Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I have been focusing more on the mental side of trading, using Martins book the Inner Voice of Trading.
He puts tremendous emphasis on keeping losses small, with hard stops and in some cases, time stops. If the price hasnt moved for a certain period of time, he closes out the trade. A trade wil ussually start to make money right away.
My focus was on 2 things. Cutting losses before my stop was hit, if the trade didnt appear to be working, and to place my trades right above or below S/R, dependent on price action.
At the open, I missed the big selloff, as it dropped from the pit open. Ther was some news that may have pointed ot weakness, but because price ran up just before the open, off of yeaseterddays low, i felt it better to wait.
Well almost 200 ticks down. Well, after a big move like that, there is generally consolidation, so CL lapsed into a tight range roughly 75 ticks.
I was loking for longs off the bottom, anticipating a swing higher. never really developed before I was finished for the day.
Question: Why should I use you as my broker?
Answer: I will lose you less.
I made a mistake on my 3rd trade. Should neve have gone long there, off that doji... Volume wasnt there, and it went bad right form the beginning. Kind of a hanging out there trade. -16 ticks on that mess.
The other trades I was satisfied with, but after the move, it was a very tight range.
7 trades today.
+8+7-16+13-7+11+15=+31
Apart from the 1 mistake, i am pleased with how it went. not my best, but not my worst either.
I am determined to cut my losses short, and let my winners run.
So today, instead of stubbornly waiting for my stop to get hit, i was more willing to tighten it, based on teh premise that even if the trade is BE, I should consider that a winning trade. Anytime you dont loose money, its a winning trade.
Every trade has a 50% chance of winning and a 50% chance of losing. Trading is about mathematical probability, and all successful traders have losing trades. Accpting losses is a big part of successfull trading. If you cannot accept losses, you cannot be a succesful trader. I would argue that ones losing trades tells you more about how to trade successfully than winning trades.
Back in the summer of 2008, my cousin was in China, getting a prototype manufactured for his company for testing. The company wanted to be paid in Euros, not US dollars, which he thought was very strange, because that was the first time they ever requested that. For him, he thought somethng bad was going to happen...So when he got back to Canada, he sold his investments and went to cash. He didnt loose a nickel. How does he descibe it? A fluke, because if he hadnt had that bad feeling, he never would have went to cash when he did.
Did they know something? Donst matter if they did or not. he was in cash when it went down. Sometimes you very best trade is know when to get out.
Today, I had adoctors appointment, so i missed that big outlier in th CL. Would I have been in that trade when it ripped up? Tough one to answer...cant say for sure.
3 trades earlier that were BE before I had to leave.
I had 12 trades total, but 7 were scratch trades, and they were really attached to the trades that I actually listed. its a little differnt method that wnhat i ahve been doing, but i am trying to illiminate big losing trades. If i keep my losses small, the gains wil take care of themselves.
Almost 30% my total for the week was on a single trade.
33 trades this week, just over 6 a day.
Trading right around 70% winners/losers. But that is a little misleading, because a BE trade is considered a winning trade.
Average loser is slightly bigger than my average winner. Dont know if that is a significant statistic, because winning trades take into consideration BE trades. So whether its a 1 tick winner, or a 50 tick winner, the magnitude isnt a consideration.
I am pleased with how things went this week. i have a coue of areas I would liek to improve on. Having trouble finding another broker. Its partially a Canada thing and a timing thing.
And a coule of computer issues I need to resolve. Might get another computer, to use a backup. Right now I have a laptop for that, but it needs to be upgraded.
I wont be able to trade tommorrow, but I wil replay the day tommorrow evening prior to reviewing any posts by way of practice.
I am involved in some volunteer work, and I have decided to take tommorrow off to particpate, to a larger degree. I do volunteer on a weekly basis, but tommorow I will be starting early and will be busy all day. I wont be able to be at my investment office tommorrow afternoon either, as my assistant will cover for me tommorrow. I will be heading north of where I live, and if you see it on a map, it way out of even cellphone distance. Its, Armstrong, Ontario , Canada. If you use google earth, you will have some idea gow how isolated it really is, considering the area. Northewestern Ontario is an area larger than the state of Texas, but the population is less than a 500,000. Its great if you like the outdoors.
I am going to set up an LLC for my trading business. Canadian rules are similar to US rules, therefore, if I set up an LLC for trading, the income I earn from investments I can split with my wife and children by paying them a reasonable salary. In addition, i can buy my cars and insurances through the company, and only pay taxes on the personal use of the vehiclesThere are significant benefits to operating this way. Virtualy all business related expenses are tax deductable to the LLC. Of course, a business tax returns, in addition to personla retunrs, has to be filled yearly.
True to what I was doing, I was away from my office all day. Left at 7 am, got back at 6pm, had dinner, and then I recorded and replayed the days activities, taking trades as if it was live real time off off my replay.
Well not the whole day, I am too tired as it is after 9, and you can stick a fork in me cause I am done.
Had to get my trading computer redone on the weekend. Windows had to be reloaded. There were a couple of issues, including webinar and skype and file download issues, so i had it gone over, Of course, now I have to set up all my charts and templates from my files. What a chore! Note to self, Get and set up a parallel trading computer a mirror of desktop I am using to insure redundentg sytems like email addresses and chart histories. All that stuff diacppears when a harddrive is formatted, but you all know this right?
Gonna take few nights to get it setup. going to get a laptop as a backup, the one I am using is too slow. Likely and I5 with more ram and a better video card.
So I traded the replay like it was live...seems like ti worked ok.
Started the tape at 8:15 am and placed my last trade after 9.
My replay record.
6 trades
+11+6+3-11+20=+29
Had enough as it been a very long day. Gonna have a cold beer, play my guitar a bit, then hit the sack.
Back at my monitor for 8:15 today. Ready to go, have my computer set up and I itching to get going...but...I have some electrical panel problem.
Keeps spiking and kicking in my surge protector and kicking me off line. So I am using my laptop instead, my backup computer.
Its OK for the first 90 minutes, then my modem kicks out. Its a sticking circuit breaker. Making some noise, so I have to get an electrician in replace the breaker. I turned it off and on a couple of times, and it seems to be OK now, but I still need to have some one check it out. Ah the joys of home ownership. Last week it was the computer module in the furnace, this week, a circuit breaker.
Another tight range day as of this writing. I was more consious of the ticght range anfter the opening, and the lack of volume, and I traded with that in mind. All in the interest of only taking what the market is giving.
4 trades today. Missed a nice setup around 9:35 as I took a long distance call from Korea. I ame back to see a pretty good move in the CL. Cant win them all. If I am willing to take phone calls during my active screen time, I have to miss out occassionally. no sense in getting upset about it...
I like to think of myself as a practical minded person. Everything we decide to do costs something...in time, which, in my opinion, is the most precious asset.
So if I am going to spend my time trading, it has to be beneficial. It has to pay, it has to be profitable. And it has to stay profitable. Otherwise, its a waste of time.
If one isnt profitable trader, you should figure out how to get profitable. The only way I can learn how to be profitable trader is to emulate profitable traders. Can you be a clone? Likely not. At least it dosnt appear to be the case. One can use, or borrow someones experience, but ultimately, one has to gain their own experiences and come to grips with what they want to do, and how they want to do it. I dont think that means that you must blow up an account to be successful, or lose thousands of dollars in order to pay your dues. The thought that one has to experince significant loss in order to experience trading success dosnt seem right. It may serve to strengthen ones resolve to do better next time, but, it is as likely to cause someone to quit alltogether, and seek to do something else with ones time.
One trader wrote that if one is going to treat trading as a hobby, then you will lose money. Go to Las Vegas instead. Its more fun and the food is better.
If, however, you treat trading as a profession, which it is, you have to become a professional. That means a professional education, professional training and a professional income from the activity. Seems logical to me.
4 trades today.
-13+27+8+15=+37
First trade, it was pre market, hadnt really formed the bottom as I tried to get in early on what I expected was a double bottom. It was a reasonable theory in hind sight, as I caught a good trade a few minutes later, but I had bad entry that pulled back and hit my stop. I closed it out because I recognized immediatly how bad a trade i made, and, as we all know, just because we can see in hindsight it turned around and strated higher, in real time, the bottom could have easily have fallen out.
One take away from FT71 webinar that I have found helpful is the concept of putting my limit orders in logical areas. Instead of waiting for the close of the signal bar, or confirmation, it makes more sense to place them in areas where buyers or sellers are going to waiting, and then getting on the right side of them. What buyers and sellers? high volume ones of course. Still figuring that out.
First 3 trades were winners, but only marginally so. All were longs, so I was expecting we might see a
bull trend day, but I was open to whatever developed.
I missed the big down trend in the CL this morning. I was thinking anout it and I almost took the short when price paused at the EMA. It just didnt feel right, so I didnt take it.
My internet connection was intermitant after that, and I could not figure out why. But my data feed would drop on my trading computer, but not on my backup laptop. Of course the last thing I want to do is to have my connection go out in the middle of a trade. i felt it better, given the situation, to wait to see if the problem corrected itself after i rebooted the computer a couple of times. It seems to, but by then, most of the move was over, so i missed most of it. I was looking for a reversal off the daily low, but the best I could do was a little 4 tick BE trade that I had working for almost an hour before I had to call it a day.
I am seriously thinking of ngetting a second computer, with a second modem and data feed in the interest of redundency.
Didnt get started till after 9:30, as I had a few things to take care of first thing this morning.
I wasnt expecting much today, after the big trend down yesterday, so i thought that today would likely be a range day.
First trade was a short, that I got for 22 ticks. I bought blind on the pb after the bear bar. In fact, I have been attempting to buy support and sell resistance where I see it on the 5 minute based on PA. I am getting more confortable with the process.
7 trades
+22+21-16+20+14+27= +88
For the week
Monday replay +29 (Will not count in the total for the week)
In the spirit of our March Trading Journal contest, I am asking everyone to spend a few minutes and share their journaling experience.
A) What are the top five benefits you have seen as a result of regularly posting in this journal?
B) What are the top five problem areas you have identified as a result of regularly posting in this journal?
C) Were you initially reluctant to start this trading journal? If yes, why?
D) How do you feel, overall, about your journaling experience?
E) Would you recommend to others that they should also start a trading journal?
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I appreciate your posts, and I hope you have benefited from your journal. I also know that others will benefit as well, just by reading about your own experiences.
