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Started the combine yesterday.Tying to get into the flow of things and thus I am being overly cautious. I have missed countless trades over the past 2 days. Yesterday might as well been my first day trading all over again. My heart rate was up and I was trying to make perfect trades. Today was better. I was more relaxed today; I saw the trades but could not pull the trigger on them.
First trade was a breakout to the upside. I closed it out too soon for + 3 ticks. It ended up going 10 ticks higher after I exited the trade. The second trade was just a scalp to the downside. This is another trade which I should have held onto.
Yesterday was going good till I a gave most of it back on the final trade. Made the mistake of trying to reach a monetary goal. Anytime you try to force a result it always ends bad.
Tough day at the office. Made mental mistakes today and missed a lot of trades. On the last trade of the day I convinced myself to take the trade when I saw the signal. This is what I should have been doing all day long. Anyways, I took it and it ended up being the loss that finished my day off. I dont consider this a bad day because right now I am fighting physiological roadblock and I know what it is. On the last trade I put the roadblock aside and took the trade. A few days of taking trades when I see them and should get past this issue. I went through this on the practice account as well.
The biggest take away from the today was my ability to stop trading after the loss. In the past I would have not been able to do this.
It always helps me (in times where I'm going through what you are.... pressure, fear, etc) to focus on the math/statistics/probabilities or things. Mark Douglas type concepts:
1. Anything can happen. Really embrace that, because it is true. A trade may be perfectly set up in every way, but we do not know the actions that big players are about to take because of unknown reasons. They can push the market against us, even though our trade was a great one to take.
2. I don't need to know what's going to happen next in order to profit. This puts less emphasis on THIS trade.. less importance on it. This specific trade may or may not work (anything can happen). All I know is that over the next TWENTY trades (for example) I'll have around 12 winners and 8 losers. That's all I know.
3. There is a random distribution of winning and losing trades. We have no idea which trades over the next 20 will be winners and which will be losers. Again, less importance on a specific trade, freeing us up to be healthily fearless.
4. An edge is only a higher PROBABILITY of outcome A over outcome B. "... regardless of how much evidence you gather to support acting or not acting on a trade, it still only takes one trader somewhere in the world to negate teh validity of any, if not all, of your evidence. The point is WHY BOTHER!. If the market is offering you a legitimate edge, determine the risk and take the trade.
5. Every single moment in the market is unique. For two moments to be exactly alike, every player in the market would have to have the same stops, limits, entries, exits, and size on in the exact same manner as before, with the same emotional outlook as a previous moment in the market. This will never happen, so it's silly for us to think that we can actually predict the next price movement with certainty. This frees our mind to perceive what the market is offering from ITS perspective.
Anyways, those Douglas concepts get me back on track time after time after time. I hope one little thing in there gives you a bit more confidence going forward to trust your own edge and trade your plan.
Ended the day flat on Friday. It was the first day all week that I was taking trades without over thinking it. I cleared everything out of my chart and used a simple tick chart. My entries were to catch reversals. The first trade of the day was a bad entry. I didnt let the bar close before entry. As a result I got in on top instead of catching a breakout. The last two trades I caught them and made up my ticks from the first loss.
I should really keep things simple all the time because I make better trades.
One statictic I have notoced that seems to be in conflict at his early stage oif the combine, it the amount of time you hold losers.
Holding losers too long have a detremental effect, not just to you pocketbook, but particularily, to your phsychological capital. Siitting for an extended time watciing a particular trade hover between a tick up, a tick down, a tick up, a tick down, a few ticks up, a few ticks down for an extended period of time, only to end in loss, is a frustrating experience.
Good trades are ussually good from the start. It stands to reason that bad trades are likewize.
Have you considered the concept of a time stop, as it relates to price action?
Once you enter a trade, you enter with an initial stop. Evaluating and reevaluating a trade while you are in it, as time goes on, may allow you to close it out with a small loss quickly. You can always get back in. One of the metrics that are commonly measured is the length of time in a losing trade vs the length of time in a winner. I know of no other way to cut a losing trade time then to actually close it out. This also goes to the point of keeping your losses small. It is evident that you must have closed out your winners early, because it looks like your winners were not enough ot overcome your losses.
Your winning percentage is good. i dont know the details, but is there a way you can see yourself sticking with your winners longer? Adjsuting your approach to facilitate that circumstance? I dont know your system, but your winners should be held longer than losers. I am not aware of a successful approach that is otherwize.
I noticed the same thing. Part of whats happening is the price is moving as soon as I enter the trade. On the good trades price moves in my direction quickly in which case I have been too anxious and want to protect profits so I take profits early. I should be letting the winners run to their full potential. I had this issue prior to the combine so I know this is something I need to focus on sooner rather than later. I have thought about taking out the target and managing the trade from the trailing stop or stop. I have a tendency to move my targets closer to the price. It hits my adjusted target then goes 3 or 4 ticks or more higher. This happened on three trades last week. How different would my trade report look with extra ticks on there? Whats frustrating for me is I have good vision on where price is going, I just don't have the patience to let it get there.
On the bad trades they are moving against me quickly, however they are not hitting my stop. (maybe my stop is too far away?) Since I missed so many trades last week I held on to the trades I took longer in "hope" they would go back in my direction. Hope is bad and is inexcusable reason for holding a trade but last week I did it. The Thursday losing trade, which I held onto for 25 minutes, I was at BE at least three times and did not pull the trigger to get out. And yes this was very frustrating when I was finally stopped out.
On my to do list:
I will implement a time stop. This makes sense and will help me protect myself from myself.
I will review my stop placement. Perhaps I can move it up a tick or two.
I will start testing ways to let my winners run longer.
Update: No Combine trading this week so far. After getting frustrated with T4 I moved over to Sierra Charts. I guess I used the chart trader more than I thought. Below are my results today. The trades were a lot more balanced. I was able to move the stops via the chart to logical places to keep losses and potential losses lower.
I like the reporting in Sierra better than in NT. More detail and updates in real time.