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Lots of chop today after the big move down - same in oil as in equity indexes. I let myself get sucked into several more trades than I would have liked in the afternoon. Hard to re-adjust to non-trending markets after the recent big trend moves we've been having. I have to ratchet up the "personal pickiness meter" in the days ahead. Nice work today.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. - Frank Herbert
I took more trades today than normal also. I started scalping contracts to reverse my losses. When I do that I can typically keep my net to around breakeven, and I quit if I ever hit max down. Scalping is not something I recommend, but I still do it occasionally. I don't think of it as making money as much as staying even.
The short this morning would have been a nice one, had I hung in there a little longer, but I am quick to drop something when it does not look right. Maybe too quick sometimes, as was the case today, but making up small losses is easy with one good win. I like to be able to have one good trade equal 3-4 bad ones. Keeps the stress level near zero, which keeps me from fighting myself.
I started this post hoping to help a few traders who might be struggling to move forward. I hope something that is in here can provide at least some insight into what succesful trading might look like. There are many other very talented traders on this site, and I would be willing to guess that there are many who can blow me away in terms of absolute returns. But, what I've shown is my way of learning to take some money out of the market on a regular basis. Since the start of this post, which was July 22, the net gains have been $10,060.00, with 61.6% winning trades, trading moslty one contract. The lesson I hope to share is that high win percentages are not the only way to make a profit. In fact, I might be able to argue that the pursuit of high win percentages can be a cause for failure. I'm content with the performance for roughly a month of trading part time. I might have been able to make more with higher leverage. My broker will allow one contract per $1000, so theoretically I could have generated ridiculous amounts of money this month. But, being content is how I know I will do it again next month, and the next, and so on. When I started trading I dreamed of millions. Now I dream of consistency.
I have seen something in myself over the past couple days that I do not feel is healthy for my trading psychology. A few days ago I started questioning the time involved in posting a journal in real time while trading. Looking back through today's trades and asking myself questions about my motivation, I realized that I have started to want to trade successfully so that this post will look successful, so that other traders will feel interested to learn. That felt healthy. But, I took a couple trades today that were questionable. I was sitting here reviewing the day and asked myself "why", and the reason was, even though I could fit those trades into my rules, I felt slightly like I needed to make a trade to post here. That is not a reason to trade, and so this post has become something I must end.
While I may never meet the majority of traders on this site, just the fact that you trade is enough for me to be willing to help if I can. A lot a people get into trading thinking it is the way to easy money. Well, my experience is that trading is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. A lot of traders get hurt, I got hurt, and so I sympathize with that. There are numerous trading websites that promise to teach you how to trade for thousands of dollars, but regardless of how good those teachers may be, becoming successful is up to you. And so, since there are no guarantees in success in the trading world, why not offer what I know for free? You could still loose everything, depending on where you are in the process of truly becoming a trader. You could follow what I do step for step, techinically, but if you don't really understand from the same perspective, if your experience has not put you at a similar point, you could still fail.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read some of what I had to say. Thanks even more to those who took time to share their thoughts with me here. If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me by private message.
Good trading to all of you. And above all, STAY SAFE!
GaryD
Lornz posted this presentation by Dr Bret Steenbarger. (post#3).
A really good presentation imo that might be of interest to anyone who hasn't already seen it.
I made what I thought would be a last post to this thread a few weeks ago, having observed that I possibly took a trade with wrong motivation. Since then I have take time to go over some of the content in this thread and feel there is some good information here, from many traders. I started a couple new threads about different topics, but am beginning to think it may be best to keep a single journal. I am learning how nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) works, and see that threadds re-surface with activity, and so keeping this thread active may increase the odds that new traders will see it.
I am not claiming to hold the keys to success for any trader other than myself, but I am a consitently profitable trader. On average, I log one "down" day every few weeks, and they way I do it is not based on anything that I believe can be programmed into a "black box", so the only way to provide some insight is to allow commentary to post as the markets develop.
I have decided not to place as much emphasis on showing live trades as what I did in the past, as that became somewhat troublesome for my personal trading. My desire to make a good presentation started to take priority somewhere in my subconscious mind. Trading to prove anything to anyone, even to yourself, can be dangerous.
But, trading without being concerned about the money, trading to seek harmony with the flow of the market, trading to develop strength in myself, those things are good for me.
I noticed that in my attempt to explain something to someone other than myself, I actually found more clarity in my own understanding. And so, I am going to resume this journal.
Crude recently potentially completed a 5 wave move down, blowing just below the major low pivot (green arrow to the left). It has since possibly found support at that pivot, now a distant LSP, and has the potential to complete a wave C into the red "zone".
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describing an uptrend I thought was developing in crude oil. Now crude is potentially going to resume it's downtrend, and since the original idea for this journal was "catching big waves", I'm going to move the continuation of that post to here. Posts that follow will be more of an trading journal, and I am going to attempt to move this thread to that area of nexusfi.com (formerly BMT).
Here is the current "big wave" I am following.
Wave C may possibly now be complete, with crude finding solid resistance at the prior breakout pivot / double bottom, shown below by red arrows. Hopefully some traders caught some money out of this wave C. With the corrective pattern possibly complete, the odds now favor a return to the prior downtrend.
As I type this, the trend is down. But, crude can sometimes need to return to retest a prior area, trapping new shorts in the process. I am now watching 4 areas for trade entry/exit;
Zone 1: 82.75-83.50
Zone 2: 81.00 - 81.50
Zone 3: 78.80-79.50
Zone 4: 75.00-75.80.
Watching volume closely in these areas will provide insight into the short term direction of the market.
When creating a new thread, note which subforum you are in. Here is a short list of suggestions:
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