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Trading: Oh what a tangled web I weave, When I want to take profits in trading
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Years
Posts: 1,765 since Nov 2014
Thanks Given: 3,517
Thanks Received: 3,105
Agree. That's why I try to reduce my own influence in my trade execution.
I had 2 choices today but opted for the 3rd less profitable strategy.
1. I had bullish bias on Friday. Hence I could have initiated long at open as Internals were mildly positive and hunted the stops above friday's value high.
2. I could have waited for weakness to appear and then shorted friday's value high. (which is possibly happening at 11.35 now CT with price at 2086)
3. Instead I was impatient and settled for a low probability and high risk location and paid the price.
I am ok with that, currently, b'cas I know that I made a risky bet, what my better options are and what I could have done differently.
I think I have moved on from the 'lack of awareness' stage to 'mindful of my idiocy' stage. The next step is 'placing smarter bets' stage. I aim to reach that in weeks not years. However, if I keep doing the same mistake then there is no bigger fool here.
To use your medical analogy, before you can make a diagnosis you need more than a cursory knowledge of medicine. The same is true of formulating a thesis about the market. If you don't have a thorough knowledge of the market, you are simply going to be making guesses based on some misguided bias.
Trading: Oh what a tangled web I weave, When I want to take profits in trading
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Years
Posts: 1,765 since Nov 2014
Thanks Given: 3,517
Thanks Received: 3,105
I appreciate your effort to guide me towards success.
I have realised that I have to increase my effort and commitment too.
Instead of using my day-job and time restriction as an excuse to pick bad locations, I have decided to dive in full time, albeit for a small period of 2 months. Luckily, my personal and job situation allows me to do that from mid November. i.e 2 weeks from now. I will be as transparent as possible and will take any criticism, from successful and/or well respected traders, in a positive spirit.
Even if I fail at the end of 2 months, I will hopefully learn more about my abilities and personality and then decide on my suitability to become a trader. Even if the next 2 months become a disaster, I will likely continue with part time trading again for few more months to try and rectify my deficits and carry on with my regular job for another 6 to 8 months before going full time from October 2016.
I will likely close this thread in the next week or so as it won't be Get up and leave but rather active monitoring and management of my trades
That's good news and I am happy for you as you are taking a step closer to your goal but I am confused though, you want to be a day trader or swing trader? more screen time will definitely help in understanding day to day nuances of market but I feel it will also add to the confusion what I mean is as @tigertrader mentioned in previous post we are going to make more and more guesses based on misguided bias....Last few weeks I missed a huge rally because I was dwelling in what happened in previous 3 weeks, clearly market has changed in last three weeks but I am not sure how new traders will recognize these changes one we able to recognize this we should be able to control misguided bias effectively....for example in one of not so recent post's @tigertrader mentioned market has been stretched so much after moving up mere some 40-60 points so he is short but now he doesn't think it's not stretched enough so we have to find how can we learn these things..
I did the same when we had our second kid. I took 3 months paternity leave and wanted to test full-time trading. Since I advertised it to my family and friends as the trial run for my full time trading career, put a lot of pressure on the deadline and I made many mistakes, forcing trades and trading outside the plan. Eventually I managed to break even but picked up some bad habits. It took a while for me to let go of the deadlines and focus on executing the trade as per the plan and focus on the process itself and not the outcome on a daily basis.
In your case you seem to have more clarity on what you want out of this 2 months time. Having that clarity is important as unrealistic expectations may cause some psychological setbacks as in my case.
You are always going to have the higher timeframe traders "laughing" at the LTF guys. Yesterday, long term guys watched 20+ pts evaporate from thier position and you didn't hear them giving any shit to those who were taking range day type profits or shorting at the highs or shorting VWAP late day. Same goes for the day before. ( In no way is that directed towards @tigertrader- just a general statement from a guy who trades multiple timeframes) There is no way to control misguided bias if you believe in your process as you can't be right all the time. You can control risk and you can adjust your bias but if you have a long term consistently profitable bias building system for your timeframe I would not be looking to capitalize on other timeframes- it's the nature of the beast- the longer your horizon, the less often you will be misguided simply because you have fewer decision points. @Narcissus was a little early but I believe 10s of thousands of contracts were traded just above that area in sideways fashion telling you a lot of traders felt the same way and saw an opportunity to short in that area- the trade did not work- it happens. Had the ass fallen out and we went back to test the 200DMA his bias would not have been misguided at all and he'd look like a genius. Not being able to watch the day hurts as it does not afford one the opportunity to change their bias when the weight of the evidence suggests action.
Trading: Oh what a tangled web I weave, When I want to take profits in trading
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Years
Posts: 1,765 since Nov 2014
Thanks Given: 3,517
Thanks Received: 3,105
I expected to use this thread for about 3 months but decided to close it sooner as I will NO longer use this execution method due to my decision to go full-time soon, possibly from November 16 Monday.
The most important benefit of this method is my acceptance of random outcome of my trading and willingness to take the loss i.e stops being hit. I also learnt that trading can be stress-free once I develop the habit of objectively watching the market despite my active trade position. Finally, even a mediocre location can be made profitable by position sizing and planned execution methods.
The most important drawback is that I often pick counter-trend trades partly because of my inability to monitor my trade but mostly due to my fading personality. I thank many experienced traders who shared their opinions that this behavior may lead to bad habits which can be hard to undo/change.
I have decided to take my trading business seriously and do it full-time, without the distraction of my day job for 2 months. I am going to spend the next week thinking about how to approach it and will lay-out my process in flowcharts and try and have some clarity in my head. It's very scary as I have hidden behind the convenience of 'discretionary trader' which usually means trading with NO rules Now I have to come up with few.
I am very encouraged by the enthusiasm and support I received from several experienced members here and hope to repay it back to newer members by contributing more in my main journal.