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Hey Brian , always a pleasure reading your thread , Hapy Birthday to your baby , Wishing you all a joyful life ,
Funny how kids love that chocolate fountain Lol , my kids do too
Cheers
Soumi
"Risk more than others think safe.
Dream more than others think practical.
Expect more than others think possible.
Care more than others think wise"
I took yesterday off. I was exhausted for some reason and just could not work. I planned on working today as well and totally overslept. I guess somethings going on. Not sure what it is but I'm not working again until at least Monday. It feels like my body needs rest.
Could be all the back issues, the being sick, the heat, the pressure from trading,etc....but just feels like a soft crash.....
Til next week then.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Been watching the Olympics quite a bit. I've never really thought about it but these guys train for years to become good enough to enter a race that might last all of 9 seconds. Once they qualify for the final, there is the waiting around for the race day and then the entrance to the arena, more waiting and then finally there is the actual race.
They are deathly still for a second or two and then bam.....they explode with all the energy and strength they have. If a competitor seems to be gaining on them, they can attempt to increase the pace they run or swim at, in other words, they can try harder.
I was thinking about this in terms of trading. There is a lot of time learning the craft, which basically consists of learning how to wait, then there is the part where you click the button which lasts about 1 second, then there's more waiting.
We require the same level of discipline an Olympic athlete requires to become successful yet when our waiting is over, there is no explosion of physical activity to release the pent up adrenaline. Instead, we click and then we wait some more. No wonder so many traders fail. Once the waiting for a set up is over, its just more waiting. No release. Its more like a marathon than the 100 meter sprint, we wait and wait, the race starts and then we have to wait a long time to determine the outcome.
As a trader, we need to prepare for the long term. On a daily basis, I think this means a trader must have something that occupies the time between set ups. And then have something that allows for physical exertion to expel the tension build up.
Something to think about.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Great analogy !!! Totally agree....ideal would be to have a gym in your office....so you enter a trade and go to let some energy go to work the anxiaty.....or if no room for a gym enter a trade and do let say some crouches, fix bycicle, weights, abs, etc....
Well last week I think I broke this income level thing. I've been averaging a few dollars more than this mental threshold block I had for a few days now but last tuesday I had a break out day. I hit more than 7 times this so called threshold. It happened because I got to a place where I as already above the threshold by a couple of hundred dollars and I almost quit right there. But I decided to keep trading and see if i could smash the mental block.
So next trade I went max size for my risk tolerance, entered the trade and off it went. I got lucky in that it was a winner right away but it just kept running. I took the target off, took 1/2 the position off and let the rest run a bit more. Right about that time, I lost focus and went into what I call the emotional fog of war. I couldn't think or function rationally. I just closed the remaining position at that point. It ran another 50 ticks or so from that point but that was by far my largest trade ever.
I stopped trading at that point, walked away from the charts and didn't come back to them until Thursday. Even then I didn't trade. I just watched. Actually I slept in on Thursday because I couldn't seem to wake up early like normal. When I finally got up, the trading day was half over already. Same on Friday. I think the emotion of having a huge winning day was the straw that broke the camels back on the long road I have been on.
I've slept more the last few days than I have in probably two years. I feel better now than I have in a long time and ready to go back to work for real on Monday.
Tuesday was an outlier. I won't be trying to duplicate it anytime soon. But somewhere between the old mental threshold and that outlier is a reasonable spread to look for every day. But more importantly, I now know to stop looking for a specific number every day and instead just look for the setups, take them and if I get 1 set up or 10, I just take them and whatever I get out of it is what I get.
No expectations, just trade.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Didn't trade yesterday. Instead I just watched and marked. There were only a couple of signals anyway although it would have been a nice trading day from a profit standpoint. Can't really explain why I didn't trade. To be totally honest, I just didn't feel like it. I was rested and alert but mentally I wasn't ready to trade.
Today I traded. I got exactly two signals. Both of which I took. One was a winner I bailed out of early for a small profit, the second I took a loss on even though the trade premise was not over. I then took the exact same trade again, made most of my money back and then watched as price just climbed and climbed with no signals for me. I finally got short at the end, made enough money to be positive on the day and called it a day.
The mechanics of my trading are pretty well set now. Signals are clear, entries are easy most of the time, being disciplined on the exits will probably always be an area of improvement the rest of my career. I am ok with that.
Cheers.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris