Is this a list of your mistakes? I don't think stopping journaling practice can help anyone. It took me a long time to be consistent with my journaling practice and I can clearly see how it has impoved my trading experience.
Exactly. Making a trading plan and making a written trading plan are two different things. You can believe that you can follow a mental plan properly but to be honest whoever thinks this is no less than a fool.
10 years is such a long time to invest on one style of trading. You have explored the trading world more than anyone else. I really appreciate that
when I finally took a decisive stop to - destroy my trading books, - decontaminate my mind from all the wrong, lousy teachings, - delete all the indicators and start to develop my old holy grail. It took > a decade, many many broken hearts, endless sleepless nights .... to develop it.
Market is unfair to every trader who thinks they can use the market to earn profits without putting any efforts. It's good that you understood the need of learning and took a step back to build a stronger foundation for your trading career.
good points. try talking to @NumberZ about this point. but then, better don't. it will shorten your life. people are treating trading books like a bible. I am glad I have burned / destroyed 90% of my trading books / course materials.
You should add to it: "I was not able to make money consistently". The decision was ( maybe, as you will never know what was best to do) right for you, but can be completely wrong for someone else. Most successes in life never come easy.
Tried a thousand times to put my trading plan on paper (or rather in Excel). But never succeeded as I was not able to completely describe every rule that would be valid. I am a discretionary trader and the logic is in my head. The logic is easier to handle than the rules that I apply (I think I have hundreds of different combinations that I trade). The logic works with a system of elimination, narrowing down the results of the logic to the action to be taken. If I would show my charts, nobody would be able to see what my rules are as there are many parameters that result in billions of theoretical results. I compare it with counting. You can try to memorize the result of each calculation you make (1+1=2; 1+4=5, 520/10=52, 2²=4...), or you can try to learn the underlying method of that math. If you understand the underlying method, you can theoretically make any calculation. You don't have to memorize millions, or billions of different outcomes of calculations. So, trading based on logical elimination of potential combinations, resulted in very good returns.
two rules manage risk or risk will manage you patience, the process needs to be boring took years to realize, sadly :]
I would think that logic could be broken down into rules. If/Then situations. If this happens then I'll do this. If you don't follow rules then you are trading emotionally and that will eventually end badly. If you don't have a rules based trading plan and your equity curve turns down, how do you know if the cause is the rules or the trader? Keep in mind that I'm swing trading and make most of my decisions when the market is closed. But I would think a rules based system would work even better if you are required to make decisions in seconds. Market Wizard Ed Seykota said "Always follow your rules without question and know when to break your rules" I guess you have to have a rule that tells you when to break your rules.