Weekend Reflection: I'm loving the Convergent Trading 30-Day Challenge, but my trading has been way below par for the 2 weeks since I joined the CT Community. I came into February with a consistent 40%+ win rate (at least 2-3 days a week at 50% or better). I came in confident in my trading strategy, which is Market-Profile-based. I know what setups I'm looking for on different types of days (in-balance and out-of-balance days). I was getting pretty consistent at taking structured trades moving away from scalping. What I most wanted to improve were several issues about my temperament and my propensity to sabotage my own success. This sabotage usually is a 4-step experience that goes like this:
I do thorough pre-market prep: at least 2 hypos that I've studied, charted, written out, and visualized, and for each of which I have developed a tactical Trading Plan.
I execute my Trading Plan and more often than not and given my consistent win rate and my search for trades with 1:3+ risk/reward ratio, I consistently see nice green numbers.
Then... AFTER I've executed those well-prepared trades, instead of going back through another prep/study/visualize, and plan process (say, for the afternoon session), I just start trading what I see in the DOM. And this eats into all the fruit of my hard pre-market work.
Once I see my gains being eaten away (or disappear altogether), I start trading on tilt (no process, no study, no visualization, no nothing).
It was to address this downside of my Game that I joined the CT Community and took on the 30-Day Challenge.
But, in addition to all the positives that came with joining the CT Community (chatrooms, accountability partners and groups, great instructional content, journal discipline, etc.), I also found myself suddenly dealing with a type of interference I've never experienced before. I began to hear people mentioning Gann fans, Donchian Channels, Pitchforks, several kinds of "mids", and dozens of other technical terms I'd never heard before and much less used in my trading. Further complicating my rather simple brainworks, I noticed that the spots I where was entering long trades were the same ones others were shorting. I allowed the interference to knock me off my Game a bit.
Now, I want to learn as much as I can about the ES market, and I want to trade with others (solo is solo). I've met several traders in the past couple of weeks who are pretty good at executing their own trading plans their strategies are simply different than mine. Their edge is different than my edge, that's all.
So I've reflected over this long weekend and came to this agreement with myself: I'll focus on executing my edge only. I've worked too hard to develop it, and I can keep working to improve it. What I can't do, is start trying to trade someone else's edge. They too have worked for years to develop their edge, and I respect their hard work and their edges. It's simply not fair to them or to myself for me to allow their carefully crafted trading strategies to interfere with my own, or for mine to interfere with theirs.
This doesn't mean I can't support, encourage, offer a nudge here or there if asked I'm in the Community to help others achieve their goals and I need their help in achieving my own. But I need to learn to do what FT71, Tendex, Nanaimo, and others are showing us. Those CT head traders share what they see in the market, and they help us see what the market is telling us but they don't spell out the fine details of when/why they entered each trade, why they placed their stop at such-and-such a spot, or why they scaled out when they did. Rather, they teach, encourage, and enlighten while allowing us to develop our own edges and strategies. In fact, that's where they want us to find our success in our own hard-earned edge.
So this week, I will eagerly continue to support and encourage and root for my Accountability …