Hooti's Journey

Discussion in 'Journals' started by Hooti, Dec 1, 2010.

  1. KDASFTG

    KDASFTG

    Ok Hooti,

    From reading your entries, I'm having a tough time understanding whether you're serious about trading to make a living, or just trading for the "experience of it".

    If you are serious, then where is your written Trading Plan? What is it that you are doing? Where are you going? In your first post under Trading Style, you stated “Well, these things will shift as I grow”. But you never stated or defined what “these things” were? Right now, you’re like a Sea Captain without a Chart, an Architect without a Blueprint, and a Pilot without a Compass. Get the picture!

    You need not include your "Confidential Trade Secrets" and personal information. But how are we on this Forum to help you, if we have no idea of what you're doing or where you're going? Obviously, I'm not talking about just simple ("Enter here & Exit There").

    You come across to me like a lost puppy. And believe me, you're about to enter into a "trading arena and cage" full of cannibalistic hungry starving mad dog pitbull traders. How can you honestly be serious about taking money from me, and others far better skilled. Remember, we’re in the same cage with you, we know where you are, and …….your cash meat ass looks real real tender at the moment.

    At an absolute bare minimum, what does your Trading Plan tell you to do in:
    - Defining your edge?
    - Entering your trade?
    - Monitoring your trade?
    - Exiting your trade?
    - Improving your results?

    If you don't have a written Trading Plan, then I seriously suggest you get to work writing one before you continue to spin your “yarns of woe” on this public forum. Because that is where I see you headed, with more yarns of woe. Then and only then will you begin to gain the help and assistance you seek on this Forum, for you to gain even the slightest chance of survival. And even then, you’ll still get some pretty nice chunks of “cash meat” removed from your hind quarters, but hopefully you won’t continue to bleed cash like you’re about to do now.

    And finally, in addition to the technical work ahead of you, you will need to develop the proper “Mindset” and “Mental Skills” for trading. Right now, I can clearly see that you’re approaching your trading from a “right” & “wrong” trade-by-trade perspective. You don’t yet know how to think in probabilities. You simply cannot survive, let alone win, with that mental perspective. If you’re serious, then get to work, if not…..continue on as you are and,….Hooti Breakfast and Lunch is now being served!,…..mmmmm good!......Cash Meat!.......my favorite!

    ( Now go get and read “Trading in the Zone” by Mark Douglas)

    Just the opinion of a 20 year plus trader…..with an ass full of scar tissue to prove it.
     
    #31     Dec 8, 2010
  2. Hooti

    Hooti

    long at 12:33
    1227.5
    stop 1226

    12:45 moved stop to 1227.75

    12:47 stopped out

    +.25
     
    #32     Dec 8, 2010
  3. Hooti

    Hooti

    up/down + wedge up

    long 12:55
    1227.75

    out 1227 had gone 4 legs up and now going down
    1:09 PM

    -.75 pts
     
    #33     Dec 8, 2010
  4. Hooti

    Hooti

    I see your post KDASFTG, I'll respond soon

    Record keeping is not tidy today with screenshots, etc.

    7 trades, netted 1.5 pts
    2 losses, 4 wins, 1 BE

    first 5 trades no screen shots

    trade 6
    Short 1:12 at 1226
    tgt 1225
    Stop 1227.25, later lowered to 1226.50

    Out 1:30 +1

    trade 7
    Inadvertant trade presumed related to trade 6
    long 1:34 at 1226.50

    Out 1:52 at 1227.25

    [​IMG]
     
    #34     Dec 8, 2010
  5. Hooti

    Hooti



    I'm very serious.
    I just 'have' to do it a bit different.

    Yes. Oh yes, I get the picture.

    Thank you, you are being kind. I don't mind saying it. I have a brain injury. They are ranked severe, moderate and mild. Three years ago I was severe. This fall all the markers are mild or better except for verbal fluency. That is a lot of progress and it didn't just happen. I went back to school and learned a new skill. Recovered some things. What works is at least attempting work beyond your capascity.

    I'm here because I need something new to further work with visual things and math. With mental and physcial coordination. Some detail concern. A friend of our family is an accountant, and suggested doing this. So I hired some people and they were obviously scared for me when I started, but they have come to have some confidence that it is possible for me.

    I will say that this fall I took a 6 hr psych test and they wrote in the record that I didn't have any psychiatric issues.
    Now really, how many traders can say that?
    So chew on that you carnivorous whatevers! Ha!

    While there is clearly truth to that POV, I just don't look at it that way. Have to talk about that later sometime.

    I do have those things, and I don't... I loose them, or distract or whatever. Others obviously do the same. The psych people encourage me that I can learn. But I will repeat the same mistake a few times more than many before I 'get it'. But I CAN get it. And without a doubt the more I work at it, the more I get it and the easier it becomes to get it the next time. In this area and all of my life. That is the over-riding experience I am making happen. Today.

    Doubtless

    Oh Gosh, this is just what I want to hear. I've had college level probablitly and statistics... was my favorite math class. So it's in there somewhere. Just have to reconnect it.

    Thank you again. Really. Will work. Don't want to talk woe, just be real. Call me out if I'm complaining. I do want to record the starting work and see if can improve faster and better over time. And sometimes I'm frustrated. That's OK too.
     
    #35     Dec 8, 2010
  6. Hooti

    Hooti

    It's getting late, but I wanted to continue the thought above.

    The Occupationa therapy people talk about
    'compensations'. It happens all our lives. Like as a child when, say, all the other kids can whistle but it's a problem for you. Then you maybe hold your mouth different, or breath different, or even make a fist and bend from the waist as you try... until you can do it. You learn to compensate and accomplish what is hard for you.

    I'm using the term as it's used in neurology. Compensations change your brain. We all do it. One of the first things I heard that started giving me a handle on recovery was that I had lost all my compensations. And that information matched my experience. And I started putting them back in. With a lot of help. There are amazing people out there.

    So I'm still doing that, putting in compensations. Yes, With trading I'll totally blow it over and over. But I keep searching for that little thing that does it for me. It may not be logical, it may just be how I hold my mouth...
    NoDoji is doing it when she speaks out loud while she's making a trade.
    Geez is compensating, IMO, when he says he found he trades better if he only checks his computer every 5 min or so. That works for him. And it's a compensation in the way he refuses to alter his target and stop once he has set them, because of what would happen if he didn't.
    Perhaps Matcha is compensating in sim trading so long? I don't know.

    I just need to find the trick for me. Consciously, at each of the steps. It will take awhile. I can not always be logical, what's happening with me is not logical, except maybe in some peculiar way. I appologize for that. Just what is. Everybody has issues and complications at times in life. Sometimes we work together to make it work...
    Hope so.

    So more trading and less talking for me. I do appreciate insight from the wise ones. The good stuff will soak in.

    ...and you are right, I'll see if I can be specific in my plan and put it out here soon. Thanks.
     
    #36     Dec 8, 2010
  7. Hooti

    Hooti

    6:30
    Long on economic rept

    1229
    tgt 1230
    stop 1228.50

    With slippage got in at 1229.25
    6:31 stopped out -.75

    was right in the direction of the move.
    It missed the target by 1 tick
    The 'whipsaw' usually doesn't start in the opposite direction with econ reports... at least that I've seen so far.

    So my enteries can be tighter.
     
    #37     Dec 9, 2010
  8. Hooti

    Hooti

    .
    [​IMG]
     
    #38     Dec 9, 2010
  9. Hooti

    Hooti

    "KDASFTG"

    Sayyyyyyyyyyyy....

    Does KDASFTG stand for
    'Keep da ass soft for that's good?'

    That wasn't exactly at the top of my list of trading goals,
    at least stated that way
    but I'll take it to heart, or, er, where ever! :D
    [actually it is good advice, in it's way]
    [but saying it, I feel like I'm back learning the
    piano with 'every good boy does fine'!]
     
    #39     Dec 9, 2010
  10. KDASFTG

    KDASFTG

    Greetings again Hooti,

    I was indeed surprised to hear of your recent injury and your ongoing struggle with its attendant infirmities. However, I was equally surprised that someone who truly cared about you would suggest to you that the Stock & Futures market would be the ideal place to help speed you in your recovery. This in my opinion, I believe to be the height of sheer irresponsibility. Most unfortunately my friend, the market doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about you, your infirmities, or your conditions health wise or financial. It can and will take everything you currently have, and many other things you didn’t expect in your wildest dreams.

    I speak from much painful experience. Because over the years I have seen many lives shattered, dreams destroyed, and lost 2 very good friends to the ways of the market. One friend put a gun to his chest after trading away his family’s home and nest-egg in a single S&P gambit. The other now walks the streets of Washington DC talking to the buildings and statues, after losing everything, having fallen for one too many schemes of riches and glory. These were by no means ignorant or stupid men. Both these men were College educated in tough fields of study. And both were once men of character, strength, accomplishment, and in the best of mind and body. Now I see you, and after all you have been through, you seem quite comfortable to walk into this crucible test of fire, as if it’s an evening’s constitutional in the park.

    Hooti, you may think of yourself as having a good degree of knowledge and experience with math, statistics, and even probability. And you no doubt may possess the highest degree of proficiency in these highly technical areas. However, one cannot blindly assume that learning something, knowing something, and even understanding something, is the same as “owning that something” at a level where you can act on it without any mental reservation, or purpose of evasion. The two concepts are worlds apart. This is because certain other factors surreptitiously enter into the trading equation, that have little to do with the original intent, which was to simply trade. These are the unseen, omnipresent, and totally pervasive internal demons and dragons that must be slain before success is won. And what will you find as you undertake this journey into the "Looking Glass"?.......only that which you take with you. You as yet have this to learn my friend.

    Please Hooti, your female Doctor friend was right! You are currently on a path to lose a lot more than you bargained for, and your accountant friend should be ashamed of himself for suggesting such folly for you. However, if on the other hand your intent is to only trade on a Trading Simulator, and not to subject your real capital to exposure, then I think that this whole experience may hold some degree of value for you in your recovery.

    Therefore, if your immediate intent is to trade with real capital, I will not be a party on this public forum to your chosen form of self-immolation. However, if I have your Word of Honor, that your intent is to trade on a Simulator, with Sim-Dollars, then I will be here on this forum, in the shadows watching you. And like many others, assisting when and where I can, to the best of my ability.

    You have my best wishes…..and a Merry Xmas!

    BTW – KDA are my initials, and SFTG – Stock & Futures Trading Guy.
     
    #40     Dec 9, 2010