Alright, here goes- Yesterday, while spending an otherwise boring Saturday, I was inspired by Pabst's excellent journal to begin my own here at ET. While I am not under the illusion that anyone here particularly cares how I trade, I think it would be very helpful to me if I were to publicly post some of the ideas I have for trades, and maybe receive some input from the other guys here. Again, to illustrate, I saw in Pabst's journal how Atticus and a few other very insightful traders had some very powerful input that helped me out tremendously in my own thinking. Hence, the title Sixth Dimension, which is generally considered to be societal values, or more officially, prevalent attitudes in a community that evolve in response to a complex web of human interactions....while not specifically correct in my case, it will be accurate if my journal offers insight for someone else's trading. Perhaps it can make a difference in more than just my perspective. Maybe a palette of ideas can be created that could influence one's trading. I think that is the secret to trading....no painting by numbers to be done...but rather a collection of ideas and understandings that allow a person to gain a type of intuition and confidence in the market. I believe trading is an art. Yes there are a few concepts that comprise the "science" aspect of it, but once you get the ideas down, it becomes an art. A little about me for those who haven't put me on ignore yet- I am 26 years old, I have been trading about 2 years or so. I was first inspired to trade by having to exchange my currency when crossing borders while in the military. It hit me right away that there had to be a way to exploit the exchanging of currency to one's benefit. This was most notable with the Lira back in the early 00's....Crude perception, but it was the start of something much bigger for me. I always knew that people traded stocks, but didn't realize there were exchanges for currencies and things like that..at least exchanges that people like me could trade on. There was a big gap between my initial inspiration and when I finally started my trading education in late '05. Lots of things in the way at the time thanks to those assholes in Al Qaeda (and co) and my moving to FL upon getting the hell out. My trading-I am very much a discretionary trader. I swing trade for the most part. I have always been into art of all kinds, music, drawing, etc . I guess I am biased towards comparing trading to mainly an art, but I truly believe it is about intuition and processing of the concepts in each individual's unique way. I trade currencies (my favorite for nostalgic reasons) and will be branching out as time progresses to grains, etc and maybe even options if I can figure them out. My Goals- I started out with approximately zero dollars when I began trading. I spent most of my saved money in moving to and getting set up in FL. I made a small deposit into Oanda, and started increasing size as results permitted. I have been saving everything possible and trading my way up to the point I can quit my current job in mortgages and do this thing full time. Tough game, but what the hell in life is easy if it's worth having? I'm almost there.... Hopefully there will be some ideas presented here by me and others (if I'm lucky) that someone out there can use to further there own trading ventures.
I use Microsoft OneNote to pretty much throw all charts and data together on one page and pore through it all to get my ideas. I'll try to keep things summarized and succinct on the journal here.... Not really trying to create a duplicate journal, just a medium for sharing and refining ideas on trades.
Never read pabst journal although I've heard good things of it. You're a character so at the very least I think this will be an interesting journal. Looking forward to it .
ha ha thanks. I love goofing off and raising hell on ET, but hopefully this will add a little balance to it all. Not generally a big fan of working hard to add to someone else's (Baron and co's) revenue...but hey I gotta look past that and try to enjoy the camaraderie here. P.S. I'd definitely recommend giving Pabst's journal a read. it's long but worth it.
A note to everyone- Oh yeah, and hopefully it goes without saying that I don't necessarily know what the hell I'm talking about, so if you follow my trades, you are doing so at your own peril.
Okay so far this is what I have for today (ie Monday): Aussie Dollar-Looking for quick move up with low risk, decent reward. Recent balance area support and short term momentum favors upside. Not to mention COT data showing upside bias (for me). Looking to stay in this one for maybe a day or two at the most...but we'll see what happens when we get there. Also looking into a quick counter trend trade in the British Pound. Long side if you didn't notice the trend was down.
Reaver Cant wait to start reading your journal. Your a sharp guy and I wish you the best. Good Trading YT
Thanks Youngtrader....kicking off the journal with two trades I mentioned earlier...one sightly sketchy...and the other a countertrend trade..lol Hopefully I don't get burned too bad on the inaugural trades here. Thanks again for the compliments, I've very much enjoyed reading your journal as well.
I liked OneNote but moved my journal, simple spreadsheets and screenshots to google Docs. All of my records are now available from any computer. docs.google.com Worked great in 2007 for me. I have everything I do online. You can create an online Google spreadsheet of your results and post to this thread very easily... Just a suggestion. Once again, good trading! Looking forward to your journal.