8/29/03 Day 10 Bias: none Position: none P/L: -18 points (990-1008) Sell and hold P/L: -18 points (990-1008) No fear, no greed, lots of patience
Ouch .... IF you were trading for a living, you just lost 18 points on a half of month work. Tuff stuff.... I think the amount of money made, when initially trading, or trading a new approach is USELESS as compared to: 1) CONSISTENCY, 2) RISK/ REWARD (Drawdowns vs Account size) Anyone else feel the same? With those results I would be thinking I have NO EDGE and the arguement that "the market will come around" will ensure failure. Granted you are only doing this type of trading EOD as you have a job. I once heard a guy make the statement, that if he had someone give him only 20K to trade, he would tell them that THEY should go to VEGAS because they would have more fun losing that money than watching it dissapear trading underfunded. LOL. Nonetheless I find the thread interesting and look forward to see how things turn out in a month or so. PQ
Hi random trader, I am following your journal with interest. You have reasons to maintain the effort. Now you have a big loser in your very first trade - that´s frustrating, even you say nothing. I am sure you don´t feel greed but you feel disappointment and you feel tired - and patience derogates. So far, you worked very disciplined and reliable in your journal which is a great "feature" of a good trader. But something is still missing.... Hope the best for your system but I will also think about how I can help. Regards
Oh yeah . I am huge, I am Mr. TGregg, bring me yer finest meats and cheeses! Seriously though, I'm with ya. I shorted near the close into the weekend. Not significantly, mind you - just two contracts. I got a couple very nice trades in yesterday that let me play with OPM. Unless they catch OBL tomorrow or something.
TRADE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN FRONT OF YOU ON THE SCREEN....NOTHING ELSE...WE LOOK FOR EXCUSES AND CRUTCHES....TRADE YOUR SYSTEM, NOT NEWS AND WORTHLESS DATA REPORTS...A GOOD SYSTEM WILL KEEP EMOTION MINIMIZED.
The experiment will continue in the big account, and its scope has expanded to include 1 ZF, 1 YG and 1 QM. Same idea with the following parameters: ES stop 18 target 9 ZF stop 20/32 target 10/32 YG stop 6 target 3 QM stop 1 target 0.5
8/29/03 Day 10 (revised) ES Bias: down Position: none P/L: -18 points (990-1008) Sell and hold P/L: -18 points (990-1008) ZF DEC03 Bias: up Position: open from 109'260 on 8/29/03 P/L: 1/32 Buy and hold P/L: 1/32 YG DEC03 Bias: up Position: none P/L: 0 Buy and hold P/L: 0 QM Bias: down Position: none P/L: 0 Sell and hold P/L: 0 No fear, no greed, lots of patience
Classic gambling addict behavior. Since you are doing an "experiment": What series of events would lead you to conclude your hypothesis was incorrect? Was correct? Answer: "I use experiment in a figurative sense. I am not doing anything that could not accomplished without risking my money, or another vehicle with less risks. Rather I rationalize my gambling addict behavior by calling this an 'experiment' and pretending I don't care about the money."
I know this is small money to you, but I think you are in a really bad spot. The SP is at the top of a tight range and it sure looks like it might break out big time. What is your stop again?
It's not like I am starting to trade these contracts now. I have been actively trading all of them and this is a step toward a more systematic approach. How to find whether a hypothesis is correct? Through experiments. Is there cost to running any experiments? Yes. What if I don't have the money or don't want to spend the money on experiments? Then you cannot find out whether a hypothesis is correct. How about paper trade? Good luck with it. For most people it doesn't work. What if I can't find what I am looking for on this thread? Well, stop reading it and try other threads.