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1/7/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 15, -25t
Took 15 trades in sim but it was a day to take 35 or more trades. By 8:15 I realized only 3 trades taken while half dozen great trades each getting to at least 30 ticks went by.
Oil inventory and FOMC had me a little cautious which I didn’t have to be. At 8:15 I decided I would try as hard as possible to get to 20 trades regardless of results. I was going to make something of nothing and get back in the mode of trading.
This got me more focused and trying to take advantage of everything. Got to +30t on a bunch of scalps then gave it all back at the end of the day just trying to get the trade count up.
Was only able to get 15 trades in because the markets stopped moving due to FOMC (except NG which I could have traded heavily). No worries, it was a nice experience.
Attitude was better. Got a little upset with passing on so many great trades but did not get discouraged with losses.
Tomorrow:
-Take 20 trades minimum regardless of market conditions. The idea is that this will encourage me to take trades early when volatility is present or be forced to trade late in the chop.
-Keep perspective that I am in a new phase and not to get emotional.
-Take A+ trades live if available.
1/8/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 20, +63t
Trade quality was way up today. I reached my goal of 20 minimum trades and was generally very calm and even keeled today.
There were times where I actually found price action amusing. Especially when, time after time, I would enter and price would immediately reverse for minor pull backs that seemed to last forever, reminding me that this is not a game for the faint of heart.
The goal of taking 20 trades goaded me into taking trades on viable set ups even when I didn’t want to. The markets were slow, (except for NQ, more on that later) so I had to take advantage of every set up I could.
The following statistics were encouraging:
-On 16 of 20 attempts price made it to +11 ticks (80%) before -15 ticks. Meaning, if I chose, I could take a 10 tick profit on 16 trades and a 15 tick loss on 4 trades. This would yield a net 100 ticks.
-On 14 of 20 attempts price made it to +16 ticks (70%) before -15 ticks. Meaning, if I chose, I could take a 15 tick profit on 14 trades and a 15 tick loss on 6 trades. This would yield a net 120 ticks.
-On 11 of 20 attempts price made it to +21 ticks (55%) before -15 ticks. Meaning, if I chose, I could take a 20 tick profit on 11 trades and a 15 tick loss on 9 trades. This would yield a net 85 ticks.
-Only 30% got to +31 ticks which would have yielded a net negative day.
So it appears that taking the 1:1 target would have yielded the best results today. The bottom line is that taking trades in good locations makes for more productive trading.
The biggest negative for the day was not taking advantage of the incredible run in NQ. I managed +30 ticks but there were at least 4 great opportunities that I passed on because it was riding the top channel line and I thought it might reverse at any moment.
Tomorrow:
-Once again take 20 trades minimum regardless of market conditions.
-Maintain the good perspective that I am in a new phase and not to get emotional.
-Take A+ trades if available.
1/9/15 Friday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 24, -13t broken down as follows:
Sim Trades, using method as defined by rules: 21 trades, +44t
Sim Trades, trying some experimental contrarian trades: 3 trades, -58t
Tried some experimental trades to take advantage of areas where I thought a failure might occur on the trend line break out. Didn't work out so good. Will need to develop better rules for counter trading
Trading my method yielded +44 ticks. Accomplished minimum 20 trades. Trade quality was down at under 50% getting to +16t before -15t. This made it hard to get any traction. Missed some good moves that got +30t. I guess the required minimum 20 trades is not enough!
The idea of forcing myself to take 20 minimum trades is working out well. It causes me to take advantage of as much as I can. It also creates a lot of samples for statistics that can be analyzed.
Attitude was not great after passing on too many good trades. I seem to be at a point where the trades I don't take are in some ways more important than the trades I take. I hate missing good trades because I need these to make up for the inevitable losses.
I was a bit down in spirits at the end of the day due to the -13t losses but I need to remind myself that -58t of those losses came on experimental trades that went 180 degrees against my rules. The irony is that had I taken those three trades in the direction of my rules I would have had a great day! Something positive to think about.
1/12/15 Monday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 21, -42t
Positives:
-Logged 21 more trades, accomplishing goal of 20 minimum. Creating samples.
-Was generally relaxed on entry and after. Kept good attitude
-Did not lose real money
Negatives;
-Once again, for some reason stayed out of the best moves (NQ)
-trade quality not very good. Only 30% got to +16t before -15t
-Draw down was way too big (-$750)
In analyzing “successes” and “failures” trade areas as marked on charts in purple and orange arrows it appears that I take a much higher percentage of failure areas than success areas as follows:
Successes: took 6 of 22 = 27%
Failures: took 11 of 19 = 58%
Many of my failures occur either against trend, late in the move or in chop. Of course, many of the successes also occur in what I think is late in the move, so that may not be the best criteria for avoiding trades. But, I do tend to get the courage to enter after I have seen a lot of movement. Bad habit!
Some of the failures were also what I would consider good trades that just didn’t work.
The bottom line is that I don’t really know which trades will work and which won’t so I really have to be willing to take them all. Today this would have meant hitting the button at least 41 times.
That’s a lot of trades but if it results in 300 plus ticks I would be more than willing to do so. I would rather average 8 ticks on 41 trades than 70 ticks on one trade.
Tomorrow:
-Once again take 20 trades minimum regardless of market conditions.
-With each set up visualize yourself at the end of the day marking the charts with purple and orange arrows. Will this set up be one that you took or passed on?
-Maintain the good perspective that I am in a new phase and not get emotional.
-Take A+ trades if available. Come on, you can do it!
I think you should be wary of putting hard numbers or set goals like number of trades per day, or profit per day. they both suffer from the same issue, that you end up forcing something. The market dictates the amount of opportunity per day and each day provides a unique amount of that opportunity. Setting a fixed amount of trades per day, especially if you want to take good ones. May not get the results you desire, because as you mentioned if the markets slow down you may have to force trades in order to make your benchmark. Or if you had a max amount of trades but there were more than 20 opportunities, then you would be cutting yourself short.
IMHO you should try to optimize percentage of viable trades taken. This way it is not a fixed number as you can not force the market but you are maximizing your own personal actions you control. So try to take 90% or more of the viable opportunity. E.G. 20 viable entries that followed the rules, properly executed 17, so 85% execution efficiency. It will still improve yourself as a trader and you stay flexible to changing market conditions.
Treydog, thank you for your comments. You are correct on all fronts. I would not normally incorporate daily profit goals or minimum trades into a trading plan, especially with real money.
What I am doing currently is an exercise, in sim, to overcome what I believe are obstacles to my long term success. One of those obstacles is hesitation, resulting in passing on too many successful trades that fulfill my rules, especially in the beginning of the day when volatility and movement are high.
I am trying to goad myself into taking trades even when I don't want to.
I am also trying to prove to myself that my rules produce results if followed properly.
1/13/15 Tuesday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 18, +31t
Marked trades in real time using colored arrows to reduce hindsight bias and to stay engaged all day.
-Purple arrows for set ups that traveled at least +31 ticks.
-Orange for set ups that hit -15 tick stop.
-Yellow for set ups that didn’t quite make it to +31 but got far enough to comfortably move stop to BE, i.e. +20 ticks.
Results as follows:
Successes: took 5 of 21 = 24%
Failures: took 7 of 17 = 41%
Neutral: took 5 of 11 = 45%
Minimum potential for the day taking 30 ticks profit, 15 tick losses and BE on neutral trades: 49 trade areas, +345 ticks.
Most of the gains came on a big movement day in NQ so I can’t expect this as a norm, but a day like this could make up for a lot of mediocre or losing days.
Once again took more of the failure trades than the success trades, both in actual numbers and in percentages. Not sure why this is. I need to figure out the psychology of this.
Only got in 18 trades, missing my 20 minimum trade target. Passed on 5 trades in a row in NQ that each got +30t from 6:00 to 6:45. By 8:00 I only had 5 trades. I should have easily achieved my 20 trade goal by then. With 49 set ups according to my rules I should have been hitting the button all day.
Tomorrow:
-Once again take 20 trades minimum regardless of market conditions.
-Mark set ups in real time with colored arrows. If it gets an arrow it gets a trade!
-Maintain the good perspective that I am in a new phase and not get emotional.
-Take A+ trades if available. Come on, you can do it!
1/14/15 Wednesday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 13, +4t
Only managed 13 trades out of 46 marked set ups. Not even close to accomplishing the “if it gets an arrow it gets a trade”. The markets where a little slower. It was not the day to take a live trade.
I think in part I am terrified of going all-in on my ideas for fear that they will fail miserably and I will be left to ask, “now what.”
My analysis over the past few weeks has not shown this, but as luck would have it, any time I have tried such an approach I do it on a day that it shouldn’t be done. Need to get through this very thick barrier
Colored arrow markers in real time as follows:
Successes: took 6 of 18 = 33%
Failures: took 4 of 18 = 22%
Neutral: took 3 of 10 = 30%
Minimum potential if I managed to hold every trade properly: +240t, 150 of it on NG. This is the advantage of trading multiple independent instruments.
Another thing I need to start working on is entering trades in the proper location at the point of confirmation and holding them to fruition.
The general rule of trading in the direction of clear channels, then looking the other direction when the channel breaks seems to be the way to go. The clearer the channel the better. Also, when a channel breaks look to see if a larger channel can be reasonably built. If so, be wary of changing direction just yet.
Tomorrow:
-Once again take 20 trades minimum regardless of market conditions.
-Pay close attention to the channel for direction, and the channel break rules.
-Mark set ups in real time with colored arrows. If it gets an arrow it gets a trade!
-Maintain the good perspective that I am in a new phase and not get emotional.
-Take A+ trades if available. Come on, you can do it!
A couple late postings while nothing is going on...
1/15/15 Thursday
Live Trades: 0
Sim Trades: 44, -59t
Really tried to take every trade that I put an arrow to. Did my best to ignore results but instead to go through the process and see what happened. Some points:
-Due to the nature of the movement in several of the instruments it was exhausting to trade, write down my trades, put in arrows etc. Not sure if trading like that is sustainable on high volatility days.
-I still missed a handful of successful trades that I recognized in real time. These misses were costly to the results.
The high volatility was hard to keep up with, forcing me to make rash evaluations. This probably caused a few too many bad marks.
-a couple of the misses were due to trying to work a better price rather than hitting the market button. It dawned on me that working entries will always get me into the losing trades but will sometimes cause me to miss the winning trades.
I need more screen real estate. Following four markets on two 23 inch screens does not allow me to see each market in full as it develops throughout the day.
-Regardless of the results I feel that the exercise was very useful. I always learn something new when I do something like this, more so than just sitting there watching that markets all day and not doing anything.