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I really miss reading your posts and looking at your trades.
I want to thank you very much for your contribution. For month I have struggling on how to incorporate volume in my trading system. And each time I tried a new idea it was not working. At some point I completely discarded this important information and my system was not so profitable. I knew I had to do something but I didn't knew what. And I found your trading journal. I read avidly all your posts, I watched some of your video and for my trading system it has been like night and day.
Thanks again and good trading
Okina Tora.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
Hi there. It sounds like you are making some progress and you are right about how important the mental side of this is. I have had a decent system for a while, but my mind and emotions prevented me from being consistent for years. Mastering that has been the biggest challenge.
I understand not wanting to keep going on a good day, for fear of losing back your wins. One thing I do sometimes is to have a "trailing loss for the day" once I am up. For example, if I am up 50 ticks or so, I decide what is the most I am willing to lose back for the day. So, maybe I might decide, I will only allow myself to lose back 10 ticks and quit on a 40 tick day. Or if I am seeing what I think is huge momentum, then I might not want to limit myself to only one more loss. I might allow 20 ticks of loss and stop at 30 for the day. It depends on what kind of day I am seeing.
However, if you are up nicely on the day and it is getting late..and the market isn't surging..you might want to quit while you are up.
Also, if you continue to trade while you are up nicely, you have to totally accept you might lose the next few trades and end up even or a little down on the day. That seems terrible, but the other possibility is you could have a huge winning day. If you can accept losing everything back (or a little back)..and you don't fear it....and the market is giving you a setup that you really, really like..then take it. If not, just quit on a good day.
Things are continuing to go well and I have been still consistently hitting my minimum tick goal each week, I did, however, have a few weeks where I took several impulsive trades that did not meet my criteria. Most all of these trades lost and I found myself spending many sessions just having to make up for the early losses.
As I reviewed my performance and watched my recorded sessions, I realized I was not following certain steps of my system. I imagine after being consistent for a while, I started operating on "auto-pilot." In other words, when I "felt" like something was a good trade, I just jumped in without hesitation. After all, I figured I've been doing this so long that my brain should just automatically recognize a good setup and there shouldn't be any need for much thought.
Now, I know they are some very good traders out there that don't need much examination of an entry..They just put on a trade and if it works in their favor, they add more contracts on. If it goes against them, they might hold for 50 ticks or more of heat before bailing. They don't really concern themselves with thing such as "market conditions" and things that I pay a lot of attention to. I, however, am not one of these traders. I go "all in, all out." I always put on a full position, since my statistics prove I have a certain win percentage and weekly target. All I care about is building my account until I can trade the maximum possible amount of contracts and just continue to do what I have been doing.
Well, I realized a big part of my system was doing a verbal commentary on what price was doing, what potential setups were appearing, and looking for any adverse reasons not to take the trade. There are so many tempting moves every day that it is easy to see setups all the time. But I realized a while ago, that I could not trust the multitude of silent thoughts and impulses that go through my head at any given moment while trading. "Wait this is moving down fast...I better jump in now!" Never mind that there's some serious support right underneath..or maybe the price is just wildly swinging up and down..with no real direction.
That's why by announcing the setup type ( I have about 4), I know it fits into my parameters. Also, by doing a quick checklist (looking at a higher timeframes, looking for price congestion areas in the way of my target, determining if there is enough momentum, looking at the context of overall market conditions so far), I can make an informed decision whether to take the trade or pass on it.
I know now, that I need to keep doing all the exact same things that have helped me be consistent all these months. As much as I like the idea of trading with "unconscious competence", I can not skip any of my steps. Each step was formulated to compensate for a weakness I had, and they were all there for a reason .
The good news is that I still had winning weeks even though I made a lot of mistakes...and I am definitely back on track, again.
Great to hear about your continued success. I think I speak for many people when I say that you are an inspiration to us.
Thank you for this post. This is something I need to keep reminding myself of, and Im a beginner! Sometimes, I'll have a run of great days/weeks, and I'll think "Ok, this is easy, I got this!", then I just get hammered by the market. I still have not tried the commentary, will try soon. Little by little though, I am getting better with the impulses and emotions. Next step is patience, and WAITING. The key for me is waiting. I cant tell you how many times waiting a little longer would put me in a great winning trade with a better entry and less risk. I think I will be ready soon, thanks in large part to Lance and this amazing thread.
Lance and other members...I hope you are well...the year has certainly made for some interesting trading...through February I completed 15 days of trading about 3 hours a day...my summary results are below...any feedback is welcome...
Hi Lance,
I came across your thread today.
Seems very very interesting. I want to know that from which post number should i start reading the post as it started couple of years ago. Let me know from which post it is good start to start learning the current method you are using.
Hi there. This looks like exceptional trading. I seem to remember you posting something like this a while back. I would be interested in knowing a little more about your style of trading. For example, are you trading mostly CL?..what is your entry criteria?..etc. Obviously you are getting good results, so perhaps you could elaborate more on what you are doing.
Lance, I am not sure if I would call it exceptional trading...It is hard to judge without know what type of daily gains other day traders achieve. What I do know is that it has take me a year and hard work to get to this stage. But I am very grateful...because to know that your trading plan is successful and repeatable is a real reward. Here is a quick attempt to answer your questions...
Okay here is some reflection...
...when I first started trading futures it was to hedge my option selling...I then started to see it could work...so I look to have a winning trade per day of say 50 ticks...Sam Kinchin then talked to me about writing a trading plan and for the past 2 years this has been my primary focus and driver to trading...about the middle of last year I asked myself about what are my trading goals...It was then that I considered it was reasonable to have 3 winning trades per day and gain 300-400 per trade to make a 1K day...I then said why not a 4K week and a 12K month...So this approach became the goals stated in my trading plan...now my option selling trades can be as long a 60 days and they are truly EOD trades...so approaching futures I transferred this thinking from option selling to futures....but that did not translated...mainly because of psychology...So to get my 1K day I took an intraday approach and short quick trades based MA crossovers...because that is where I believe momentum is born...So my style has become to take and hold multiple trades for 30-50 ticks with CL ZB ES and EC...my setups occur regularly through the day on these and I am fortunate enough to be able to handle the margin requirement...for me this thread is about reflecting and looking at my approach and continuing to explore goal based trading...
My entry criteria for a trade is to use the hour chart and the 1500vol chart and confirm that the 21 and 75ma are sloping in favour of the direction in which I am trading...so my two primary trades setups are...
Spine Break
“If a price bar breaks the spine in favour of the vein, enter at the value of the spine or on the confirmation bar.”
Vein Break
“If a price bar breaks the vein in favour of the spine, enter at the value of the vein or on the confirmation bar.”