I love this line. Your journal, with explicit detail and charts is better than any single "how to" guide that has ever been posted to ET. Its kind of like that Muhammed Ali line which goes something like "Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face". I would love to know their stats, simply just how often they enter, whether they scale in or not, how many trades are wins, scratches, and losses. I firmly believe that the guys who hold for multiple days have a lower win rate than you, but clearly higher profits, but they also have many days where they either don't make money, or are already in a trade so have nothing to do, while you churn out steady cash day by day. I honestly believe you can do both, but you would need to be able to flip your mindset like a switch. For the swing trading, Level 2 is so much less of a factor, in my opinion, once you're in. I mean price can literally go all the way back down to support, or your entry, or even below your entry, and still not have it affect some sort of up trend if that is what you got in for. The tape and Level 2 can be screaming sell, but a multi day up trend would in no way be affected if price hasn't breached some sort of support level that you identify as key. Since you watch Level 2 like a hawk, and are in tune with the buying and selling, this is something you would have to turn off in your brain for swing trading, in my opinion of course. I mean how often in this huge rally since Trump has the ES screamed panic selling from the open, which last a whole 20 minutes, and then it finished up for the day? Zooming out to look at the hourly chart would show clear levels that weren't breached, or only poked and bought up, but the immediate buys and sells would make any day trader bearish. Along with you saying they know when to hold, do you have direct evidence that they know? What do you even consider it means that they know? Its as if you're telling me that they know some big firms are coming in and will be buying up hundreds of thousands of shares over the next few days. Who has access to that info? The chart may look as if this is what is happening, but I doubt any of them actually know. What they probably know is that their target is up there, their stop is down there, and whatever happens in between, happens. Once again, if you can share their stats, things might become a little more clear. But I hardly doubt they know anything into the future, they just know what they have to do, while you're busy entering and exiting multiple times. (which clearly works for you) Well here is how I think about this. What are all the factors for making more money? We could either buy more shares/contracts. Or we could hold for a bigger profit. Or we could increase our win rate. Other than these 3 things, I see no other way to make more money. So, option 1, buy more shares, easy to do, perhaps its a bit liquidity dependent, but if you're looking to swing trade and holding for a $2-3 move, a few cents wouldn't really matter all that much. I mean this is how all the funds do it, right, buying up in chunks throughout the day? This of course takes balls of steel to increase size, and it also takes a big enough account so that percentage wise, you're not risking huge amounts of your account, but it really involves no change in strategy, unless of course you are trying to nail buying at a particular level and don't get a fill. You've gotten up to 10k shares if I recall, but you start unloading very quickly. The big boys probably keep their big size, and have big wins, along with big losses as well. Option 2, holding for the bigger profit, which you tried, and it didn't work out too well. I bet it didn't work out too well though because you probably killed some trades that did end up being winners. Honestly, if you went through your stats, are there any that you could have left alone that eventually hit a nice target? Sure some might have hit your stop, or perhaps went all the way back to your entry so might have stopped out at BE, but if you honestly look at those trades from the past month, are there some that would have been home runs if you just left them alone? I suspect that those guys making 7 figures just put trades on and leave them alone to either hit stop or target, or trail the stop once past a certain point. They make more money than you because they leave the trade alone. Option 3, increasing win rate, perhaps very tough indeed to accomplish. Win rate is of course important depending on how much you're targeting and risking, but you clearly know what you're doing here, and any time you try and increase win rate, all that usually happens is you skip trades cause you're scared to mess up the win rate, or you take smaller profits cause you're eager to keep up a high win rate. And once you start skipping trades, and lowering your profit target but keeping your stop the same, your profits actually decline. I read somewhere that the Japanese trader, CIS, that is a legend, unverified of course, says he gets it wrong 4 out of 10 times. So in my opinion, getting it wrong isn't the problem, its what you do after you get it wrong that really matters. Crying about a loss, which I know all too well, it pointless, especially if you just sit there and stare. Getting back in, in the opposite direction, can be just as deadly. And re-entering in the same direction, but with bad timing, can also screw you up. But mastering what to do after a stop-out is in my opinion what separates the boys from the men. Stopping and watching is of course never bad either if you have no idea what is going on, which may mean the market doesn't know either, but using the information of getting stopped out can lead now to getting better aligned with the market. What do you think the guys making 7 figures are doing that you aren't doing? If you say they know which trades will work, then I would ask for their stats cause even a 70% win rate doesn't mean they know, and if they are making 10k per day, I'm also sure many days they lose 5k or more.
Funny trade again today just like the GME ordeal, i was focused on the ES thinking it was forming a bull flag, so i bought it a couple times on reasonable size like 4 contracts or something, then when it failed the second time, dumped the long and then i went all in short, think i had like 10-14 contracts short cant remember the exact number, but i was really thinking i might just be dumb while it was going on, in the end it paid off big........being impulsive like that and flipping around on an instrument based on pivot points always makes me feel like im just being a degenerate gambler, but i just felt like that chart was going to pivot around that number, it was either going to break down, or break up right there. It was another one of those trades where it was hard to tell if i was just on tilt and acting retarded in real time, usually if i focus long enough on a single instrument, and stare at it long enough i eventually get it right, but this one was dicey. Best day all year for me, was long YY, and a ton of VTGN off the open, nailed LULU short, then crushed this one on the ES as well, though i was on all sides of this trade at some point. lol its a fine line between perfection and misery, sorry havent been keeping up with the journal guys ill try next week. (P.S. thx for the epic posts "GOTCHA" ive read and re-read them many times, and just came to accept myself as a result of it) Ive been trying to move back towards what i know how to do and just trading price action, and trying to get better at adding when i know goddamn well where a stock is going, generally speaking the longer i let a chart draw itself, the more accurate my interpretation is eventually, and at some point i can usually come to the conclusion, "Ok this is the way its going almost 99%" So im trying to get better at just piling in to shit in those situations, i should have added even more ES short when it failed on that last roll before it eventually puked, but in real time i was risking an already phenomenal day, so in my head i couldnt tell if i was just on tilt.
I find it interesting that you let it go against you. I realize that twice you went long and failed, but after you went short and took some off, it went right back up to your entry and even above your short entry. The 2637 level for me was looking quite prominent, and after it bounced off here twice to the long side, I would have been worried if I was short. Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly giving trading advice to a guy who is killing it, so I'm just sharing my hindsight thoughts. You even have a trendline coming down there as well, so had it continued going higher, I wonder if you would have said something along the lines of seeing that rejection at 2637 twice so you shouldn't have been all in short. I'm attaching my crappy little hindsight chart of what it looked like just before it broke lower. I think here, it certainly looks like it could have kept going higher, no? Perhaps you were watching order flow, which you seem to be an expert at, to gauge the strength of this second bounce.
I was very close there man, cant remember the number but i think it was .50, and i was watching the tape, and watching level 2, and every time it hit that 50 number, the offer would slam back down and refresh, so in my head, i was going to stop out over the next point like i think i had an order qued up for 2639.25 incase it started moving, only reason i managed to hold on there was because the market in general had been weak, and it had already tried cracking the highs so many times and faild, you called it spot on though i literally had the order qued up and was ready to punch out, it was such a fine line between that being a winner and it turning into a disaster in which case i would have been cursing myself for stupidity. After that Once it started drifting back down toward the lows of that base though i was almost 100% sure....... i probably should have added but i was so relieved just to be back onside again i couldnt bring myself to do it, i thought i might be risking my entire day on that trade, so once it came down a bit it was a huge sigh of relief.
Thanks for the detailed reply. This is why I love your journal. It contains so much info that really provides the critical differences between being profitable or not. I find the only difference between someone killing it and someone wanting to kill themselves from their failed trading (LOL) is what happens in those pivotal moments. The pro has a sense of what to do and isn't scared to do it. The amateur bails and watches in fear. I mean give two guys the same set of random entries, and the pro will know to either bail right away, or be patient, or reverse the position on a dime. Doesn't mean he is gonna be right about the trade, but even when the trade fails, he continues to take the correct actions. The difficult part is of course figuring out what those actions are, and when to implement them. Anyway... happy to see you posting again. Dare I ask how the past 2 weeks have gone?
Last couple weeks had actually been pretty terrible, i was pissed at myself because everyone was killing it when the market was going straight up, and i was still kind of trying to just buy stocks and hold...... I was long a bunch of weed stocks that on the premise that legalisation is coming in california at the end of the month, and those bailed me out, but i really suck balls at buy and hold, cause its just not in me to let winners turn in too losers, then back to winners, so i just cut it most of the time when its a little bit offside, only to see it turn around and rip up............. I was rattled at myself cause everyone was killing it but i was breaking even trying to do shit that i dont know how to do, taking trades saying id hold forever then inevitably gettibng stopped out cause i held too long. This week, i got back to doing what i know how to do and just focusing on a single trade at a time with size, and watching it like a hawk, and things got a lot better. It took me a couple days to readjust again to just watching the tape, on one trade at a time but i seem to have gotten the groove back, today was my best day all year. How bout you, hows this market been treating you?
Interesting. What are they doing different from you? I mean there is no point in regurgitating all the stuff I wrote earlier, but I really do wonder what they do differently to be killing it. Do they have a wider stop so aren't stopped out? Do they have a better entry so it hardly ever goes against them and they get the direction right? Do they have a good win rate? Are they just holding the winners longer than you and got lucky with price not coming back down to stop them out? It sounds like I'm making a point, but really, I'm more so asking. Market has been fine since it is what it is, but my participation has been less than stellar. Of course I want to continue to sound smart, so I won't go into any details! Its much easier for me to say what the right thing to do is rather than actually do it, and hence why I enjoy posting in your journal. LOL
NGL is a perfect example of why i suck balls at swing trading, bought the 12 dollar break then stopped out a week or two later for a loss, only to see it do exactly what i thought it would do. I was up a dollar at one point and ended up taking a loss on it, lol i just cant hold shit and let it go from positive to negative then back to positive, the second swing trades go negative the desire in me is far too strong too just cut the position.
They arent as focused on scalping they will let swings go from winners to losers, then add to the loser, then keep buying, its just patience, they arent scalping like me where its like built into my DNA that i just hate to watch winners turn into losers, and i want to take profits the second something is onside. I trade around what i find to be pivot points, so it either goes where and when i think its going to go, or i blow it off.
LOL, everything is much easier to analyse in hindsight......... most of the time i know what i SHOULD be doing, but in real time, its a different story....... in the words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.