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You grow with each decision, yet each decision has a price--you must discard a choice, and you must commit. Conditions are always imperfect! You must allow yourself to fail. Allow for human limitations and incorrect choices. Reserve compassion for yourself and your limitations.
Alright and so just like that, with one more full stop out I am out of the game. Didn't hit my actual loss limit, but it's close enough that I wont be able to continue to trade normally without hitting it.
And frustratingly enough, both full size stop outs have been almost to the tick only to run to my original target. Which is not something that has happened in my gathered stats with any regularity. So I am kind of at a loss and have to chock it up to randomness. The last 8 trading days has produced some of the weakest results so far, so I am really hoping that we can now move on to much better system performance.
I reset the account this morning, so hoping to start over again first thing tomorrow.
I have found that after a string of losses, my psyche tries to convince me that perhaps my plan/strategy is wrong, and as a result I start to focus and direct too much importance to each trade. I totally recognized these same feelings when the state of the market changed, when I was trading index futures at the end of last year. Volatility shrunk, everything I tried wasn't working, and when I pulled the plug the market came roaring back a month later.
And so because of this we must guide our thoughts back to the significance of what our edge truly is, and that is profitability over the course of several trades, and not a handful or any one trade in particular. For me this is trading mindfulness in action. The ability to catch those emotions and inner voices that speak to our insecurities, and put them in their proper place.
Of course a draw down after having made some money is not quite as painful, but our grit is truly tested when we start off with a string of losses as to whether we grind through it, or let our discipline fall apart. Draw downs are essential in the process, just as strings of winning trades are. We must remember that we have to take the bad along with the good to be successful in trading. I must remember that a trade is just a trade, and it shouldn't weigh heavier on me psychologically just because it is a loss instead of a win.
Linda Rashke once said that it is abandoning a successful trading idea during the draw down process, right as the market is getting ready to swing back in line with that same idea, is exactly what causes the search for the holy grail. Not to mention frustration and all kind of other bad habits.
One of my gifts(I see it as a gift) is that after a loss I am very tenacious to find out what went wrong, and if there was anything I had possibly missed to improve efficiency of my trades.
So my plan to help make my overall system more robust is to reduce my exposure to the Euro, and add another market that is experiencing much greater volatility, while I wait for the FX market volatility to come back in line. This way I still have exposure, and any continued draw down will not eat away at my account in totality. I am using the YM as I am familiar with the way it trades, the reduced leverage, and is currently backtesting as well as the Euro did in its prime volatility.
I would have never pursued this idea if I hadn't gone through the hard times at the beginning of this experience, but it is opening all kinds of new doors and I love it! If you can't fall in love with the process of trading that is all encompassing, I believe success is only a dream.
I do not know who Linda is, but thats true. When we see the strategy we tested and felt so great about it. As soon as it fails we stop and start looking for new strategy indicators etc. The idea of any method what I feel is, any strategy first back test atleast 6 months of data, try atleast 30 trades on SIM and try on Live.
Just thought of sharing some info. I am still novie.
The way of the Turtle by Curtis Faith does an excellent job of explaining how to test your method for expectancy and robustness. I truly believe this is the most important thing to follow through with besides making sure the trading style suits your personality.
Your trust and your follow through should and can only be in the numbers your system has generated through proper back/forward testing, and then we hope/trust that they will continue to perform in the future.
Start with a hundred trades, and this should be the absolute minimum. Your goal should probably be 500+. Only then can you truly understand the ins/outs and true personality of your system to then exploit it.
Edit: Oh and I also forgot to mention that you should test your method through various market cycles. Bull markets, bear markets, chop, etc.
Alright off to a banging start. Up 100 points in the YM, and only down 9 points in the Euro.
Second trade fired off simultaneously on both markets, but got in with a limit order at the original entry point on the Euro, allowing me to recover some gains from an earlier loss.
Took all entries without hesitation. Happy to have a nice up day.
So unfortunately I wasn't able to get any play on the Dow because of the large volatility today, but I got two successful trades off on the Euro before the open.
So a little bit on the strategy I am using. It is a simple keltner channel breakout entry, with an expectation of price continuation. I use a specific 30 point stop, unless there was a swing low/high made inside of that 30 point stop. I trail price 4 points outside of any new higher highs/lows.
Once I stopped trying to curve fit the market to my expectations, I was actually able to notice a simple recurring pattern that fit well with my personality as a trader. I also decided that I must go down every rabbit hole I could think of, and research every aspect/metric of the trades, and document common recurring themes as these trades played out over a decent sample size. Only then could I come up with a trading plan that fit the market, leverage, and traits of the system vs. me trying to impose my own rules upon them.
The general idea is that through a simple trend filter, the trades that I take will continue farther than most think they should go, and a stop size large enough that most are not willing to use. The statistics show that nearly 70% of the time I can get at least 20 points out of the market, and less than 6% of the time will my full stop be hit. And this is what gives me the confidence in my system. Not a moving average, not some indicator, just the faith that I have in my discipline to take entries when my plan says I'm suppose to, along with the designated trade management.
Hope you all are making money in this wonderfully volatile environment!
6E- 50 pts $625
Don't pay too much attention to the exact number on the risk:reward tool I use on my charts. I just put them up there for me as a quick reference for the trades I took. Specifically entry, MAE, and MFE.
I tell you what, it is a lot more fun winning than losing!
Lots of things to learn from today, and it's very important to me that I do not repeat the same mistakes twice if possible. So let's get to it.
The first trade was on the YM this morning. Volatility was fairly normal this morning pre-open. Well as soon as we opened, within three bars the ATR on the 5 minute chart was at 72! Unfortunately I did not recognize that before I hit the enter button, and what a wild ride that was. I fumbled when trying to find the flatten button, and I was trying to get flat at breakeven but just didn't happen. Fairly stupid move, I could have gotten out with a much smaller loss than a full stop. Moral of the story....Get Out immediately!
After taking another small loss on the Euro after the market went sideways after entry, I took a revenge trade when the market broke out against me. Well it reversed right after I took another loss leaving me pretty frustrated. Haven't cursed at the screen in a while lol. But then I gained my composure and decided that two unnecessary losses on the day was already too much.
I have had a nice little winning streak as of late, and it is time to re-focus. My trades need to be perfect, and I must focus on trading my plan correctly. I did add to my plan a max ATR I am willing to trade that I didn't have before, so now I have another entry filter that should save my butt when vol is out of whack.