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New instrument (MYM) and terrible over trading. Not a good combo.
I caught myself in the wrong side of the market and reversed with it almost everytime in the wrong direction.
This is a problem and at times unavoidable but this was pure bad trading. Why? Because I should have taken a loss at some point and traded the opposite side of the channel.
I am trying to keep this journal going as as I think this well be the KEY to reminding myself NOT to change my strategy!
IT WORKS! But NOT if i keep changing it!
This is great. I re-read it and told myself not to change my strategy!
Like two posts later... I switched to YM!?!! What! I haven't traded the Dow in years.
Thats not part of the plan. Weekend research. Sure go crazy. But stick to the plan. Day in and day out.
Live daily profits will NOT come from switching strategies. It will only come from the application of discipline to stick to the strategy.
I used to be able to hold a loser for 46 days yet take profits as soon as I could get 12 cents.
Theres nothing magical here. The reason your fighting yourself is fear/greed/hope.
You FEAR this strategy will not hold up like the hundreds of others. Thats why you look for new ones. You fear failing and getting kicked out of the game... for good.
Your GREED pushes you to do stupid things like chase every little idea that sounds promising because you want it easy and consistent.
Your hoping is probably the worst. Hoping suspendeds the reality that the opposite reality is a possibility. Hoping puts so much emphasis on only one side of the equation you are hopeless if the opposite if what you were hoping happens.
Going through my stats theres ONE UNDENIABLE TRUTH I noticed over time. I suck the most in the beginning of the week and usually get better and have a great Friday.
And I know why. I spend most of my weekends researching ideas. I carry these ideas into my trading. It takes me a few days for those ideas to either not pan out or I revert luckily back to my normal strategy.
Ok its Friday. Im fully trading MES live again only and following my rules and doing very well.
Come on man start next week the same.
Just do the same $&#&@% boring thing day after day!
Maybe I've been trying to be profitable for so long I don't realize I'M THERE!!!
Just trade what you see and STOP CHANGING IT!!!!
Only +19t yesterday. Not great considering the boodbath the day before. But profitable none the less.
Today was a good day but I still am not all that happy as I made a mistake that was completely avoidable.
I still ended up +79 ticks for the day in the mirco S&P but my mistake cost me -28 ticks. Not acceptable.
It was an execution error. I had my finger on the mouse waiting for a signal which never came. My finger had different idea.
The trade went immediately against me and I tried to manage it but it never came back and I cut it at -28 ticks. (Pics below)
In the picture below I circled where I was aready long and wanted to stay long. Only I also thought we might hit resistance there, again which never came but in a twitch of my own fate I was in short.
I tried to manage out but took the loss as that didn't seem a possibility.
Been one for the record books since I last posted about two weeks ago.
So after finally breaking even for many weeks I decided to add 5 TIMES the amount I had in my account.
I promptly turned into a complete degenerate gambling junkie losing %20 in a few days! I lost MORE than was in the account before I added!!!!
The $$$ I was able to generate in a short period of time sent my inconsolable amygdala into a buying and selling frenzy leaving me helpless to just sit and watch.
It was almost out of body. As if someone else was controlling my body. Well it was. It was the lizard part of my brain.
One great things about us humans is we have these things called a frontal cortex which enables us (in normal circumstances) to override our primal instincts. Until we get into a fight or flight situation.
I put myself squarely into the "fight" category and went one on one with the market. Stupid. Lose everytime!
Luckily I got my footing back before I heard the deadly... "Finish Him"
Now...
I'm realizing this is not the place for just stats. I have my platforms for that.
This is for LESSONS!
You'll never hear me say something like... the market went to this level stalled... created a bull flag and a secondary pullback to support for a nice second entry long.
The ONLY reason I would ever say that is so I can put my stop tight and I think its going to go higher from here enough for me to make more than I would lose either by a high winrate or larger winners than loosers. But I don't believe ANYONE can predict so again I'll never say that stuff.
To me it's only a description of what has already happened. Thats ALL!
Bottom line... read them, RE-read then read them again. Look how far you've come and the stupid SH!T you repeatedly did for years and don't anymore!
You should be proud of yourself.
Its like going from sim to micros for the first time. You'll f`ck it up. It'll happen when I transition to the minis from the micros as well... guaranteed.
I know this and I somehow stepped right into the chasm anyway. And you will again. So be prepared.
Scale in FARTHER than you ever think necessary. Then a little bit father even then that then add a touch more and double it!
Then do that on the way out as well way after it's gone farther than you ever expected in your direction...
You can always scale out of a position thats going against you in the pullbacks vs getting stopped out on spikes (the worst place to exit) and take profits into spikes.
And FFS save some "arrows in the quiver" for those times when your wrong. And your NEVER right because you just dont know. No one does.
Ok. So once I stopped the bleeding and wrapped the wound I managed to start to turn things around again.
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wait for the market to come to you!
If you miss an entry so what. Much much better than regretting missing one than being in one that you regret...
"Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground".
Also stick with the S&Ps. You can make a profit on ONE tick. Of course that doesn't mean youll be profitable but it does mean you don't have yo rely on big swings to cover costs like the NQ.
So $500 profit with $15 commissions.
$485 day on the micro S&Ps (added another $50 profit before end of day)
Good day but shouldn't be suprising if I am patient and wait for proper entries and far more IMPORTANTLY wait, wait, wait for those larger exits.
See the thing is you only have to find a way to add more profits than losses to the account.
Its just math. I need larger profits than loses because Im not a pattern trader at all and I can time anything worth sh¡t.
Use this journal as your tool for bending your mind back as it gets twisted by the emotions of trading.
Had I been short all day no doubt it could have been a good day.
But thats the game. Can't predict the future. Can only trade the present.
I believe I managed it well as I knew where I was and I didn't come close to looking to undwind the position.
I was looking to undwind near the end of the day when I had a chance to exit my position into spikes.
So it went well as far as that goes.
I'll take a breakeven day anyday over a loss day simply because of the mental damage it can do to your decision making abilities.
Having said that I'm fine with how I handled it.
Also I like the the IB screenshots vs the Ninjatrader screenshots as I can see my trades vs stats which I find need to be reviewed separately. Like on weekends. Micro vs macro.
So I traded a bit yesterday (Sunday) for a couple of points profit but today (Monday) was another pretty good day on the S&P micros.
Below is my day.
$291 - $7.28 in commissions = $283.72. (pic below)
So this really impressed me as I just came off a $550 day (Thurs), a break even day (Friday) and made $40-$50 last night.
I was afraid of over confidence and/or doing something stupid to avoid a loss.
So that was my battleground. I knew if I focused on watching for signs of those emotions predominantly today I would trade alot better.
So I decided to come into it with a choke. I set my entries fewer and farther away. In as much I never came no where even close to my risk per trade max. (My entries were few and far... not alot got hit)
Could I have made more pushing? Buying more contracts? Sure, but who knows in the act of pushing it might have turned out to be the reason I ended with a loss at the end of the day.
I still made $283.72 after fees and commissions. Thats pretty good. No need to push.
ALWAYS LET THE MARKET COME TO YOU!!!
Remember, if you think the market has gone too far or has to turn sometime soon because it's gone so far. Think again. It doesn't have to do sh!t.
Want to enter there? WAIT. Set it to where you dont think it'll go. That's your first entry. Build from there.
HOLD for the bare minimum of your risk. If you can hold longer great.
Want to trail a stop? STOP... WAIT... until your already FAR into profits. Relying on trailing stops will ruin your account as you will cut profits too short on most trades.
Don't be afraid when a trade goes against you! This is a normal part of the equation and you know that.
On the other hand, DON'T scale like an idiot either. Yes, you scale in because who the hell knows where the markets going but PREDETERMINED ENTRIES based on support/resistance is KEY here.
And the main point here is PREDETERMINED... it's not so much the "where" the entries are. If your scaling in long as the market is heading lower in a larger pullback, you hope, you already know where the support is all the way to the point where you would not want to be in long anymore.
Lol. Sounds easy. But it's not. Trade small. Preferably always less than 0.05 percent of your account.
Since you scale in as the markets going against you when your MAX risk per trade is hit (MAX per contract times the number of contracts held) you must start lowering your risk by removing contracts.
If your MAX risk per contract is breached let's say $40 because you have 5 open contracts your MAX risk is $200 on 5 contracts. ($200 is less then .05 of your account) you must sell a contract to bring your risk within the proper risk levels.
If it continues against you must continue to sell until risk is at appropriate levels or stopped out.
Remember how easy it was to take a loss on the sim?
Visualize how easy it was.
How there was no ego involved.
How you just clicked the button.
It didn't matter WHAT HAPPENED after. You did what you were supposed to do. You got out.
There was no "but what if it..." there was no trepidation of loss. If I was wrong I could simply enter again with a clear mind.
This IS your goal.
Emotions unable to override your logic.
And the only way to do that is to understand at an undeniable deep level when to cut and know thats the right thing to do and no amount of emotion will sway my logical reasonings.
Trading is not technical its emotional. But it shouldn't be.
