hELLO, ghost of blotro. Yes that's a nice rationale, do you have a flutter on the markets, or are you just interested? (you shouldn't gamble on sticks, futures and optionsd, u cant win - it a bum deal) think of it logacul. evan the people in the industy cant make any $$ speculizing. you need to set up HFT near exchange, get a team of ex MIT with rich family and contacts. Good luk and remember don't gamble, u don't have edgey!
April 23rd, 2014 - Wednesday Trades Trade #1 Entry: 8:30:27 [1876.75] Exit: 8:30:34 [1877.5] PnL: -1.25 Trade #2 Entry: 8:39:22 [1873.5] Exit: 8:40:11 [1873.25] PnL: -0.25 Trade #3 Entry: 8:49:24 [1865] Exit: 8:49:39 [1865.75] PnL: -0.75 Trade #4 Entry: 8:49:39 [1865.75] Exit: 8:51:23 [1867.75] PnL: +2 Trade #5 Entry: 8:57:47 [1870.5] Exit: 8:58:44 [1869.25] PnL: -0.75 Trade #6 Entry: 9:04:09 [1866.75] Exit: 9:07:11 [1865] PnL: -1.25 Session Synopsis [Merged with Trade Review] I decided to forgo the usual trade by trade analysis, because I do not believe the details of each individual trade is the primary issue today. We had another strong trending day similar to Tuesday, and my performance was quite poor again. Even with several poor entries, I was sitting at a net of one tick after trade four. However, I made two additional trades after that, and even though I have seen success by keeping losses reduced, I let them run longer than that against my entry before closing them due to a psychological failure. I am continuing to think about how to improve my psychological performance while trading, which seems to be the primary barrier for success this week. What can I do to insure that the execution of my intentions does not become muddled during the actual trading session? I believe the basic principals of trends that I have observed and described earlier yield an accurate enough construction to easily meet the goal of a net gain of one tick per week; I just need to utilize it in a detached and logical manner. I did exercise this morning like I had planned to do before each trading session, and although it helps to invigorate my mind, I still performed too many trades without carrying out a detailed analysis of the trend and volume components before entry. I was thinking on the issue, and I have created a basic page attached below which I will fill out before entering any trades. Hopefully this prerequisite action will force me to consider the context more carefully before entering prematurely into a trade. I feel that one of the reasons I have seen a greater degree of success on a larger time-frame is because there is copious amounts of time for me to look at the charts during different times of the day and evening, continually review my expectations, and question myself repeatedly in order to unearth any logical inefficiencies based off the current trends in play. Fitting this process into real-time is shaping up to be the most difficult part of my exercise thus far. Notes -Discipline issue, similar to Tuesday. Entry into trades without waiting for a clear view of the context. -Difficulties considering and analyzing all possibilities along with incoming market data to manage open positions accordingly in the allotted time-span. -Created sheet to fill out before opening a position to prompt analysis of context. Will test over the next few days and analyze results.
Progress in trading starts with self awareness and honesty. In an earlier post, you confessed to being governed by pride and greed. Has that all gone away because you are now trading in sim? Even if greed is overcome, in what ways can pride subtly corrupt your perspective and therefore your plans, decisions, outcomes? In what ways has pride influenced your trading plan? "I believe the basic principals of trends that I have observed and described earlier yield an accurate enough construction to easily meet the goal of a net gain of one tick per week" What evidence do you have for this belief? Who is responsible for instilling this belief? Is this a rational belief, or is it due to pride and wishful thinking? How would you know if what you believe is wrong? "I am continuing to think about how to improve my psychological performance while trading, which seems to be the primary barrier for success this week. " Your primary barriers to success are: Pride & dishonesty. You lack the humility to admit that you don't know enough about how the market works or how to trade successfully. Major barrier to learning and progress. You act as if you know the answers, and rationalise the outcome when it is not as you expect. You haven't even learned to ask the right questions yet. You must be honest with yourself about your motivation, level of knowledge, and your results. Only then can you progress. Lack of empathy. What is this journal about? Learning about the market? Learning about others? Or is it all about YOU? You've entered an environment where the profitability of an open trade is decided exclusively by others, yet you have not researched how the various types of participant make their trading decisions. Incorrect concept of market. You are doing what nearly all amateurs do which is projecting sequences visually with the aid of a chart. You have no evidence that this approach is successful, yet you persist. Current evidence is that you are not profitable with this approach. At what point will you accept the possibility that this approach does not work? Then you can deploy your resources to find an approach that does. Why is it that even ignoring transaction costs you will be net negative day trading according to visual sequences and textbook technical analysis concepts? These three points are given in the correct order as it is the pride / lack of self honesty / lack of personal responsibility / sloth which corrupts your approach and leads to incorrect concept of market. Then you have truly done everything wrong and cannot succeed. Three options: 1) continue in trading, bullshitting yourself, fail 2) leave trading 3) develop the personal qualities required to approach this business correctly You aren't going to find the answers you need in a chart. I have tried giving this advice before - most cannot handle the truth. Simply refer to the "Journals" section on this or any other trading website for as many examples of newbies failing with the same approach you are taking for the same reasons. A wise man learns from the errors of others.
You've raised many interesting points. I definitely perceive the possibility that my pride continues to distort my view of reality regardless of my attempts to see clearly. I suppose I can acknowledge that pride could be the source of my belief that it is possible to understand the basic principles of the market to a degree that one can extract one tick from a non-random system with enough analysis and practice, even though I remain skeptical. I am responsible for holding this belief. I still have a difficult time believing it is not correct, and that the minority of successful TA traders posting here over the years are all being deceptive about their claims to success. As to knowing it is wrong, I am not sure what would convince me. I think it a more likely potential conclusion that I would begin to think that I just wasn't capable of this if enough time and effort elapsed without seeing any improvement, not that it can't be done. I will agree that this journal is about me. I do have difficulties feeling empathy in my personal life; you have me pegged well. I am using my perspective to attempt to proceed in the most productive way that I can conceive of, but I would like to think if I was presented with a superior course of action towards improvement, I would not be averse to pursuing that avenue. Based off all of the information and conclusions I have generated thus far, I believe that the work I am doing in my journal is the most productive way I know how to proceed at this point. I never intended to come across that my idea or methodology is blatantly superior to others', but rather it is just the best course of action I am personally aware of taking at this point in time. I am very grateful for the time you've taken to contribute to my journal in a meaningful and thoughtful manner. I have tried to explain my personal thoughts to you in order to answer your questions, and I do not intend to come across as dismissive of the merit of your ideas and knowledge. What exactly do you propose as the best course of action for me to take at this point? If not this, then what? I would definitely not be averse to investigating the matter. I have committed to my current study for two weeks, one of which is almost concluded, until I will analyze the experience thus far and the best possible next steps. I would be grateful to take into serious consideration any insights you are willing to offer.
You cannot trade as a rationalist unless you understand the system.... Unless you know the inner workings of the market it is all theory and that is why no matter what most people do is wrong. They do not get the concept of how things work. The market is very logical if you understand how it works.....
Just a thought. Rather than starting out with the intention of making a point a day on something like the ES futures market, think in terms of return of your capital at risk. Maybe plan to make 100 BPS (1%) return per week. This is a modest goal and is definitely possible, although the ES futures would not be my choice of market. This still compounds to a decent return in a few months/years. Good luck. [Oh, and why do you have two journal entries for the 23rd of April ?]
http://www.academicknowledge.com/writerjobs/proofreading-jobs.php Yo can say im an elderlie septic, but therez no substansif content withinz this threed. its total void.
Thank you for the advice. I definitely agree with you that the conservative approach over time seems to be the wise way to conduct things. I have found in the past that it is much easier to solve a problem when it is broken down into small, manageable pieces, so that's what I've attempted to do with the best of my current abilities. I definitely appreciate the feedback, when I am at the point where I feel comfortable using my capital again, a 1% per week goal is definitely something I will keep in mind. In regards to the Journal entry, I must have made a typo. The second entry titled April 23rd should be April 24th. It seems to be too late to edit the mistake though.
April 25th, 2014 - Friday Trades Trade #1 Entry: 8:30:58 [1866.25] Exit: 8:31:02 [1866.75] PnL: -0.5 Trade #2 Entry: 8:34:45 [1866] Exit: 8:35:40 [1865.75] PnL: +0.25 Trade #3 Entry: 8:38:07 [1865.5] Exit: 8:39:32 [1864.25] PnL: -1.25 Trade #4 Entry: 8:50:15 [1862] Exit: 8:50:50 [1863.25] PnL: -1.25 Trade #5 Entry: 9:07:39 [1863] Exit: 9:18:30 [1865.5] PnL: +2.5 Review 1 - 4. Well, I attempted with the use of my sheet to enter into the direction of the overall trend, which could clearly be seen to be down, which is an improvement. However, the attempt to keep losses to an extreme minimum as I decided to attempt after having a trade lose over 2 points on Tuesday seems to be doing more harm than good, looking at the rest of the week. The opening trade itself, like yesterday, could have ran for so many points if just given a little more room. Rating: 1/2 (More organized, but exits too quick) 5. After several short-duration trades with many small losses, I decided to try giving the trade more room again, and returning to my original plan of waiting until I receive additional information with price and volume to exit a position. This was my best trade of the week, where I waited for confirmation of a long segment to begin before entry, and held it until it seemed to begin stalling, instead of managing the trade based off where I entered, or trying to get a good entry to reduce risk. Rating 2/2 (Focus on market activity rather than entry position) Weekly Synopsis Well, my performance for this week was an utter failure in regards to my goal. However, I feel that my time spent here has definitely produced some merit as I begin to try to analyze things which are obstructing my ability to proceed in my modest goal. For one, I have experimented with keeping losses very small, which allows more trades to be conducted with less risk, but it seems to limit many of the good directional trades I placed which hesitated slightly before traveling off. Perhaps next week, one of my primary focuses can be to seek a happier medium between the two extremes. I feel that my trend direction sheet did a good job to prompt me to make sure all of the directions line up, so I don't get caught trying to catch the end of a trend so frequently. I think that if I place more emphasis back on segments in the context of the overall trend, and monitor PRV, I will be able to see more winning trades next week, have the positions open longer, and lose less of a percentage of my trades to the spread. Perhaps down the line I can begin to differentiate between how high risk an entry is, and if it is a far distance from a place where I would be able to make a logical deduction that my perception of the trend or the segment is incorrect, I will give it less room, or wait until a better entry. Notes -Traveled too far down the rabbit-hole, making much too short duration of trades and trying to keep losses down to a point where it heavily interfered with my performance. -Refocus on waiting for market data to invalidate a position, rather than managing it from the place of entry. Possibly begin to differentiate entries and treat them accordingly to promote good trades while limiting losses. -- Also, thank you to the people who made positive contributions to my journal. It is not something I started out expecting to have, and I am very grateful for what I see as a valuable bonus to my efforts here. I would just like to re-iterate that I find the thoughtful contributions of you all very useful and helpful, and I apologize for any negativity inadvertently communicated by myself, if that has been the case.
I don't see any evidence that you have an edge here. I suggest going back to Bogleheads before wasting any more time and money on this endeavor. Focus on asset allocation and how to minimize taxes.