Thanks JP. Kind of like, "Do more of what works and less of what doesn't". Good advice. I've read Reminiscences twice years ago. I actually don't own the book so i'll buy a copy and read through it again. I'm currently reading Schwager's latest; 'Hedge Fund Market Wizards'
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=5651284&matches=246&cm_sp=works*listing*title you can get a copy for 99cents; and if you search the net for pdf copies you may get lucky as well. This time when you read it. write down all the quotes/ his learning in word doc or paper. so you don't have to go back and do re-reads.
thanks. i was thinking about this one; which adds a bit of a history lesson as well. Alibris has great prices, Tough to pass up. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/04...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846
+4.75 pts this week, which puts me down about 30 bucks after commissions. Mostly trading 2 contracts every time now. Tues & Wed were negative days for me. First time in a few weeks i've had two losing days in a row. Thurs i had problems with Ninja Trader so only 1 trade. I spent hours sending emails and waiting for responses. Pretty much a wasted day. Got 1 of the problems resolved this a.m. after Support phoned me. The fix for missing data was easy and IMO should have been resolved much sooner. Oh well, overall great product and support in general i'd still consider very good. Volatility picked up a little this past week which i think may have thrown me off a bit on tues & wed. Today my focus slipped away mid-day. Literally, slipped away. One moment i'm focused and reading action, next i'm a spectator in a trance saying let's give this trade a bit more time. Mistakes: Exits. I'm losing objectivity in trades. I'm now aware confirmation bias is keeping me in trades too long. I'm either holding on for more gains or watching a trade thats +/- a few ticks turn into a stopped out trade. For example , i'm seeing logical areas/signs to exit but I start thinking maybe it's just a pullback. Another mistake is i'm becoming too cautious after a profitable trade. Thurs before i contacted support there were more trades i should have taken. Mostly i'm pleased with my progress. i think i need to raise my expectations of myself and begin booking larger weekly profits. Focus is the key.
Quiting early today - pre holiday and all. +8.25 pts for week but down about $ 30 again after commish. Tues was only losing day at -16 pts. All trades 2 contracts except for today. From a psych standpoint i'm comfortable trading 2 cars and dealing with the larger intraday drawdowns. Being able to scale out has made trade management less stressfull at times. But scaling out is not the quick fix to more profits. I still have same problems with exits of holding too long. The result of "Hope" trading. Really this should be easy to fix. Tuesday was weird in that i felt completely out of synch. Not good for the confidence. In reviewing my notes now i wrote that IF i had cut some loses quicker , a few trades that just hung around BE that ended full stop, and taken a some small profits on stalled trades i could have been down 5 pts for the day. Of course, playing What IF only works if i can learn from it. Guess that's it for now. I'm playing golf today. I pretty much stopped playing about 10 years ago 'cause i'm such a lousy player. But it'll be nice to get out and get some fresh air and hang with some friends. And likely about 120 opportunities to practice moving from one bad "trade" to the next with calm focus.
In spectacular fashion i was zero pts for the week. - $ 155 in commish. tues + 21 pts. best day ever. finally making progress ! wed -6.50 thurs +7.25 back on track . i can do this. (wasn't trading first hour and a half so missed alot of the upmove. i was happy to get the +7.25) fri -21.75 pts what the hell are you doing ?! traded in chop today. Trying to force the market to give me money to close the week really strong. The market wouldn't budge and it won. The only way i can keep pushing on and staying motivated is to look at the positive things i'm doing. 9 weeks ago i started keeping better records. In the past i was more concerned wih focusing on learning my setups , exits and studying price action. Now it's about measurable performance. For the 9 weeks my acct is down $ 170. I'm pretty certain that is my lowest drawdown compared to similar periods. Last year i was rarely covering commissions for the week. So, that's a positive in my mind. That'll keep me studying and ready to come back next week. Everyday i jot down some notes on my mood. Am i focused, rested, anxious , eager ? Today i didn't do it. Forgot ? I guess so. Not sure how i missed that. Anyway not sure if that has anything to do with the losses today. that's mostly it. I still believe if i can come in everyday calm and focused and PATIENT that i'll be able to have consistent positive results.
if i was the kind of guy that breaks keyboards , today would be the day. Might take it out on my liver later on. Moderately. -60 pts this week. Especially frustrating because i came in to the week with great expectations. trading 2 cars this week blew up on me. I could not read the market this week. I don't know what happened. set ups i normally take i passed on then chased. i've got that goddam traders tightness in the chest and knot in the stomach. Had projects at work that needed to get done so didn't have as much calmness and review time as i would have like. the good thing is that when i did review the trades i see the mistakes and the set ups i should have taken. Again these are things i've usually seen fine in real time lately. I was a different trader this past week. that's what bothers me the most. i will be reviewing and making notes this weekend. I expect set backs but still. I was caught in the circle of being frustrated , realizing frustration leads to poor trading, getting calm, more bad trades then back to frustrated. Anyway there are worse problems to have in life. i will get past this. I'm in it for the long haul. This is the process and i'm pretty sure it's not unique to me. So, next week, new opportunities and back to 1 contract trades for a bit.
Still in a drawdown last week. My thought is that the low volatility is part to blame plus some impatient and bad trades on my part. The vix is currently around 14. I'd guess a better trading environment for me would be a vix above 16 or 17 at least. Just guessing. Last week i decided to look at different instruments. I took a few trades in 6E. Made a little $. Not sure the time this actively trades and way it trades is right for me. I started looking at CL. Very interesting. I'm going to sim this one a bit. Not sure what stops and targets i should start with. I also started the process of re-writing my trading plan to incorporate what i've learned over the past 2 years and consolidate alot of the notes i've taken. Most of the set ups should remain the same but i want to have more specifics. For example entering a pullback in a strong trend vs weak trend. A strong trend a break out entry can and should work immediately. A weak trend i'll look for a simple or complex pullback and a trigger to enter or the Traders trick entry technique. Defining a weak vs strong is still subjective but i've got guidlines that may become more rigid. This kind of differentiation is not in my original plan. I'll be leaving for Cabo this week so not much trading or updates until 2nd week of October.
the past two weeks i've traded CL. one day in sim, the rest Live. net after commish. first week +$ 179 this week + $ 248 So far CL trades a bit different than NQ. True breakouts work very quickly and provide good R:R. I don't face the uncertainty about whether i should chase these moves. I'm either in or i'm not. Trading CL has given me a shot of optimism after spending the past few months churning in the low volatility NQ. Even if NQ begins to pick up i may not go back to it. At least not right away. Always flexible though. I view the past 2 weeks as, at best,moderately successful. There are several things i need to improve on. 1. I become too conservative after a modestly winning trade and often stop trading. For example, Thursday i was -7 ticks after first trade then 2nd trade made +40. Pleased with the nice gain i half-heartedly continued to watched and failed to take several more good trades. I think this has less to do with my familiarity with CL and more to with me not having the proper traders mind or a plan with enough details. 2 Missing trades. A combination of unfocused or unsure. CL moves quickly and it magnifies my weaknesses. I like it because of that. I need to, still, better understand my set ups and come up with a procedure list to get me to focus on the important action so i can anticipate my set ups. Basically, look left and pay attention to context is the starting point. Triggers. Am i going to use a resting order to enter on a break out or enter earlier at market ? I do both but need to spell this out more clearly. 3 Trade review. I need more of it. Despite any profits i may make, until i get these issues resolved i will not be comfortable with my progress. The quest continues..
Hey Jas Good to see your posts. Thanks for your honest putting-it-out-there. It has encouraged me. And we did start trading about the same time. I switched to CL back in March. No regrets, hope you like it also. I do believe that NoD said it likely takes 6 - 9 months to really get a feel for CL... but it's worth it. You mention 'trade review'. I started taking screen shots... I call it a 'decision log'. With just a few notes on the screen shots. At the end of the day I put them in a word document and can look back and see decisions the 'hard right edge'. That in and of it self I've found very helpful. Much better than printing out the chart at the end of the day and reviewing it. I go on and do more work and separtate the screen shots of actual trades... a separate word document for each setup wins and another for the failures for that setup. That way I can quickly flip thruogh and see commonalities... At first it really opened my eyes to some of my trading tendencies. Made some changes. For example, I had one day where a setup with a normal 52% win rate.... had 7 losses in a row! At the end of the day I could see a reason why. Very cool. After a while imagine will just do it one day a week or so, or if my stat's start to slide. You may have a better system, whatever works for you. The best to you , thanks again for posting