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While my trading remains profitable, I feel disappointed by the trading style I have adopted recently. I cannot seem to hold a larger move when all I have to watch is a tiny laptop screen. Even though I try to reassure myself that it should not be any different, it is amazing the power that my subconscious mind holds over my actions.
I am currently up 64 ticks on the day, but not a single win over 19 ticks. Had I followed my strategy this morning, believeing there was a sell zone labeled in red, I could be up 100 ticks on a single trade, for a FAR better reward to risk.
On the positive side, my scalping skills are getting a good workout as I move from one hotel to the next. My daily net is still producing wins, so that is not the problem.
My issue is one of pride, maybe? Or conditioning? Or beliefs? Or feeling like I am taking a step back? Becoming more of an amateur than what I am working towards? For some reason the increase in account balance does not feel significant, and I don't know why.
I think I know what you are getting at. I wrote about the same thing this morning on my journal.
I take the risk, I am commited to the trade, but, not committed enough to let it run, so I tighten my stop or reduce my target. In hindsight, had I let it run its course, it would have worked out much better.
It has to be a problem, because if I am turning my trend trades into scalps, its harder on me mentally. Maybe its ebnough to be aware of the tendency and try to correct it in the next session.
I read about your travel schedual. Thats a grind....airports, connections, taxis, hotels, strange bed, different food. Been there, done that myself. Try to trade...has to have an affect.
Tommorrow I am going to be more positive, and trust my analysis to let the trade run...
What is the most troubling to me is I feel like I am regressing. Somehow I am keeping my gains moving forward, but I do not really believe in the style in which I am doing it. It is a bittersweet win when I feel like I am trading immaturely. I made $700 + yesterday, scalping, and I think I would have preferred to have lost money trading for bigger swings.
My limited time windows within which I try to maintain my trading have shifted my mind in a way I can't seem to counteract. And, most troubling, I keep at it whether I am comfortable or not, like I crave the adrenaline rush.
I laugh out loud as I type this. I am apparently in love with trading and cannot bear to be without. But the intensity of that relationship seemed much more normal to me when I could sit and watch 24 hours a day.
I have meetings throughout today, drive back to DC tonight, fly to Denver in the morning, and still believe I am going to be watching for my trade in between. I spotted a coffee shop downtown where I expect to wind up for a few hours.
You should set your targets and let it run. I should too.
This morning I posted the above image. It did not have the typical fib lines, multiple zones, etc., that I usually have all over my charts. It wasn't because there were none to choose from, but what is drawn is all I considered significant this morning. What is interesting to me, is that the market chose one (the top), and then turned as if it agreed with me. lol!
Well, that is tough to answer directly. Trendlines area relevant to the day's activity only when they hit in certain circumstances and/or at certain times of the day. Take the upper red trendline today. Crude was decidedly bullish with it's local double bottom at support yesterday, and when I posted the chart image I considered taking a long trade to the trendline, but I had too much else going on and so missed a good trade.
So I passed (regretfully) and watched the market later when I had a couple hours. Heavy selleing volume met the buyers after the trendline break, so it looked like it had a good chance of holding, but the ES started on an upwards rage which seemed to make CL very jumpy. You could see that even though CL started to fall, it really struggled to do so. That is where (in my interpretation) the intermarket connection came in. So today, it just gave an interesting place to watch, but a tough place to trade.
Let's pretend things were different, say the market opened, hit the uppertrendline, heavy volume selling, but it was around say 8-10am. And then we had a 6 range reversal early in the trading day. That setup would say go short to me for sure. And, if the ES could figure out how to go down (which it can't seem to do very well lately), it might say to hold on for awhile.
I am now short in QM, because I relax more with the half-size fluctuations, based on the reaction this morning at the upper trendline and the potential for a double top. My swing trades are very rare, and actually not as good percentage wise as my day trades, because I am not trying to read the market nonstop while in the trade. But, it is based on the fact that while ES would not let go until after the close, CL headed down all the way into it's 2:30EST close. And while I don't really have any confirmation other than that (CL is still technically bullish), I am trying something new for myself.
For about a month, I have been thinking about this, in the past few days...that thought has become action. Sitting in my chair awaiting a set-up, sometimes for hours in an increasingly Jekyll & Hyde, bot driven, dead one minute & vicious the next is eroding my patience, not the way I intend to trade for the rest of my career. This is not efficient use of time and effort.
I recently got in touch with a swing trader, I am a little envious of his success (okay, a lot ). But much more crucially, I am jealous of that fact that his time commitment to charts and trading is about 2hrs day or less. He is using 2 things I have never seriously considered - bigger swings take bigger charts (240M, D & W)...and those occur in every market. I am currently focused on trading every damn squiggle (!) in one or two. He is looking at one setup on 34 markets. Which takes far less time, curiously. Either it's there or not.
I am beginning to think this intra day scalping grind (or even intra day swing) is going to take it's toll - on my sleeping patterns, my habits, my nature, my health and eventually my life. As a personal style evolution, I would like to trade swings like these below (I just picked 2 randomly)...I could have chosen dozens more...trading for 200, 300, 400, 800....ticks and not 30.
As that style evolves, a small sub account will continue to day trade (to satisfy that addictive craving in me) and the wealth generating part will come from the larger portion of the account swing trading multi basket futures. And initially that will take more effort to setup...wait, I thought the idea was to spend less time....Damn!
PS - a crucical element is that as I like naked charts more, trading larger TF goes hand in hand with that....we are coming full circle. There is irony in that (naked charts, some random lines, more random lines, indicators, more indicators...and back to naked charts). The market humbles me everyday, until I finally realize I must break down, give up and unlearn everything.
A very insightful post and it mirrors my feelings at this point as well. The daily grind of not just trading but everything else combined leaves me so little time for ... well, life.
But then again, it could be a great source of frustration to buy ES early this week, for example, near the lows, and then wake up this morning to a 0 profit, after having been up the whole week. It's this kind of risk that daytrading reduces. But daytrading introduces its own set of risk that is potentially greater. Tough call.