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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets
If I had entered here, if I exitted there. If I would have held that trade. If I would have traded with 20 contracts instead of 1. If I had more patience. If I had a larger account...
We have no choice but to look at the past, the left side of the chart is all we have. And so we spend thousands of hours seeing what we could have done, believing that the past holds the key to the future.
I just caught myself saying, "If I were trading X contracts..." What? I'd be up $Xk this week? Really? No, because I did not do that. There are too many variables. But, had I found myself down for the week, I'd be saying, "If I had stayed with just one contract..."
Had I taken some of the losses I took on X contracts, how would I have felt about the next trade?
I often find myself saying, "If I had stayed in..."
But then, on the trades I exit with precision, just before the market comes back on me, that thought never comes. "If", goes away.
"If" is somehow related to "try". "Try" is replaced by "do". "If" is replaced by...
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
ECB 7:45am + Jobless Claims 8:30am = one potential powerhouse.
With FOMC out of the way, ECB may answer the big questions of the week. For equites and currencies... Jobless claims, not so sure in comparison, unless way out of range... Tonight I am more hesitant of ECB than I was FOMC.
The Iran issue comes and goes with little warning... What a mess that could create if the two conflicted. What a move if they agreed.
But in the sense, not of winning but of over coming.
We have got over coming from anywher else other than the present moment.
The essence of everything is this moment.
We can take it as profound or simplistic as we choose.
In all respects, to our fears and regrets and lossses and wishes and needs etc..
They dematerialize, if you like, into nothing the moment we realize that only this moment exists.
We realize all of those "things" do not matter, they are here only to the extent that we recall them or choose not to be present in this moment. in that way, when we find ourselves somewhere other than here, now, we can use
it as a tool to get back to now.
I was thinking about what you've mentioned about confidence.
Of all the things we use to get us to the point of being confident, what ever it may be...our experience/iintuition/feeling/beliefs thought..etc..but at the end of all those things there arrives a moment (now) inwhich we must do..so either way, everything comes back to now.
And as the next moment is unknown then what really is the use of confidence. sometime ago I posted a comment about you being neither a scalper or a swing trader (for the sake of labels) and that you are the sum total of both and that you will be at a place beyond the need of even confidence (something along those lines)...
I was thinking that perhaps it's what we think we are confident about.
So rather than being confident in what we think will happen, perhaps it's really about being confident in our acceptance that we don't know what's going to happen next.
So much is about the opposite, the contradiction.
We strive to control only to learn it's really about the letting go.
Aren't we more alive in the unknown ?
Aren't all our senses awake in the unkown ?
How often in trading are we trying to hang on to what we want it to be, need it to be..and the tighter we hold on the more of a mess we create...and then the relief when we just "let it go"
And the feeling of freedom when we let go of all of that "stuff"...
Beliefs and thoughts are like old clothes that we darn't throw away because we think we might need them for something or that they define who we are to the rest of the world and to our own self image...
Now and again we might try them on but often we either just keep them in the cupboard or wear them because we're just used to them..
I'm rambling, sorry.
I thank you again, as I've always done for allowing us to contribute in what ever way, even if it's the occassional thinking out load.
You invoke it, for me at least.
It's serious stuff.. but good stuff.
It matters..
and you seem, to me at least, to be doing really well with it all...
If your going for the obvious, that is not my specialty. OK, I get it now.
Yes, that is something along the lines of a recent thought. I am coming to a view of trading as being something I never would have guessed it was, and what you stated is a part of it.
Never noticed that one, but confidence may be the opposite of what is needed. Acceptance seems of higher value than confidence, now that you point it out. Confidence in any outcome can never be had, it is no wonder it stays so elusive. The confidence comes AFTER the acceptance, and the knowing that all will be ok in the end. or even, the belief it will. But even then, acceptance that it may not, and that is still ok.
Yes. Possibly what is standing before us, as we watch price makes it's wide and mysterious swings, is the beckoning to let go.
But, there is a need to be coherent of financial necessities, and that is the ultimate chain for one contemplating full time trading. As a hobby, I could buy CL today, set my stop at 80.00, think to myself, I can take an $8k hit, but maybe it will go up. And if by December it is at $90, or $180, I made money this year. But we prefer to have some version of consistency, as we are required to chunk out cash for daily, weekly, monthly expenses, to not live on the streets.
That is a requirement put on us. So there must be a blend of letting go, and probability. We find the area where that exists for each of us. I dream of letting go, while remaining chained to what I experience as probability.
And what is odd about it, is that the letting go could offer a higher probability in terms of R/R, gives the appearance of being worth the risk. But in reality, the price a trade is opened at and closed at is what gives the end result.
If I had a system that produced wins 90% of the time, but when I lost it was 3x my win size, would I be correct in trading it? We are taught it is "against the odds", or a bad bet. I see retail business put out more than they net. In my business I keep 8-10% of what I bring in / pay out.
What matters is, can you find a way to bring money out of the market, within a ratio that leaves a reasonable return. My niche is 65% wins, 1.7 PF, max win 2x max loss. While I may wish it was something else, am I missing the point? I have less faith in that "system" I'll call it, because I keep wanting more reward, less risk. I keep feeling uncomfortable with size, because I know, truly know, if I go from $1k to $10k, I will suffer 10x drawdowns. And despite the theory that they are the same, they feel different. And maintaining a feeling, an acceptance, is a requirement. I accept a $1k loss. I feel I want more confidence to be able to accept a $10k loss (or whatever higher multiple, more or less, does not matter).
And starting to see that, the $10k is not a necessity, only a possibility. And the more I look at not needing, the more comfortable I become with the unknown, the more I would be able to trade size, but the less I desire to? If that makes sense?
In other words, my chances of making more increase as I want it less, and in contrast, the desire to make more changes the feeling, which cause me to make less because I want more. So, why not accept less? But, by accepting less, and caring less, the possibility increases that I will receive more than I want?
This discussion is possible only with you, perhaps Good night.
Thus, the liberation that came with the $500 a week discussion with my wife. I average more than that per day many times. But it changes the need, which increases the probability.
