Guys, the ES has been in a 4 1/2 point range since the day session opened, quit bickering and go do something productive.
Now Stewie, neither @i am nobody nor anyone else ought to be made to wear my black eye. I'm doing my own thing with the ES, and what is more, on Friday I did it poorly. Had I stuck to my plan, which called for an exit at 74 or 74.50 and that such a level should trade by 3PM eastern, I'd have "looked" phenomenal. But I really lost my focus, and I have to think much of that was due to my foolishly venturing to trade and post trades simultaneously. It is obvious to me now that what I have long suspected is true: I can not post, trade, and chew gum at the same time Well, it certainly did cost me, though not perhaps as much as one would think. For example, what if 62.75 wasn't my first buy? What if I had bought my starter at 55? and what if 62.75 was not only not my first buy, but what if it was in fact my fifth? and what if my initial two buys are my largest, and subsequent add-ons get geometrically smaller? What if in the end it cost me nothing more than some of my open profits? Even if I had lost whatever amount you wish to attribute to me, I am at least happy to say it cost me no pride. I am still ready, willing, and able to pull the trigger when the bell rings. I did screw up though. I really goofed on moving my stop too soon to 61.25, and what was worse, I reversed there. That 58.25 should have struck me as the stopping point, with a stop loss below it. I even had a little nagging buzz in my head telling me it was so, but I didn't understand it at the time and I did it wrong. Again, I think the fact that I posted what I was doing threw me off my game plan. You will also note that on the reversal to short, I stated where I would add short if price moved in my favor. You will also note that I never added to my initial short as price moved against me. Stewie, you might consider that it is possible for you to limit your own potential if you allow yourself to think everyone is scalping with a one lot. The real money. in my opinion, is made by taking full swings, not chip shots, and doing so with size. I am doing my own thing on the ES, and it has worked very well for me. But I still get things wrong too. I have been at this for three and a half years now, one year of stocks, two years of the NQ, and I have really only dedicated my attention to the ES the last six months. When it doesn't work, it is always my fault - not the market, not I am nobody (who knows me from no one) not my mama's, not my 1st grade teacher, not DbPhoenix's nor anyone else's fault but my own. I would never suggest anyone do that. My suggestion, Stewie, is merely that there is value in his posts for me. That value is not found on the face of it though. It is both between the lines and beneath the lines. But I wouldn't expect anyone to accept what I or anyone else says at "Face value." I am a firm believer in personal responsibility, and you are right to assert your own standards over your life. I really just want to make known that I have found value where you do not see value, because I do think you're one of the good guys, I don't want to see you cut yourself off prematurely from a source you might find beneficial, even if that benefit is not visible to you today, and I also would not want this criticism being heaped on i.a.n. to go without a balance in the other direction lest it cause some other trader, perhaps someone new to ET or trading or both to decide to ignore his content without having examined it for himself. Stewie, as a matter of general principle you will get no argument from me. But with respect to i.a.n. in particular, there are real nuggets worth the effort it takes to extract them in the material he has put out here at ET. Hey man, all the best to you, and everything I say here is meant to have been said respectfully to you. I am not looking for enemies. And if the best we can do is agree to disagree, that is wonderful by me, brother.
I do agree that this can be extremely difficult. Not even so much from a mechanical/logistical standpoint, but perhaps from a psychological one as well. Completely agree. I have no idea how many contracts were traded nor any of your other trades. It was only a week ago where jimmiebarton was posting calls to schizo's journal and averaging into a losing position. No mention of stops, and of course no mention of an exit what so ever by the end of the day. I applaud you for following through with the trades that you did post, and I fully realize that none of this means much to your 3 year trading career. But once again, for i.a.n. to pull up schizo's stat of losing 3.25 points in one day is not only poor taste, but also not relevant to the rest of the journal which shows healthy profits. (just like how the losses you had from some of the trades you posted that day cannot be used to judge your entire day, or week, or month) I can of course look at a chart and see how large these recent buying and selling waves were. At the same time, I also see other traders making calls, be they from marketsurfer who was trading in the wrong direction (if we are to even believe his calls), or autodidact who kept calling for new highs in 2016 as price was plummeting. This tells me that although the potential for capturing these huge swings is there, many seem to be caught on the wrong side and these huge swings are wiping people out perhaps. We simply don't know, and will never know. But I am a firm believer of extraordinary claims requiring more diligence with respect to proof. So if someone is saying they capture 15-20 points from each wave, its even more prudent to back this up than the guy saying he captures 3 points consistently. Your post has been well received. Many points we can agree on, but at the end of the day, there should be some transparency to what is being said, some way to verify extraordinary claims. If there isn't, then the only purpose of posting these things is for the ego, and i.a.n. even goes so far as claiming he is ego free, which I do also believe you were backing as well. At the very least, i.a.n. shouldn't criticize schizo's trading when, based on his openly transparent calls he is very profitable, something that escapes over 90% of traders i'm sure. If i.a.n. is even more profitable by magnitudes higher, this would be wonderful for him, but this in no way gives him permission to say the things he said. I do believe that in this case, he should either "put up, or shut up", and since he clearly isn't going to share, then he should take option number 2.
Stewie, in every traded system, successful or not, there will be people who perform well and there will be people who perform bad. I will tell you a secret that might be shocking for you, but don't tell it to anybody: the trader himself has a huge impact on the results of the system. So your remark about fortydraws is completely irrelevant and even nonsense. The fact that fortydraws lost money is because of one of the biggest difficulties in trading: FOLLOW YOUR SYSTEM NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Good systems take position when the market in general is still in the opposite direction, which makes it difficult to resist to copy the market. I had this problem also for a very long time. It is perfect human to make this mistake as humans are programmed to do this. The human brain is notfitted for trading. The aim is to change this natural behavior and replace it by the action that is imposed by the system. I posted about all this in past already extensively. Fortydraws knows what the problem is and how to handle it. He just paid some learning money. My first postings to Schizo were not agressive and I just wanted to give him some advice by pointing on the weak points. But on ET many people have very sensitive toes. My posting about friday was just a statement based on the real trades posted by Schizo. So no insinuations or hypothetical remarks. It was pure reality. You cannot deny that missing the complete moves up and down and even ending with a loss should put some questionmarks about the system that is traded. The least you can say is that there was a problem.
What a difference a week makes. Perhaps the fear was there last week and I for some reason didn't perceive it. I see it now. IMHO we are not too far from a bounce.
Great, I agree with this as well, and I see it at the end of the day when I look at where my trades actually were entered versus where I "intended" to enter. Once again, full agreement. Buying as price is dropping seems like the dumbest thing to do, but if you're buying at an area of previous support, be it from a support level at a specific price, or some sort of trendline where you "expect" a bounce, or even some level based on high volume, then perhaps it isn't so bad to be buying as price is dropping. Doing this though with a high level of certainty which seems to be the base of most expert traders who refuse to back anything up though is where the problem lies. I know that I might be shot for bringing up another trader, but it was only last week when we had another "self-declared" expert with a "very high win rate" call for nothing but longs as price spent the entire week crashing. So although I completely agree that going against the herd is where the money is made, doing this consistently over and over again seems to be a thing of legend. Amen to that. Out of curiosity, may I ask how many years it took you before you were consistently profitable?
And this is a perfect sample of how you put words in my mouth that I never said. Typical bashers. I never told that I take 15-20 points FROM EACH WAVE.
Do you really believe I will still tell you anything? I discuss with people who respect other people and at least don't twist words. That's why I switched to PM's. To avoid people like you.
When you bashed schizo for losing 3 points on a day when price goes down 30 and then up 30, it naturally follows that a trader such as yourself could capture 30 on the way down and 30 on the way up. You started the bashing in my opinion.