What am I currently working on..to improve. Reading books written by successful traders and trying to form healthy habits. Identifying what I do well when I have good days and doing it more often. Lets say on good days I have more alertness and patience , the result will be a string of wins with well managed losses and good responses to market environments like staying out of light volume and stopping out when I think risk is getting high and so on.
I'm working less hard now. My foundation has solidified. I am just following my method, tuning in to it, polishing it here and there, improving my sense of the relative importance of things. Gaining new experience in the unfolding history of the world's markets, where everything has happened before, yet we've never been exactly HERE before.
More quant stuff. Like some people here, and unlike many, I still believe in reading books. Trading alone, you have nobody to bounce ideas off. So for me, reading a book is like having someone talk to me. I don't believe in trading anything I read in a book, life isn't that easy. But sometimes, an idea makes sense, and then I see what I can do with it. I always try and reduce it to numbers. If I can model it so the numbers speak to me, I can make money.
In regards to trading, I am backtesting starting from the 1930's all the way to 2016. Question why the market did what it did back then, and how I could have seen it coming. Being more patient, stop taking marginal trades, and have absolutely no "greed" urge to make money. Just watching the market in a neutral zen state of mind and when an opportunity, presents itself go in and be bold, don't second guess. Finishing up all my trading books I want to take a second look at. Then it will be strictly electronic(forum information, backtesting, experimentation).
I know it may sound cliche, but trading is an art...and you gotta really paint alot to understand the craft -- per se Being a great trader...kind of reminds me of the typical, proverbial psychotic/analytical bad guy in movies. Charles Rane is not insane."
Primary at the moment, is when in a trade and the trend turns against me, not holding all the way down waiting / hoping for a turn back to my direction. Secondary, make more trades!!
That eternal dilemma. Last week I closed a position early. I normally don't, I've done the analysis, put the stop beyond S/R, I should trust it. The price action was disappointing, so I closed it. Another position had good price action, but was moving into a loss quite quickly. I didn't close it, it had the right stuff. The one I closed never reached my stop, bounced and moved past the previous low. That damned spike up was not real, I would be back in bigger profits if I hadn't closed. The one I didn't close went straight up to my stop, and of course not too much more, before falling back.
Sometimes, your damned either way I generally jump on DAX say, got a USDJPY setup aswell, DAX moves 6pts and USDJPY rocks for 40+ pts like last week, disapointing. If something starts moving against you quickly, just bail to you understand why, can likely get back in cheaper, if your comm's are killing you ofcourse.
Im currently working on my entries and exits. Cutting losses short and buying in before the breakouts. Im learning so much from educational courses off the internet.