well put. success in trading requires a positive mental attitude especially when algo trading because its all about handling loss. Most posters are skeptics. I tried posting my P&L but its a lot of work to do every day. I run FX and futures algos and run over 10 models , 24 hours. also, for some reason traders want to see 90% success rates and 50% monthly returns. The real world does not work that way. i am happy with 2k risk to make 8k. not exciting and so no one cares.
Of course there are always those who come here to harass but there are enough folks who are willing to coach/provide constructive feedbacks to make ET a worthwhile place to hang around. It seemed many who posted journals were not interested in feedbacks. I read lots of what I considered constructive feedbacks but many original posters ignored them or got really upset as if someone rained on their parade.
I think this is probably true, so you would no doubt be justified in pointing your finger straight at me. But from a slightly more positive viewpoint, posting my trades in progress helps me to avoid fooling myself because I cannot deny when they go awry. It also helps motivate me to do better, as does posting daily P/L. (It keeps me more honest with myself.) For example, I need to do something to reduce my average losses so they are comparable to or smaller than my average gains. Left to my own devices, I would probably be tempted to say, “It’s not really that big of a deal. I mean after all, I’m still making money…right?” But, in taking my goal public, if I don’t follow through, it’s obvious to everyone that I’m a “loser” when it comes to that aspect of trading, and I know people will be looking at me going, “your willingness to accept a less than 1:1 win-to-loss ratio is like, totally unprofessional dude!” If and when I reach my goal, I’m sure to get bored with uploading such posts and will no doubt discontinue doing so, and anyone who wants to then assume my strategy blew up (I won’t even begin trading real money until next week) is more than welcome to do so.
I have had absolutely no successful trades today, which is extremely unusual. So I’m just going to view this as an opportunity to take what has normally been a consistently profitable strategy, and chip away all but the most verifiable elements responsible for its past effectiveness. Then hopefully begin using this newfound insight to commence realizing results unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. This isn't the type of trade I've been waiting for, but based on all I've seen today, it ought to result in a 9-pip profit, so I just want to confirm that this is indeed the case. (This is not the best of spots however, seeing as how there is significant resistance at the 114.22 level.)
My first day back to live trading after a three year hiatus got off to an extremely rocky start, but I believe it was for the best. It led and enabled me to strip away all the elements of my system that, after evaluating my disastrous launch, were verified as having little to nothing to do with my approach’s past effectiveness. I felt I was “seeing” the market relatively clearly before, so given that today’s modifications and adjustments almost certainly amount to an improvement, I look forward to integrating them into my tactics and techniques next week. I suspect this shaky liftoff has resulted in actionable knowledge that will result in extra dividends going forward.
It’s inevitable that someone is going to want to write a comment to let me know that the profits I am seeking are too small—that I should let my winning positions run and cut the losing ones short—but I don’t even respond to such advice anymore. What happened with AUDUSD today simply confirmed that while the buy-and-hold guys are watching their profits alternate between appearing and disappearing, I can make multiple successful trades, both with and sometimes even against the prevailing trend, to finish each day in the green (while a number of swing traders might end up essentially neutral or perhaps even in the midst of a drawdown). Unfortunately, I’m wrapping up my last few projects for a couple of clients before hopefully devoting myself fully to trading and did not have time to scalp AUDUSD and GBPUSD, so I was able to milk only one successful trade out of each instead of two or three. But that was still better than what would have happened had I tried to "hang in there" for an eventual “run,” which would have seen me stopped out of both positions before having the opportunity to collect any profits whatsoever. In any event, with the market makers pushing price in the other direction now, I opted to buy USDCAD and USDCHF as they turned around to join their overall trends, but since I still haven’t gotten back to my precise, detailed, scalping-like style of trading, I was once again unable to enter these positions at the optimum levels, and as a result, am currently in the red in both instances.