Great post Andrea, I rather stay in sim a lifetime, than lose money in a live account. Many say go live for real emotions, but I disagree. If a trader have the discipline to turn a sim account from $5000 to $50000 over XXX-XXXX amount of trades, then go live. Nice and Simple.
My mentors all kept a personal trading journal. If you can eliminate repeated mistakes - that's positive account equity.
Yes bone, you are right. I have been working to eliminate the mistakes I make daily/weekly and then review the results. So I have some work to do on my end on decreasing my number of mistakes I make. Then I can re-evaluate the metrics of my trades without the minor mistakes and missed trades.
Exactly. Most of the craft is practice and debugging. Remove errors within the model and the strategy. The model is the structure so it's the foundation. Strategy is the process by which we exploit the model. Feedbacks are the outcomes that our map produce against reality.
No worries. What matters is the analysis. A spreadsheet can't answer these questions: What's the problem ? What's the assumptions ? What's the evidence, reasons ? What's the viewpoints, perspectives ? What's the implications, consequences ? What's the feedbacks, learning points, take aways ?
Hello Sekiyo, Are you referring to me start a journal in the ET section? The problem/challenge is I am still seeking profitability and learning and practice. I also debug/improve my day-to-day process.
A journal is handy for doing research. You write stuff down, conjecture, elaborate and review. It’s sketchy ! I have a journal but I don’t review it. Which is stupid actually. But whenever I want I can look back. I don’t keep it well neither as I don’t elaborate. If I am lucky I can remember the why’s and how’s. You don’t have to be profitable to keep a journal. You just need to be willing to improve. Write your thoughts down. Let yourself and ET Reflect on them. It’s like brainstorming. Automated traders do backtests. Discretionary traders do brainstorming. Trial and errors also. Practice, tinker, discover. Be curious and critical, test and debunk.