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Trading: Futures, spot FX, Energy Spreads Prop Firm
Posts: 61 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 16
Thanks Received: 61
I agree with you here. Whilst it wasn't months it was weeks that I ticked along making my +10s and it sounds weird but I almost wanted a small losing day. My subconscious was saying to me, is this it? is this what I have to keep doing? I would add I do a lot of work thinking about 'what if' scenarios and thinking about why people think the way they do. You are 100% on it when you say we are built to evolve, the brain will keep pushing boundaries keep exploring, it's very hard to suppress it.
to date I have tried to fill this need to evolve by doing this outside of trading. So I try and replace the need to evolve in trading with evolving in another way. i.e. learning languages, other skills etc.
I personally believe it is possible to trade profitable with rules based on market structure/context as well as equity size/stop losses. I believe it is possible but very difficult. I suppose the reason I believe this is I have met 2 traders (both discretionary point and click) where I have seen assets they have purchased from trading profits which they could only have bought with profits from trading. I say that but they could be secret drug smugglers or living off of a 10m+ inheritance. lol.
Of course though I have met plenty of traders who no longer trade and the positive bias causes me to focus on the winners.
Trading: Futures, spot FX, Energy Spreads Prop Firm
Posts: 61 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 16
Thanks Received: 61
interesting thoughts on SIM. my own beliefs on SIM are it's great for getting used to a new platform but aside from that small stakes live trading is more valuable. I would sooner trade 100 shares of SPY learning than using SIM but trading is very individual and some people like to test more.
Trading: Futures, spot FX, Energy Spreads Prop Firm
Posts: 61 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 16
Thanks Received: 61
this is an interesting discussion and it's always good to hear from other peoples experience. So when you got tired of blaming yourself for making the same mistakes over and over you removed restrictions. I will check out your journal and see what you are up to. in the meantime I will stick to the 'just follow the rules goddamit' lol.
PS - i just realised this is your journal, I will shut up now.
thank you for your posts, they are very interesting, i enjo them
sorry for my ignorance, could you give me more details about the paradise of internals, what are you using
thanks
alejo
La lucha es de igual a igual contra uno mismo
The fight is fair against oneself
From private messages i have received, it seems like traders are having a hard time with my 100 ticks stop loss strategy.
Before implementing stop loss strategy , it is IMPERATIVE that a trader proves to himself that he can pick direction of a trend correctly. If wrong in this area- 100 ticks or 200 ticks, it will not work.
ACD helps me with direction and stop loss. If test and personal experience shows that 90% of the time ( except when events like Gilf war is underway) that my 100 ticks stop loss will not get hit it's a trade i take everytime and manage a trade with position size, scale out etc.
Market internals. On Wednesday, traders/Analysts were making all kinds of forecasts, some calling for bullish moves, some calling for bearish moves etc. On Thursday there were no longs in TF, ES, etc.
My point always has been forecasting is a useless excerise for day traders. When market opens , we lean against collective actions of traders and trade. There were no longs on Thursday and it was based off market generated information not on forecast.
Both attachments show market internals. One for 07-18 and the other for 07/31 ( thursday) etc. 07-18 longs and longs. 07/31 shorts and shorts. Now imagine you picked direction of the move right based on information you have in front of you but mucked it up with a tight stop loss?
I am not sure if your are barcelona fan but i am pretty sure you are a soccer fan.
yes, it is really true, i am a moocher(garrapata), i want to learn and try to ask from the master traders, it is dificult to extract them, the problem that we dont sharing ideas is our knowledge/experiences is not comparable to yours, then is dificult and also i think it will not be usefull for you.
is like master/pupil relationship
thanks again for your posts
alejo
La lucha es de igual a igual contra uno mismo
The fight is fair against oneself
A lot of people do well with big stops. Some use no stops at all.
A wide stop, as I understand the idea, is there mainly as disaster protection. The wide-stop trader usually will decide to terminate a position based on the reason for the trade having been proven wrong, not based on a particular price level being hit.
I think this makes compete sense if you can do it, but I also think it's hard. As of yet, I have not tried it.
On the other hand, have I ever had this experience?:
- I decide trend is down (or up)
- I get in on a strong down bar, my stop is the normal distance away that I usually use
- Price bounces up and takes my stop
- Trend resumes down without me
- I get in on a strong down bar, my stop is the normal distance away that I usually use
- Price bounces up and takes my stop
- Etc., while much cursing goes on, and price keeps going down without me.
Sometimes I have had a string of losses trying to get into a trend that I was right about from the beginning.
So, it does not make sense, to me, to always do either "What I have always done," nor "What everyone knows you should do." A person needs to experiment.
As of today, I am not trying the super-wide stop, because I like having that stop in there to just get me out at a level that I decided on before entering the trade. Once in a trade, I have noticed many times that I am no longer very rational, at least if things start to go wrong. On the other hand, very tight stops can be very tricky. If you are scalping, and you are only going after a very small profit many times a day, then sure, a tighter stop makes sense. But much of the time, it can pay to give the trade some room.
I'm still working on what I think about stops, trade management, and all the rest. After more testing I'll probably know more than I do now.
But sure, wide stops make perfect sense if you then manage your trade appropriately. And what works for one person is what works for them, not necessarily for everyone, nor even for themselves always and forever....