Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

Nod, your courage , your ability and your hardworking inspired me

 

Matcha,

It is time to nut up….


Not meant to sound like a jerk… I simply know of no better way to state it




You have your method

It is now time to trust your method…, trust your eyes…, trust your actions… quiet your thoughts…, and trade

iow – time to nut up….


RN

 

Matcha,

“Much Learning Does Not Teach Understanding”.

I think your wheels are still on the rails, so to speak, but I believe you are about to take a non-useful sidetrack from your objective of disciplined trading. But before you move any further down this path, at this time I feel it is my obligation to redirect you. Your choice is to accept or reject, and I'm at peace with either decision.

Matcha please excuse me but like Redneck, I'm going to be frank and candid, and you need to fully comprehend and understand what I’m about to say: You have only just begun to learn about trading and the trader’s mindset. These concepts are still very much new to you. You are still very much a “babe in the woods” with learning these skills and techniques. And further, right now it doesn’t even occur to you that some of us out here in the ether of cyberspace have been working for decades to earn the skills we ever so politely share with you. But as the saying goes; “What you gain too easily, you esteem too lightly”.

And, I can see by reading your comments over the last few days that, your “expectations” about where you think you are, and the reality of where you really are, are pretty much out of line. As MD says in his book, “there is nothing more painful than an unmet expectation”. You unwittingly bear witness to this regularly now. This is because, I do think that you believe that, since you’ve diligently “paid your dues” by picking up some new dynamic techniques, or reading MD once or twice, that you now, fully understand the technique, or see exactly what MD is talking about with this “thinking in probabilities” concept. This is understandable, you have been working hard. Well sorry, but I’m here to tell you that you still have not as yet learned the lessons.

* Seeing the lesson is good, but it doesn’t mean that you know it.

* Knowing the lesson is better, but it doesn’t mean that you understand it.

* Understanding the lesson is infinitely better than knowing, but it doesn’t mean you own it.

* Matcha, its only when you OWN IT, that you can BELIEVE IT,...... at a level where you can CONSISTENTLY ACT ON IT.

You see, much learning does not teach understanding, but you must learn that understanding is only just the beginning of real learning.

As I read your words, I watch as you set yourself up for your daily emotional rollercoaster ride. And, I can’t help but wonder, what kind of inappropriate beliefs are you now inculcating with this last ride. What kinds of mental damage are you now imposing on your belief system and trading psyche?

I can see that right now, you are no longer in control of your “state of mind” while trading. The market has more or less control over you, and over your state of mind while you are trading. This is because the results of your last few trade(s) unwittingly dictate and determine your current state of mind. I can see it in your writing.

If you have a winning day, you’re on cloud nine. Even to the point of offering your help to the poor unfortunates who don’t as yet have your level of achievement. But, by the same token, if you have a losing day, then its “what have I done wrong now”, "back to the drawing board", "oh when will this frustration ever end". Somebody out there in cyberspace,….help.

Please excuse my candor in the last few paragraphs, but I had to say these things. Now, on to resolving some problems. First, lets define one particularly recurring problem: This problem is that you are so overly concerned with the RESULTS of your trading, that you totally ignore the “PROCESS” of your trading. At this stage of your development, your primary objective is LEARNING the appropriate SKILL SETS necessary to succeed.

At this point in your development, who gives a tinkers damn about whether or not you made a nickel or dime today in Sim or Live, but thank God you had the good sense to be in Sim. However, the real issue for you is; what skill sets or techniques did you exercise, practice, or hone today, and how well did that process go? You must move your current focus from the "win/lose" results of your trading, to the process of your trading. Profits are the “by-product” of the “process”.

When your focus is the process, it changes things for the better. You will see more in your charts, you will understand more from your charts, you will be at one with your charts. With nothing to fear from your charts anymore, because fear is not your focus, they will begin to speak to you with clarity and purpose.

In the society we have built, we all have an ingrained fear of being wrong. Our society is built to punish those who get it wrong. However, in the trading world, we understand that being wrong and losses are an essential part of the "success process". Our world is different from the outside world. We need to think different from the outside world, and sometimes our ideas are diametrically opposed in our market environment. This is now your world. You learn to accept being wrong, as being ok, and to manage trading losses, as you would business inventory.

More importantly, you must mentally move your Center of Focus. When your Center of Focus in trading is to learn, practice, or hone a skill, who among us is afraid to learn, practice, or hone a skill? This is the “mindset” you enter into as your trading day begins. Your thoughts as you begin the day are that; “Today I will get the opportunity to exercise my skills again”. With that kind of attitude going into your day, you start off with a very real sense of "Power and Control".

This is because you do in fact have the Power and Control. When your focus is the process, surprisingly, you will experience very few “emotionally down days” from your trading. This is because you are not riding an emotional rollercoaster anymore with "win/lose" up and down results. You will gain a lasting sense of control over your trading that will stay with you for many profitable years to come.

In time, you will also come to realize, that this really is a, pattern recognition numbers game,…..THAT YOU NOW OWN!

Now Matchhopper,……go get to work on that!

Master K

“crass dismissed”

 

Hi Master K,

Thank you very much for sharing your infinite wisdom.

That's inline with what I have been thinking lately.

In my SIM trading, I have recently turned off the "PnL Meter" so to speak. My focus is on honing the process, spotting my setups and MARKING them on the chart. This kind of mental exercise has helped me to concentrate at each individual setup without having to worry about how much I have lost (or won) in the previous trades.

I don't know if I have articulated well for what I have been doing lately, but it has helped me to push aside the emotional roller coasters of keeping track of the PnL score while I am LEARNING this one particular step of identifying my setups.

--po

 

Wow! Awesome. We can all learn from the above points. So so so so so so so true!!!!!!!!

I think this is the most difficult part in trading. You need to be able to shift from the emotional rollercoaster to accepting the losses as a normal part of business. So so so hard. Whenever you feel you have gone past it. Boom you're at it again. But Master is so right. You have your business plan. You've seen it work. You need to manage those losses and not let it bug you and move on. Personally, I feel I am almost there and I've been trying to get my daytrading to work for a few years now.

Most of the time I was in rollercoaster land and whenever I was down I would start tweaking my methods, indicators, etc. Instead needed to stick to 1 method and make it work. It took a few years to get it. Now 1 method and making it work. You already have it. Stick with it and work on the emotional side. As Elder says Mind, Method, Money Management. You have 2 and 3. Now you need 1.

Regarding yty's trades I really don't like the first long. If you want something additional to look at for big picture, then check out Market Profile. Below is the DIA (ETF for Dow).

Market slammed through the previous POC (shown by line) on strong volume. If anything that pullback was a short. Market went strongly down into the value area of 2 days ago and paused at around the POC. Coincidence? Not in my book. You took a long which personally I liked but didn't work. So be it. The market then continued down and you took a short which I also love as it takes advantage of the failure of price to find support at an area considered value. But you were shaken out. I'm not sure about your entry/exit but prob should have given it more time. The strong volume pushing down was a good indication that some followthrough would occur.

Anyway, my 2 cents. Good luck today!

 

Stayed very calm today. Briefly reading everyone’s posts before market open helped me stay calm. I also read lots of great tips from Dacharts last night; it helped me restructure my learning curve a little different.

I have to be somewhere soon. So I am just going to update the trades and chart for today first. I will reply and write some feedback from everyone’s comment and support later this afternoon.

Trade 1: 7:20am. Long. Out when I saw the entry bar started to form a reversal bar. -5tk

Trade 2: 7:35am . 2 leg pullback at EMA and bear trap. Long. Out +20tk

Today I had no problem reading 15 min chart and 5 min chart. I did not over looked large time frame.

Did not take any trades around beige book at 2pm.

PnL: $70, 15pts. 2 trades.

 

Thanks, that is awesome!

 

Matcha, this is what i did today. I market every possible entry i would make based on my different strategies when market changed. I marked them real time when the entering signal showed up. The reason for not using sim is because i will focus on the sim result instead of checking the accountability of these set ups and entries.

It is all about what to do and when to do. After two days down, I am so eager to find out: which part I have missed.

I made 15 trades from 7:00 PST to close, 8 stopped out. 7 made it. And all the 8 failed trades were the same strategy category; other 7 were the other category. Now what i will do is eliminate the failing strategy from my plan, and focus on the winning one. Tomorrow I will work on the winning strategy and trying to refine the best entry for me.

 

Matcha,

This is the key message here !!

Very well stated by KDASFTG ..

Find HAPPYNESS in the process, dont hate/ or fill ur mind with negative thoughts of being a looser on a down day and Do not get over joyed when you have a home run.
Understand that its the Clarity of thoughts gained via experience and understand of your purpose will free you.

Some time you have to learn this on your own, it take a while. I was not fortunate like you to have some good Folks like KDASFTG try to pry your eyes open.

Its hard to move your focus from results to the process, just as KDASFTG mentioned, our society has alot to with it.

Gudluck !

 

Hi, Master K!
I like this name. We now have Master K, Master Boli. Master Nodoji, Master WF, Master RN etc....
Glad that you said my wheels are on the rails. I thought they were off..
Please always step in and point out all the wrong steps I am taking. I am totally open to any critism and I am a very strong girl. I want to be on the right track. I remember the first time I saw your post on Hooti's journal. I thought , wow, this sounds like it's direct to me. I wish one day he can share his wisdom on my thread! Then you mentioned one time there how we new trader need to work smart. I often wonder whether I am working smart.

All these are so true. I now "understand" why I am so "stresse'd out". I rushed things. Forced myself to reach the Olympic record goal that I am not even able to run yet.

I have to confess something. I did read from a few blogs, some traders extract points everyday here and there. Subconsiously, I just got a bit "jealous and greedy" and think why I can't do that. So I stressed myself out. Then we had these trendy days that I just ended up losing or B/E. I stressed myself even more that "Why I couldn't sell/buy at the open then ride the trend whole day long." I carried all these emotions to next day, next trade. over and over. So I never could listen to the market. I lost control of my emotions.

I have never thought I have ego problem. Lately, I felt like the "focus on result" issue is part of the ego problems. I just felt "embarassed" to end up in red then post a chart with messy trades. but like you said who cares what my PnL is. Wen Fishing one time said to me too, you don't have to prove to anyone how you do.

I really appreciate your honesty and being so straightforward. Sometimes I do get a bit carried away and like to share my random success with others... I really need to stop doing that now. Untill I get to the CP point(the consistency includes consistently follow my plan and excecute it flawlessly) and grow a trader's mind, I should get neither too upset on the losers nor too excite with the little success.

Now since you helped me once more defined my problem and issues. And you listed clearly all the "to do " lists. I got to face them and work very hard to fix them.

I must forget about the result. I will allow myself to make all the mistakes possible in SIM then try very hard to eliminate them. --the process of developing a trader's mind and sharpen the edge.

I must swtich my attitude to "learn the skills" instead of "good results", "in green". "perfect charts","perfect trades". Focusing on results make me not listen to market, makes me dillusional. I want the "power and control". Thank you!

I recognize my learning stage is still in "the mechanical stage". I am now building up a system that I trust and execute it with no hesitation. I will trade this 1 setup repeatedly as if I OWN it! Trade it in my sleep.

If I may, please allow me to include the daily/weekly/monthly pnl, winrate stats here since they are now just the numbers to geige the system.

Thank you, Master K. I will try very hard to understand and act on all the above assignments. And I also understand it doesn't take one day or one week to get there...

Sorry for my lousy english. If you find I work dumb and unwittly again, please don't hesitate to point out! Now I need to get back to my study for today.
Matchhopper