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@indextrader7, thanks for putting yourself out there and sharing with honesty. Speaks tons about you!
There are lessons for everybody here (me included, or rather, more lessons for me than any other person whom I care about )
To summarize here are the lessons (10 marks are highest, starts now, and PLEASE take this in the right spirit because I was helped by incisive probes and they worked for me more than any loving advice):
Trade Methodology Section:
Q: Do you have a tested method?
A: Yes. (1 mark)
Q: Did you follow the method?
A: Hit and miss. (0 marks)
Q: Did you manage risk?
A: Definitely not. Had a relatively big loser. (0 marks)
A. Since zero confirmation, there was no basis. Reversal trades are the lowest probability trades (confession: like the one in CL I am still in! "look who's talking") but have a great risk reward ratio which means even if you have a win ratio of 20% you can still cover a double-dozen tiny losses on a few trades and then some. (0 marks)
Q: Did you follow rules?
A: (Note: even if entry was 'random' i.e. no confirmation, no probability guesstimate) The answer is No, for multiple reasons, e.g. Added to losing position, averaged down. (0 marks)
Psychology Section:
Q: Can you take sim as seriously as live (or combine)?
A: Not yet. I want some external hand to bully me into discipline. (0 marks)
Q. Do you respect yourself?
A: Ummm yes! Errr... if I listen to random people with a great track record then I should trust them more than myself right? Er, so no? (I myself allowed Peter Brandt to influence me in a real gold trade where he was bullish on Gold and I was smelling all the signs of a successful short but I chose to listen to the
respected chartist and got burnt. (0 marks)
Q: What are the safeguards to prevent lapses in trading?
A: The real answer is practice and practice till it becomes second nature. Right now you are dealing with so many new sights and smells (large size, OPM, 'practice as you go along live') (0 marks)
Q: Are you prepared to pass the combine?
A: 'Need to start the combine soon' does not sound right but I still believe you are better prepared than I was when I went in through that door a few months ago. (1 mark)
Q: How do you react to pressure?
A: Having no pressure is the biggest of all pressures. That may sound ridiculous but you burn out faster on that plane! But right now the first step is to realize that every moment is a precarious balance between pressure / no pressure, living / passing by half-heartedly / seeing but not doing / letting go vs trying to improve. Trading is not unlike walking on a thin rope bridge with a sheer 100 feet drop down into a raging river AND being prepared for than drop while keeping an eye ONLY ON THE NEXT step. (0 marks)
Q: Are you a trader yet?
A: Yes! Why? Because you have the guts to lay your thoughts down here, naked for everyone to see and comment upon. Very few people have that. It is the first step to meet an imperfect you, You The Trader. (1 mark)
Note that I almost get the same marks as I evaluated for you, except that I only recently passed in the fist question in the psychology section.
There we come to the final lesson: Knowing does not equal doing. Taking responsibility does.
I had a good time trading on the live webcast today! Thanks to those of you that checked it out; there were some great questions asked, and also great feedback on things I was doing.
Up $520 before commissions on the day. +13 ticks. Feel OK with the performance, could have been much better.
1 and 3 were attempts to get long, thinking that we were breaking back into the overnight range. They are sure ugly in hindsight!! They cost me -25 ticks.
The rest of the trades I was spot on with the trade placement, and profit taking. I simply got over zealous with too tight stop placement on 4 and 7 which cost me -15 ticks.
As I said, could have been a lot better P/L day, but we'll take the profits on a day where a lot of people probably got chopped up.
The relevant CUMULATIVE stats for the Combine are now:
Days traded: 7
Winning Days %: 86%
Win %: 56%
win:loss ratio: 1.9 ($643 to -$342)
winner time held: loser hold time: winners held longer
net P/L: +$7,955
max DD: -$2,720 (unrealized MAE actually), End of trade max DD: -$2,035. Amount ever below initial balance: -$480
-----------------
Have a great weekend everyone. I know I'm going to take some well deserved time away from the screens if I can force myself to. I've been going a little too hard lately, not really taking care of myself as I should. I gotta make sure I stay balanced or it will hurt performance.
I may do another live broadcast of my trading session on Monday, and will post here if I'm going to.
I will have you auto-muted, with sharing and voice also off on your end. I want this to be a clean, mainly one-way presentation. Chat is enabled, and encouraged. Please direct most any chat you can to the whole room, as last time people heard me answering questions that they couldn't see.
If you don't have a google+ account, and refuse to get one, then you have another option. The webcast will be streamed live on my youtube channel. So you can watch here: indextrader7 - YouTube
thanks for doing this. due to work i am unable to be part of this. are you recording this by any chance to people to watch afterwards. at least a recorded session or two may be educational. it could sort of be like one of those BM's webinars.
Yes, the google hangout method I used today records them. Right now it's processing, and it will be available on my youtube channel in a few hours supposedly.
I've toyed around with a special youtube embed editor, so I created chapters in the video. You can click the skip track/Next button at the bottom of the player to skip to the start of the next trade. (If you want to skip the down times).
If you're a new trader looking to get a feel for real trading, (hear boredom, frustration, analysis, etc) then skip around as little as possible. If you just want a recap of the trades, then use the skip buttons at the bottom. The last two trades were particularly interesting.
Today started out rough, with several losing trades. The good thing is that I had a nice balanced MFE to go with those MAE's, so I knew I wasn't totally awful. If I can keep those things at least balanced, then I know I can continue to trade an edge, given good risk management. Hung around until I caught a big winner that took me to profitable for the day. Added one more winner to that, and was done for the day. (Although I did take one more trade later in the day, not on the webinar, for a decent profit).
Lessons for today...
I need to consistently take SOME profits off the table at +10ish or so.
Good job of hanging around, managing risk, to be there for the big one.