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Well im back after following from advice from josh.
Some really interesting things happened.
First off. I should have stepped away much earlier but I was in the fog.
After stepping away it was much easier to fight the need to watch every tick and/or want to jump in all the time.
A full day away then a day just watching without trading. What a difference!
Just watching made me realize how Im on way too small of a time frame. My trades had no structure, my entries were pretty much random, both in terms of area and direction of trend and my R/R was way outta wack. Its just all super bad trading.
I believe the sim lead me to believe I could take outsized risk to make my gains. This of course will not work on live trading. Also I find it hard to structure 2/1 risk on such a small time frame.
STOPS: Below signal bar or below major or minor pivot H/L (adjust PT accordingly)
So far today apx an hour before close of RTH and I seem to trade the same way but now I can structure trades with a good entry, at least a 2/1 R/R and I have plenty of time to manage trailing stops.
Nice! One of the main goals was to get you out of the fog. You can't think clearly when you're in it. It's also to help you see that the market is always there -- and it goes on without you, your life goes on without it, so you don't need it. It is there, in case you see an opportunity to exploit. But you exist without the market, and it exists without you. This is the "duh" statement of the century, but when people are stuck in the shit, it's hard to make the distinction. It looks like you've taken steps to realizing that -- but you have to stay diligent and focus on what the market is -- it's just information, and you can always choose to ignore it, and it'll be there when you sit back down. This is especially important to take your emotional temperature throughout the day and be able to leave it for a while. I suggest some of Brett Steenbarger's most recent youtube videos. They're 4 minutes each, and they follow in a sequence. Check those out!
Man josh THANK YOU. I never would have GOTTEN IT had I not stepped away. It was a weird empowering experience as corny as that sounds.
It was exactly what you said. When you step back you can gain your objective point of view back. When your in the fog you cant make decisions even if your not in a trade. The last bad trade the last bad day. Stepping out of the situation is a new component Im going to try to fit in until I can zen trade like Al. Lol
Chart of trades. At least a 2/1R/R on most trades I took, at least initially today. Kept stops tight. Could work on entries. And I'm not a home run hit type trader but need to get back in on those runners.
This is my performance the last few days. Looks good but two has problems. One is thats has like zero statistical significance. (although its over 50 trades it still means nothing). The second is I'm on the SIM! Which doesn't give enough confidence to me that I'll trade like that live. Although... It seems pretty typical of trading I would do as it was far from perfect. Im not sure.
Im really stuck here as this is SIM trading.
I feel like no point staying on SIM at all. Thank god for the micros!
So that's the plan. Dip in the live market and try new strategy LIVE.
Those numbers ARE NET of fees and commissions but NOT OF slippage.
On the sim of course you have no real slippage. I am incorporating my entries vs my ACTUAL fills when I go live and going to use FILLS as bases for calculations.
But again those numbers are AFTER commissions and fees.
I checked out your thread and can relate to your journey. It's taken me a really long time to sort myself out with trading. I feel like I've tried everything in my journey (of course thats impossible lol), but I calculated around 8000 hours to figure out how to become confident at this game. example: I've learned from at least 50 mentors on ways to trade, I've tried almost every type of chart, minute, tick, renko, range, point and figure, etc. I've spent many months doing manual backtesting on at least a dozen strategies. I've developed at least a dozen automated strategies and ran them live (in demo accounts) on a vps for months before realizing there wasnt much of an edge. I've gone on crazy monkey rampages, cried a few times, etc. It's been one heck of a journey.
Ok, now you feel where I'm coming from, here's the advice.
If you are not confident then the monkey mind part will take over. I believe that in order to be truly confident you need to understand the context and have excellent timing.
Understanding Context:
What works for me is using market profile & volume profile as a tool to understand the bigger picture and know where the key levels are and when price is more advantageous for buying or selling. I also get to see when the large "other-time frame" traders are involved as well as when they're not involved. Learning this also shows you the common day types which can lead to understanding probabilities at certain times and give you a lot of clues to how the day is unfolding and whether you want to be fading or going with the flow. I don't trade just off of this, its a powerful decision support tool and can often give me a bias, like I'm only looking to be a buyer today, etc. (and it goes way deeper)
Excellent Timing:
So for the last few years I've settled on renko as my preferred way to view the market on the more micro level. Range bars or time bars could work for me too but I spent a lot of time figuring out patterns and learning how to analyze with renko, for me I find candles too noisy.. Anyway, that is not what this part is about. It's about Order Flow.. Most pros use order flow either by watching the dom (which I don't like, too much noise, spoofing, etc) or the time and sales window (again I don't like, not reliable for me) and the footprint (bingo, this is the one for me).. The footprint basically organizes the info from the time and sales, this means trades that have already happened and who was more aggressive at each price level, the buyers or the sellers. (although there are nuances, like you don't always know when its a limit order vs market order).. But the main idea is that dom shows offered lots (which often is bs, aka spoofs) and footprint shows trades that have already happened.
So I look at 3 main views.
Big picture: Market Profile (daily and weekly) - gives context, lets me read the bigger picture story of whats happening, today, this week, etc
Main View: Renko chart (currently using 8 tick on ES, I adjust it with the volatility)
Timing Assistant: Footprint (using the volume profile view)
If I went back to only trading renko, it would be very frustrating, same if I was just trading candles. No matter which indicators I'm using, which patterns I'm trading, etc.
Here's what my minimum view looks like I on one screen. I need all of this info to make quality decisions. (I also have a weekly profile on another screen and a scrunched out chart with lines on major horizantal levels). The footprint chart is always the same size as my renko chart so it allows me to look inside the bricks.
Here's a great lil vid on the profile from one of my fav educators Kam Dhadwar
Great post. I have appreciated reading your post more than you can imagine. There is just something about people being honest that this is not easy and thier struggles that really make it possible to put in the time required because you know your not the only one who has issues. Anyway.
You have great words of advice there. I will have to say I do trade a bit different than you. I do not use market profile or volume or volume profile. Below is my complete setup. I do use a line chart with volume profile as a very loose guide for major support and resistance and I shrink and expand to see finer and larger details. But other than that I just use the chart as I feel everything else is basically told on there. Oh also I have time and sales on there more because I can see volatility by the rate of movement. Thats how I use that.
Funny how you see yourself evolve when you read your own and others posts from awhile ago. I wish, as hard as its been, to have started way earlier.
Great post! Great advice!
As a side note im back live again and thats my first trade live on the screen.
I'm forcing myself (in a good way) to trade good. Not trade for profit but to just trade good.
