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Thank you, I'm really struggling to understand the disparity with live-trading, I am really starting to like CQG since they provide the CME simulator I use, though this may just be stockholm-syndrome from coming back to sim.
Both platforms are different and awkward in their own particular ways so I don't think its a platform thing, and I was actually trading consistently in live, I just wasn't ready, didn't have the fearlessness you need. I will try and get it back in sim.
The disparity is that live trading is rarely like sim trading. There is psychology, other market participants, the order book, slippage, etc. Mix all of that together and your problems are likely somewhere in there.
We have a small data issue, where we are seeing a little bit of latency that is affecting our live orders. Slippage here and there can kill.
Persist through and I'm sure you'll figure it out.
I would say this is almost a "Normal Variation Day that was very Neutral". We only have range-extension on the top part of the profile. The value area overlaps the mid-upper value area from yesterday. Its almost like we compressed yesterday's profile by 2.75 points and shifted it up slightly. Very Normal Distribution.
Hey Snax! We talked a little about this the other day so I'll offer my .02 on the difficulties of carrying sim performance into live trading. I think it is simple in that live trading elevates emotion. This elevated emotional state clouds our reasoning and judgement and it can make it difficult to distinguish a reasonable response from an emotionally derived response. For example...we may decide to close out a trade before our stop is hit and before our profit target is hit. We believe this decision is sound and rooted in good reasoning, but due to our heightened emotional state, we may be unaware of the true catalyst of our action. Which might actually be more impulsive than we would like to admit. I think it is difficult to discern the extent that emotion influences our reasoning at times. Sometimes when the 'fog of war' has lifted we can recognize when we have acted emotionally, but sometimes not. When we can't make that distinction it makes it difficult to learn from our mistakes, which makes it difficult to change. I think this is why it takes so long for most to become consistent.
It seems there is no silver bullet. Everybody deals with it differently. Some dudes meditate to heighten mindfulness. I've tried it in the past. But for me, meditation is only good for a nice little nap. I tend to burn the candle at both ends so when I close my eyes, I sleep . For my money (literally), I study constantly and live trade as much as I can. The gains in experience and knowledge bring greater clarity and focus...for the most part. Although, as you know, I've got a ways to go before I reach Shangri-La. Things get messy sometimes. No mud, no lotus...as they say. The point is, everyone has to figure this out for themselves. You trade REALLY well, so I know you'll figure out the other side of the game.
Sorry if all this seems naive, but it's all I've got from my experience so far. I'm definitely interested to hear your thoughts and other members as well. Trade well!
@7:00AM CST - FOMC members speaking today. There's also a 30-year bond auction later today. I should maybe expect a cautious morning from the market. E-mini S&Ps up 2.50 at the moment, we are rotating slightly above Yesterday's High, looking at potential Open Auction Out of Range to start the day, which might lead to bigger moves later depending on what happens with FOMC announcements. VIX down to 13.21.
@8:10AM - Nothing much happening, I actually forgot to change from 10-minute bars that I use to set up my price levels to watch, and it looked bland, I switched to 1-minute bars and nothing but chop all this time.
@8:20AM - I don't have much time left, I think one safe area is if we drop to 2895.00-2894.00 I'm guessing that will be sort of a test and an opportunity to go long before we try to push back up to 2900.00 which is a "Triple-Top" now I believe if you scroll back far enough. At least a double-top in the recent timeframe. Probably just a ton of limit-orders sitting there.
@8:31AM - working-order in to go long 2 contracts at 2894.00. I think this is low enough to protect my 8-tick stop, but might be too low to get filled. We hit 2894.25 twice now. I probably am a touch too low.
@8:34AM I get filled, I am hoping for a near target of 26-24 ticks but would be nice to adjust my stop and let it ride while I work if possible.
@8:36AM - Never mind, stopped-out at 2892.00 for an 8-tick loss, the Opening-Bell Volatility was just too much for my tiny stop and my trade-location wasn't correct. Streak broken, back to 1 contract
A couple minutes later things are starting to look better, I think I had the right move, just timing wasn't perfect for such a tight-stop at Opening-Bell, but I'm learning!
What i liked:
- Chose a market move that made sense, there was a chance to profit from it but I wanted to let it run, which didn't work with my 8-tick stop during OB.
- I am starting to see the small mistakes that get amplified under live conditions. It just takes time and I'm impatient
What I didn't like:
- Easily had a few more minutes to wait to see what developed for this trade. I am starting to see how small impulses in sim lead to bigger errors in live-trading.
- I've been too tired in the evenings to write code for stats, STILL need to change that.
Goals for tomorrow:
- start using python3/jupyter-notebooks for trading research
- track all the stats!
- read
- actually do all this stuff
progress towards challenge goal
$3000.00 profit goal.
$575.00 achieved.
-$200.00 current drawdown (8-ticks * 2 contracts)
4 trades of 30 entered.
I need (2425.00/26) = $93.27 per trade to hit my target.
current expectancy for cycle is 10.2500 ticks
Streak ended, but that's ok, I need to learn to manage risk when scaling up, I did ok.
That is pretty crucial. We have been doing some experimenting with position sizing. The biggest adjustment, mentally, is that the losses look really big.
100% agree. I think it might come down to getting enough live-trading experience to gradually master all the different facets including the mental aspect. If we are under-capitalized it will take extra keen money-management skills maybe. E-micros are coming but even if those don't pan out, many have found success without them.
Incidently, I think it probably takes just as long or maybe longer to become a proficient systematic or algorithmic trader, which negates the emotional aspect altogether, but replaces it with technical hurdles. I don't really know for sure though, this is just my suspicion.
Agreed. I am ok with this loss because I am ahead for the week and I have been wanting to experiment with sort of "checkpointing" (I'm sure there's an actual term for this somewhere) or hitting a goal and then scaling up in such a way that a loss will still keep you profitable over some timeframe.