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It was not my intention to make some people angry, it is just my opinion. If I see a journal that is wrapped up with nice charts with drawn in arrows where a trade occurred I just get a little bit suspicious.
Best way to prevent this is just posting the account performance.
There is another thing that I feel is missing in the journals, the MFE and MAE. If I take an X amount of trades and suppose my target is 10 ticks then I want to monitor the move after my target is hit. If price is going +60 ticks then I basically am leaving 50 ticks on the table, if you have this for 50-100 trades you then can calculate the best target, average move. The MAE can give you the perfect stop loss.
well, I don't know, but it seems to me that people can lie in a public journal and be honest in a private one. Most are posting trades after the fact. So while I agree that accountability is important, public journal doesn't guarantee it at all.
As for people stating that the journal helped them, may be it did at some point. But is this the benefit of journaling or journaling publicly? how do you separate the two?
I've also stated in the beginning that it helped me, now I'm not so sure. And I didn't approach it negatively, I was very positive in the beginning...
Do you have any statistics on how long an average active journal last?
What % of people journaling here go on to become successful traders?
I don'g find journaling difficult because I overtrade. It's just the same 1 or 2 charts that I post daily regardless of the number of trades.
The difficulty comes partly from "all the coaches coaching at the same time different strategies", as @rmejia said in my journal.
Party, from the amount of time it takes.
And party because it messes with my confidence when I'm told this strategy will not work. I don't see too many people coming in saying this will work if you do this or that. I mostly get, this will not work because it can't.
The problem with a set % is most journals do not have an end. If someone is successful they tend to leave, same if they are not successful and blow out their account. No one ever comes back and says "Hey I made it!", or "I quit." They just fade into the ether. (Not saying it hasn't happen, but that is an exception and not the norm.)
You journal for yourself, and as long as it stays helpful then continue to journal. I am going to be honest and I don't mean to offend you, but you have placed a lot of focus on whether to journal publicly or not. I think you should focus on your trading and understanding the market more then whether or not to publicly journal.
Again I am not trying to be harsh, but you have to make a decision and do it. Take a week off from posting, relax.
People journal for different reasons. I journal for this discussion with others, sharing ideas, marking what I was thinking so I can come back later and see if that is still valid.
I think that in itself should tell you something. Short term scalping, especially when you are targeting less then you are risking is a lose:lose game.
Risking more then you are targeting will cause you to need a 75% or more win rate which is unobtainable for some people just to B/E. Add in commissions and slippage and it is easy to lose.
Key in trading is to position yourself in a way where you have the best opportunity to make the most amount of money. Scalping puts you at a disadvantage at the get go. The only reason people are advising against it is they have been there and not succeeded.
Trading is a math game and the numbers are not good for scalping.
I think I put together a pretty good list of pros and cons of public journaling here, but it seems that there is no discussion of particular points. It feels like "take it or leave it" attitude.
It seems that discussion in general is not terribly welcomed here at futures.io (formerly BMT), unless we all agree. This is not the first time I've noticed this. And I'm not the first one. If you stray against the party line or dare question the guru, you are often forced out of the thread or intimidated.
It's not about having the last word, or whatever, it's about open discussion and learning, or so I thought. Nobody here even agreed that at least some of my points are somewhat valid. It was - you are just doing it wrong.
Often you'll find the more experienced traders are simply tired of repeating themselves. It's a problem, the longer the forum is around, the more everything has already been said.
And most of us find that there is no way to convince someone who doesn't really want to listen, in fact the best way for them to learn is for them to discover it on their own. Only once they are ready to listen to others does it make sense for others to be spending time talking.
Scalping is the most difficult thing you could do as a retail trader. I would highly recommend against it. Not worth saying anything else, as you already know my position and you can read about this 1000x times over on the forum if you want to understand why.
I said I would quit harping on you....but for some reason I can't leave it alone......sorry.....
Of course there are lots of journals by people scalping for one point......but are they successful long term? That is the question you must ask yourself and them.
Scalping is so very attractive. In and out quick. Take your money and go home.....supposedly low risk.
And its possible. For some very very very very disciplined traders.
Ask yourself "Do I have the iron discipline to only take the exact set ups this scalping method calls for 20 times a day 5 days a week, 240 trading days a year for 20 years and ONLY take those exact trades?"
If the answer is no, and for most of us it is resounding no, then the answers lies elsewhere. And that is something you must find for yourself......what I and all the others are trying to help you with is avoiding the black hole of scalping and get you to focus your attention on something with more long term viability.
That's it. If you read something else into it, you are wrong. If you think we are against you or think you aren't capable of finding a way that works for you, you are wrong. Its just finding out scalping is normally a fools pursuit usually takes the average stubborn trader several years of pain and frustration to finally acknowledge its futility and move toward longer term trading.
Now make no mistake, if you are an intraday trader, all the other traders will call you a scalper. That's ok, what we are talking about here is being ok with a much lower win rate while still being profitable longer term. For instance, I have around a 40-45% win rate, but I am net positive every month. That's all I care about. The net.
And finally, the holy grail really isn't in how you enter, although that's important to minimize risk, or how you exit, thats how you maximize profits, or even your win rate.....the holy grail of trading is something called money management. This is NOT as many surmise, the size of the stop. It has everything to do with how much you risk on any one trade, how you size up and down depending on risk and when to increase or decrease your base size. There are any number of ways to do this but money management will either make you or break you.
When I'm trading poorly, money management keeps me in the game, when I am winning money management helps me maximize my opportunities.
Did you know there is a way to manage money that ensures you can lose for 6 months in a row and still have 75% of your initial capital intact? This is what trading is all about. Risk and money management.
So instead of focusing on scalping vs everything else and wondering if everyone is against you, listen to people that have sweated blood to learn what they are telling you.......
Trade less, hold longer and finally, learn how to manage your money if you haven't already.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris