Thanks I am not a reversion to mean trader, just directional. For instance today's you could've shorted around 7 AM PST and add to your shorts throughout day as trend was clearly down.....but I did not ...
first of all I would trade only 1 or 2 different instruments. In an orchestra, you would also not try to play everything. Then, you have to accept, that even with a setup that is working longterm, you will have losing streeks in certain market conditions. The biggest mistake is, to adopt the setup to the environments found in the losing streek. Then market will return back to normal and you will lose again. You can only judge wether your system works with intense backtesting. Finally, I would never trade with clients money if you are not 100% sure what you are doing. It puts even more pressure on you and makes your decisions worse.
I'm not sure if you're intentionally being vague or don't realize you're being vague because you don't go into any specific details about any trades except to show summaries, saying you're a directional trader and so on. I will also assume that you "were" a profitable trader while trading the money of others before hitting this drawdown period as a discretionary trader. Why did you start this journal ? I mean, you asking for help because if you want help...you're going to need to talk about specific trades and your trading plan involving those trades. Anyways, based upon a few things you've already said, it seems like you have a serious discipline problem along with having the inability to follow whatever trading plan you have for whatever reasons. Be glad you've stop trading your clients money until you fix this problem because anyone that's a directional trader having problems trading these strong directional trends the past few weeks needs to sit down an re-evaluate things as you noted. Your biggest losses is January were in the Emini futures. I'm curious about your performance on January 13th Mon, January 14th Tues, January 15th Weds, January 23rd Thurs, January 24th Fri, January 29th Wednesday in the Emini futures because those particular trading days are very strong directional (as in trending). Last of all, you trade a lot of different types of markets, were you consistently profitable in the past doing such ? If so, how were those consistent profits compare to your poor performance in January 2014.
Agree, hence I stopped trading everything except for E-Mini futures, YM, ES, NQ again, I agree, hence on Jan 20th I suspended all trading in client accounts, and have not traded in client accounts so far in Feb.
Why were u down heavily yesterday ? If you are a trend trader you shouldn't have been buying, am I right ? Perhaps u need a more clearly defined set of rules
You are correct, I should've been short the market in the first hour or so...but I failed simply put, I kept betting on reversal instead of shortly each small rally and pop...but I did not. Anyway, I am not making excuses or justify my action...just doing analysis.
Losing streaks are usually caused by "incorrect bias". (I know, lots of players say, "I don't have a bias, I just trade"..... which is dumb. If you're buying it's because your bias is for a bounce of some magnitude. If you're selling, your bias is for decline of some magnitude.) Sounds like you "traded around a long bias" in 2013, which was correct. In 2014, long-side bias has so far been incorrect. You ALWAYS need to have the correct bias... and trade around it. (Doesn't mean you can't/shouldn't fade your bias short term... after all, there are "counters".)
What was your return on this account in 2013 ? On your losses for 2014, have they been from being long in a downtrending market ? Or from getting chopped up being short during the increase in volatility ?