behavior. For example, bond prices have a lot in common with the way cockroaches crawl up and down a wall. Unfortunatly for cockroach followers, there is usually no one around to take the other side of the trade"
No, it is not random. What you essentially have done is to show that a horse has four legs, do you want to claim now that anything with four legs is a horse? In another way, you have looked at the results of one stochastic process, the one you used to produce your charts. To proof that anything resembling your charts must be produced by the same process requires a lot more of work. By the way, I did not look at your file. I have seen such simulations before and done them myself. If you are interested in some academic research on this subject, have a look at "A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Andrew Lo and Craig MacKinlay. Though I have to add it is no easy reader like its counterpart "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Malkiel. There is a paper by A. Lo to be found in the internet called something like "Foundation of Technical Analysis", I do not have the exact title, sorry. The book is pure mathematics. There is also a nice interview with A. Lo in the magazine "Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities", December 1997. In the last years academics have just started to abandon their favorite theory of an efficient and random market (please explain a bubble like 1929 or 2000 in an efficient market, Malkiel tries in his book, it's ridiculous) in favour of something called behavioural finance. If you look at these thesis you will find a lot of things, that speculators like Wyckoff and Livermore did already know (and exploit) years ago.
Wow, nice support/resistence and trends going on that spreadsheet !! However, your logic is flawed..... Randomness -> price charts does NOT equal to price charts -> Randomness. Trading is really hard... and I personally been through frustrated periods... good thing I don't need the profit to pay bills. Therefore hats off to those who do this for a living ! You can debate about random walk to the end of YingYang, but that doesn't help anything.