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I have a channel I have used as a journal the last year or so (*********************wAMCRNs8) but I am looking to really put it out there again as I've made some truly remarkable progress in my understandings that I'd like to pass on.
So for me it's threefold fold.
First, I am not the angry trader toddler I once was so having my ideas challenged does not hurt my feelings or my ego etc. If I can openly chat then people can propose ideas I might not have thought of and challenged stupid beliefs I might hold.
Second, accountability. After coming back here after a deservedly forced year hiatus, I was absolutely shocked to see nothing had changed!!!
Third I think I do have some good advice or at least some positive thoughts on avoiding the pitfalls that i would like to pass on.
I'd like to start this journal from the day I seen my journal here in NexusFi from over a year ago! Still in shock!
This is my journal from the day I seen that post till today...
Sept, 1, 22
Absolutely incredible.
I have just seen my nexusfi.com journal from over a year ago and I was saying the same damn shit!!!
Its *all* mental... it's about controlling emotions... or using emotions.
It's about the fear, and the fact that fear that leads to distorted premonitions based on those emotional ques leading us to always do the wrong thing.
What a bunch of SHIT!!!
I *NEVER* changed even though *I knew BACK THEN what to do!*
It was absolutely shocking!!!
THEN IT HAPPENED!
YEUP, it has finally happened! I see the market differently!
After ALWAYS taking my stops now... ALWAYS always *ALWAYS* taking my stops...
I held my winning position beyond uncomfortable. Then I, excruciatingly, added... then I nearly died, *adding AGAIN!*
All in the Naz. It just kept falling. I closed with 119 Points, 63 Points and 47 Points. (229 Points).
More then that... "I GOT IT"
It was nearly impossible for me to think like this as it was something I'd never been able to do.
I can "see it now" but it came in an "ahhh haaa" as it was happening.
It was nearly impossible to do. It hurt. My body screamed. My mind was losing its mind!
It implies the losses will make me lose. That taking 20, 60, 80 points losses will be impossible to come back from.
Remember thinking that's NEVER going work!
It finally FINALLY sunk in. It's NOT about the loses!!!
It's about the ones that get away. Those are the ones that get you.
You can't outsmart the market and minimize loses.
So take your loses. Put your stop in. Never move farther, only closer.
Lastly take profits. You know what a average loss is make sure you hold your winners for multiples of your loses.
You *know* what to do. You've known for a long time.
Books and psychology talk isn't the problem anymore.
Taking responsibility for crappy trading is.
It's hard to trade well but if you want to trade size you will *need* to be able to trust yourself to do what is necessary.
Sept 15, 22
I have had a good day. After a devastating week. I just ground down my account. Flat lined and ground down some more doing EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of what I just said above.
OK. So what am I doing wrong?
I enter. I have stops and targets automatically in the market.
I also had a tight BE set. Even to BE plus. I also kept my losses small by constantly stopping myself out small. Or let it hit my close-ish stop.
I added to losers hoping to average down and thinking "This is where I *should have bought*".
I would just add back after getting stopped out...
I was trading both ways at the same time!?!! Compounding losers.
Started trading on the one minute then back to the 15min the back to the 1min.
Wednesday night I couldn't sleep I was so upset at myself. Why did I let myself do that? This will never work! I should give up! I don't even know how to do this... ect..
On Thurs I woke up with a different outlook. *I remembered* I know how to do this. Read above.
Also,
1) Start with a 2.5/1 risk ratio.
2) *Do not* add a BE at all!
3) *Only ever* add to winners.
4) Only move stop after %75-80 to target or market changes dictate it. (Remember your stops get hit all the time *when you wait it out*)
So once again.
Just do it over and over and stop trying to manipulate it!
Sept 15, 22
2 things to come back to...
1) Probabilities DON'T exist!
2) Experience is what happens as a result of what your body has done. So if I am responding with what I've leanrt in the past automatically as the fear appears how do I change? Repeatedly do the right thing, even though it sucks!
Sept 16, 22
Wow trading good is hard.
Trading crappy is really easy.
It's hard not to move stop to BE to protect risk.
Its hard to add to winners.
It's hard to sit and watch it come back into profits only to go back into the red again.
It's hard putting in a proper stop only to watch it get hit.
Its hard not to *interfere*.
It's hard taking loss after loss. (Not a thousand cuts but actual stops)
Funny enough it's HARD to sit in profits!!!
Sept 16, 22
Me complaining how hard it was to *NOT* move to BE or to take profits is now kinda funny as I just cashed in big on that trade by NOT doing any of that!
Sept 17, 22
Um for me not really. I do try to pick levels where something might happen such as double tops, double bottoms, support, resistance etc. but no idea if it'll work or not.
That's why following my rules works but trying to manage by predicting ALWAYS backfires.
I had a fantastic day Friday just following the rules. It sucks. It feels wrong. It feels like your going to lose. But just putting the stops in behind the chop and going for a large reward is quite profitable.
Yes I do have to choose an entry and direction but after that I'm trying to let the market do its thing.
I'm trying not to get cute and move stop to BE *too soon* or take profits because I want a win.
I let it go ALL the way to the target! If its getting close and I'm scared it might come back, that's when I move my stop to BE willing to give the whole trade back. Then wait. It *has* come all the way back and stopped me out and it sucks so bad but that's NO REASON to change. The winners *easily* make up for the losers. Very easily, in retrospect, because it's the hardest thing to do.
I'm really starting to see the issue with us humans.
Your body is reacting to what it has learnt in the past. That is experience.
Trained athletes have trained thier bodies what to decide what to do ahead of time, given a set of circumstances that is automatic. They experience it "happening" to them... precisely because it is!
They don't decide what to do in the moment. They REACT to what is confronting them and that is their experience.
We are like dumb computers. Error correcting as each iteration of experience was positive or negative.
Chess master just have a huge library of moves. And they react based on past experiences. They don't decide what to do in the moment.
This all means it's about the practice, about the repetitions, about the exposure.
You MUST put yourself repeatedly in situations where you can practice doing the right thing without stress.
There is no other way.
Good traders are good traders because their bodies know how to react to a given situation and they have NOTHING to do with it at that point. They just experience what they do and it works.
Terrible traders are the same. They trade terribly because that's all they know. They just do it.
So just like a spider fear. The ONLY way to decondition that response is to install a new reaction, not a behavior but a reaction.
There is no point throwing spider at someone stuffing from arachnophobia. It will just reinforce the fear.
But if you imagine a spider in a clear box with NO way to get out. Then you can imagine that. If that's too much push the picture away making it small. Then put some funny eyes on it and a stupid smile. Picture it doing a dance. Bring it closer but keep it cartoony.
By inching it closer to an experience which isn't tied to a fear based response we are rewiring our natural learning and response to that situation.
Now same goes with trading. We need to be able to stay calm as the proverbial spider is making us react with poor results.
We can say we all want to be ok today. I'm not going to be scared of spiders. Then go to work at a spider farm each day. With disastrous results.
That's *exactly* what we do each day in the markets.
So unless and until we can automatically do the thing that will bring about the results we want, no amount OF TRYING will help.
We need to be able to go to work each day and know we will be bit and it will be fine as long as we don't freak out and drop the cage and get bitten too much!... which would not have happened had you not freaked out in the first place.
The answer is contolled EXPOSURE to the response you want.
It's about doing the thing you need to do. Cut losses. Hold winners.
So imagine cutting loses. Imagine holding winners.
Imagine it hurting BAD, real bad, as you close those losers.
Imagine the flood of thoughts about losing all your profits in this profitable trade but you hold anyway. Feel the uncomfortableness.
Double the size do it again.
The only way to win at this game is to change the way your body/mind reacts to stressful trading situations *automatically*.
If you are trading badly it's because that THE TRADER YOU ARE.
You are what you do. You didn't decide to be a bad trader or a good trader or anything.
You are just what you practice .
Practice being a good trader and you will eventually get there.
Focus on the market or technical analysis or MP or anything else and you will never make it in this game, period.
For technical analysis.
What price do you think it's going to? In what timeframe? Before it drops below what price? Did you predict right. Yes/no?
How many yes and no's you get is a metric of how good you are.
It matters not at all that you traded it *at all!*
Just that you can you predict and see in a yes/no, on a check mark bases did you correctly, or can you, correctly call *where* the market will go before it goes a certain distance the other way.
(Also from here you can work out size. But that's completely a different exercise)
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It's unfortunate that we had to make this policy, but the reason is simple:
