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I do get overwhelmed with all the information on this forum. I take it one day at a time with the info because its just so much. I'd rather have too much than not enough. This way I can pick out what i want to use and what I dont wan t to use.
It's only been a couple of days and i am already getting the hang of sierra. going through their help forum and watching videos on youtube has definitely given me an advantage.
Thanks again
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"
I started following your journal in September, so I only read the profitable part of your journey to "Softgold". Your journal is extremely detailed and I always assumed that was the way you approached your trades. I'm sorry you had a rough start, but I'm kind of relieved. It shows me that with some perseverance and commitment and can be a better trader (at least profitable).
Your challenge seems a bit ..... Challenging... I will accept your challenge and give it a try, but I am sure that my journal with pale in comparison to yours. Let me first get a hang of this Sierra Charts. I think I'm almost there.
I had a similar experience in SIM where my trades seemed so logical and made sense, now its all about emotions ... I have manged to get a grip on my emotions though. A few losses will humble you very quick..
I appreciate your insight, thanks again..
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"
Thank you for your concern. I dont go there as much as I used to. It is a bit distracting. But I do want you to understand that I am extremely new at trading and I am only looking for guidance. I spend a lot of time reading and roaming this forum, but anytime I can hear a live market analysis I feel it is to my benefit.
I dont shadow anyone. I did it one time out of maybe greed or desperation. I dont think it is a proper way to learn especially at my level. The "old timers" here do have plenty to contribute. I get 90% of what I learn everyday from these "old timers", as you call them. lol
When we used to be in the trading room together, I seen you take some nice trades, so I know your comments come from a place of concern that I might take the wrong path. I appreciate it, Thanks.
I'm right here having some chinese in flushing !!!!
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"
Long post incoming, but I'm stopped out for the day and I promise it'll be worth the read. Maybe @bobwest can summarize it into 3 words
Starting out with losses Honestly I think starting out rough was one of the best things that could've happened to me. It forced me to tighten my boot straps right away and to get into the 'bad-habit fighting' mode as soon as possible. As a new trader there is no better time to turn around bad habits than when you start to build them.
Losses tell your mind that you are doing something wrong
If I started out with wins, I wouldn't have worked on my bad habits, I probably wouldn't even know about them.
I didn't understand this when I started trading and I'm saying this because you aren't starting out as well as you would've hoped, and I want you to not just be ok with it, but embrace it!
You'll see some traders who were extremely successful in the pits but couldn't adapt when the market changed electronically. One reason is that their bad habits stem years or even decades, and those habits are now easily punished by a changing market. It is very hard to change a habit after you've been doing something for 20 years that led to good results in the past.
Challenging you to keep journaling on SIM I'm not challenging you to be more detailed with your journal entries, I'm challenging you to focus them around emotions a bit more. It doesn't have to be every day either. Add a goal that you want to learn more about your emotions during trading and every time you journal ask yourself - does my journaling get into something that can help my learn more about my emotions? If yes, then great (even if it's one sentence). If no, then try to think a bit harder.
My journaling is super detailed because I found that it is what works best for me. But journaling should be about YOU, and nobody else. Do what is best for you to learn as much as you can from your own journal. If people like it, that's just a bonus.
Funny enough, my journal post today would be a good example of what I mean. I didn't post any of my entries and I didn't take any screenshots, because today I completely failed on my emotions.
Sometimes the market beats you up slowly and you ache for days :ahhhhh: :stickyman:
Today the market beat me and it was quick and almost painless
:pcguru:
I am done trading 2 minutes into the open :sarcastic:
2 minutes and 39 seconds to be exact …
How journaling can help you identify your emotional issues faster
Writing down your emotions as you are experiencing them is like creating a time capsule for that event. You can go abck and read how you felt on X day and then see how it impacted your future trading (I have done that a lot).
Your journal doesn't have to be shared on FIO, but making it public helps IMO.
Once you get into the habit of learning about what emotions you have during trading, you start to learn how to deal with them, and how not to deal with them.
Continuing to use today as an example. I lost 4 trades in a row, 2 pre-market and 2 literally 2:39 minutes into the open. They were bad trades, and only 1 of them followed my plan. What had I done in the past when this happened?
I would get mad, I would think all day about how stupid I was, about how well I could've done today (if the market trends one way or follows my trading plan). I would look at the market every couple of minutes and wish I was in a trade, then I would get mad at myself some more. Not only would this do nothing to change the past, but it would also have a negative impact on my future performance.
All of this is extremely bad, and I traded like this for a long time before realizing it. The worst part is that days like today would start a huge drawdown because I just wouldn't be able to shake the bad mentality.
But through journaling on FIO I realized what a crazy person I was, and what a bad way to react to my losses this was (sounds like Yoda, I was going to edit it but I'm in a funny mood today ).
Once your issues are out in the open, it gets easier to improve them Now what do I do? Actually let's talk about what I just did today to make sure this doesn't carry on to tomorrow.
I tried self-deprecating humour. I'm okay with laughing at myself on the dumb mistakes I made today, because I know I can change them in the future. In the past I was very self-conscious about sharing my mistakes and I would avoid talking about them or it would take me days to muster up the courage to post them, but that did nothing to fix the issue.
Within 7 minutes of being stopped out today, I went on FIO chat and posted this so I could change my mood around:
I then looked at things that make me laugh, today I shared them on FIO as well
I can't stop laughing at the Biden memes, so I'm going to post some of my favorites lol
I spent some time with my dog, watching funny videos, and listening to some of my favorite jams.
I'm about to work out as well and make a nice lunch I wouldn't normally have the time for.
Now I'm happy and honestly I could care less about my losses today. They've been added to my trading spreadsheet, I've written about them, they are tracked on my daily spreadsheets, and at the end of the month they will be part of my monthly numbers. But life goes on.
Honestly, I feel like I could open up my charts and trade according to my plan 100% right now, that's how fast I've been able to turn around my mentality. And you know what? When I wake up tomorrow I will not wake up in a bad mood and in 'loss aversion' mode. I will try and trade like it's just any other day.
Also, I'm writing about my improvements, so it might seem like I'm at the end of the road with some of my emotional issues. I'm not, and you need to have the destination in mind at all times, but you do want to think about how far you have come in your journey sometimes. Specially when you get knocked down, because sometime we don't realize the progress we've made before getting knocked down again.
Sorry if I'm cluttering up your journal, I hope this helps.
Cheers.
Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
LOL agree with @bobwest , nice post.... I'm not worried about clutter as long as it's something beneficial for all. I think everything you shared is beneficial.
Your novel... I mean your post has inspired me to make my notebook journal visible to the public... well.... at least some of it. I'll type it up now before i go to work with some screen shots, if I can figure out how to post screen shots ?????
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"
They have tutorial videos on the site that take you through using it. You can capture anything on your screen, annotate it, and save the image as a file.
2. You can use the steps here to import the image file to a forum post:
Basically, This is what the scribble in my NQ journal looks like for the day:
Pre-session
1-No major events
Leading indicators @11:00 am
KC FED manufacturing index @12:00 pm
Baker-Hughes rig count @ 2:00 pm
2- Yesterdays range about 40 points. expect the same today. Yesterdays volume low except @ opening, closing and random throughout the day. ON range only about 20 points at it's peaks.
Theory
-Uptrend all week.
-@ opening market might test ETH low of 4815-4817 area, then begin a slow uptrend.
-End of day could see 4860-4880 area????
-If market drops @ open to 4817.50, I am willing to take a long entry w/stop @ 4809. If I am correct then I will ride trend up until somewhere around 4858-4865.
Thoughts
-Feel very confident
-If my theory is wrong , I will not let it discourage me from making better trades.
-Will avoid emotional decisions @ open
-If my theory is wrong I will take my time to reevaluate and create a new plan
-Election day high @ about 4842 "ish". If price goes up @ open and fails at 4842 "ish", I might immediately reconsider bullish thesis.
9:30 market open
9:36 price fails @ 4842 "ish"
-Maintaining a Bullish hypothesis until proven otherwise
-market very vow volume, small range.
-Long entry @ VWAP
-Immediately went against me... HOLY CRAP!!! was it just waiting for me to go long?????
-stopped out 4.75 point loss
-Time to reevaluate .......
I believe failure at 4840.50 might be a sign of bulls not being able to take price higher. might be a down trend day. Let's wait and see.....
@ about 10:00 am market jumped down below OR-low about 9 points in like 1 minute. That might be my confirmation for a bear trend. IDK !!! I will wait for a retracement and possible short entry @4828 w/ 5 point stop-loss.
-Order filled @ 4828. Low volume worries me . VWAP above my entry @ 4830 ish
-Trade in the green about 4 points. I will leave my desk for a little while to avoid any emotional decisions. Stop-loss @ 5 points, Target @ 15 points 10:00 am
Left my desk for about 24 minutes seems like my revised hypothesis has been a success. I am glad I left my desk because price dropped to 4814.50 then retraced to 4823, then finally came down to my target. If I was at my desk I would have probaly flattened @ retracement.
My original target was 4810 , but changed it before I left the office due to , of course FOMO. As I write this, the market is down to 4803 . Thats 10 points I left on the table.
I won't dwell on it. I'm leaving now up 10.25 points with only 2 trades. One winner One loser. My winner was like 3.25 times bigger than my loser. I'll just type this up and go to work.
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"
LOL I must have been typing while you wrote this... as you can see I didnt get the screen shots. Let me check out your links and fix them. I have to go soon, so hopefully i have time.
Thanks Bob that was easy. Of course after you showed me
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"
No major news today
ON range was low 20 points
last week was uptrend most of the week but failed at election day highs all time highs still above
Possibilities @ open
-@ open market drops to 4816-4810, then begin an uptrend day
-@ open market can test 4842, then come down but ultimately I think it will trend up.
Avoid any emotional trades
Steer clear of initial open and see what price does.
If price doesn't react as expected, just reevaluate and adjust approach.
Short entry @4841.75 ( price reached my target zone for short)
tight stop target @ 4817 pivot.
-Price just continued to skyrocket to 4837.50 STOPPED out !!!!
*bad move ....Should have waited.
If price breaks zone above 4842, I will have to reevaluate my entries
-Market might be looking to reach all time highs again or at least recent high... Not sure !!maybe i'll wait for a pull back to 4834 (VWAP) area and buy again with a tight stop.
-Volume reducing with every 2 min bar
went long @ VWAP .... WAs stopped out immediately . tight stop another 5 points. Long @ VWAP 4834 , price shot down like 10 points stopped me out and turned around....
I am done for the day Good luck to all. I'm down like 10 points.....
I wasn't very focused; I dont know why ....
"It's not about being right or wrong, it's about how much money you make when you're right, and how much you don't lose when you're wrong"