NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





The Beast Slayer, Lance's NQ Trading Journal


Discussion in Commodities

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one lancelottrader with 843 posts (4,515 thanks)
    2. looks_two redbarntrades with 59 posts (147 thanks)
    3. looks_3 Rrrracer with 28 posts (117 thanks)
    4. looks_4 Okina with 23 posts (41 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one lancelottrader with 5.4 thanks per post
    2. looks_two Rrrracer with 4.2 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 Big Mike with 4.1 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 redbarntrades with 2.5 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 448,960 views
    2. thumb_up 6,047 thanks given
    3. group 647 followers
    1. forum 1,639 posts
    2. attach_file 251 attachments




 
Search this Thread

The Beast Slayer, Lance's NQ Trading Journal

  #1021 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 8,162 since Jan 2013
Thanks Given: 57,341
Thanks Received: 26,267

@lancelottrader, you can tell by the responses how much this has resonated with so many others, who have gone through something like what you have recounted (but maybe not quite so intense ).

I'm very grateful that you are willing to recount your experiences, especially since, as we can see from your current posts, you have broken on through to the other side. (Yeah, I remember when the Doors were new, too.)

I think this is what traders face, every one of us. It is gutsy to tell about it.

Thank you, sincerely and personally.

Bob.

Reply With Quote

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
Exit Strategy
NinjaTrader
Deepmoney LLM
Elite Quantitative GenAI/LLM
Are there any eval firms that allow you to sink to your …
Traders Hideout
NexusFi Journal Challenge - April 2024
Feedback and Announcements
NT7 Indicator Script Troubleshooting - Camarilla Pivots
NinjaTrader
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
61 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
39 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
26 thanks
Battlestations: Show us your trading desks!
26 thanks
The Program
18 thanks
  #1022 (permalink)
 
Rrrracer's Avatar
 Rrrracer 
On the road
Webinar Host
Trading Nomad
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TradingView
Broker: Oanda
Trading: FX
Posts: 2,512 since Feb 2017
Thanks Given: 17,582
Thanks Received: 9,752

Hell @bobwest, you guys are only a few hours apart... you could get together, toss a couple back while listening to some old jams, talk trading and life in general It can be a lonely business for sure.

Winter FIO get-together in Okeechobee? LOL...

Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
  #1023 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386



Rrrracer View Post
Hell @bobwest, you guys are only a few hours apart... you could get together, toss a couple back while listening to some old jams, talk trading and life in general It can be a lonely business for sure.

Winter FIO get-together in Okeechobee? LOL...

That would be so cool. I think i would love to meet both you guys.

Failure is not an option
Started this thread Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #1024 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386


bobwest View Post
@lancelottrader, you can tell by the responses how much this has resonated with so many others, who have gone through something like what you have recounted (but maybe not quite so intense ).

I'm very grateful that you are willing to recount your experiences, especially since, as we can see from your current posts, you have broken on through to the other side. (Yeah, I remember when the Doors were new, too.)

I think this is what traders face, every one of us. It is gutsy to tell about it.

Thank you, sincerely and personally.

Bob.

That means a lot to me. I hope we can meet up one day.

Failure is not an option
Started this thread Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #1025 (permalink)
 
matthew28's Avatar
 matthew28 
United Kingdom
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Bookmap
Broker: Stage 5, Rithmic
Trading: US Equity Index Futures
Posts: 1,250 since Sep 2013
Thanks Given: 3,500
Thanks Received: 2,532

Your Trading Journey Part 2 is a real stomach churner. I think most people reading it will be able to recall that shell-shocked feeling from some point in their own journey, though I imagine for most it wouldn't have been a fraction of what you probably felt after losing so much that fast.

I had to laugh when I looked at your journal entry picture from Part 3. I have similar hand written journals with lots of sentences in very large letters, or capitals, in the same vein, "You F'ing idiot", "You're so dumb", "Why can't you follow your rules" etc. Electronic journaling doesn't have that same spontaneous passion that you can see in handwritten journals. Scrolling up to increase the font size or change to bold just feels too contrived

Thanks for revealing some details of your trading history. Glad you're on the right track now.

You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
Reply With Quote
  #1026 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386


matthew28 View Post
Your Trading Journey Part 2 is a real stomach churner. I think most people reading it will be able to recall that shell-shocked feeling from some point in their own journey, though I imagine for most it wouldn't have been a fraction of what you probably felt after losing so much that fast.

I had to laugh when I looked at your journal entry picture from Part 3. I have similar hand written journals with lots of sentences in very large letters, or capitals, in the same vein, "You F'ing idiot", "You're so dumb", "Why can't you follow your rules" etc. Electronic journaling doesn't have that same spontaneous passion that you can see in handwritten journals. Scrolling up to increase the font size or change to bold just feels too contrived

Thanks for revealing some details of your trading history. Glad you're on the right track now.

Yes..You're right. Somehow the handwriting (and mine is pretty hard to read and sloppy) conveys more of the feeling. lol

Failure is not an option
Started this thread Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #1027 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386

Around 2010, I began to realize that I wasn’t getting anywhere with my trading and that my behavioral issues were a big part of that. Wizetrade had just come out with a new automated trading program called Command Trade. It basically allowed you to pick premade strategies or craft your own. Most of them relied on the same sort of moving average crossovers that their manual trading software used. There were additional conditions that one could add on. I ended up buying the software and committing myself fully into creating the best automated trading strategy that I possibly could. In reality, I was just slipping into a brand new Rabbit hole.
At the time, Wizetrade had these live online training sessions for the Command Trade software. The host showed his success rate with a pound/yen strategy he named, “Pound the Guppy.” Guppy was a nickname for the pound/yen currency pair. The strategy was extremely simple and relied on triggering an entry after some 1 hour ema crossovers had occurred. I spent the next three months modifying this strategy with my own conditions. Then I did months of testing, backtesting, sim trading with it.

The results I was seeing were fantastic ! The backtesting showed an extremely high win rate. My forward sim testing was also getting excellent results. It was probably the most euphoric time in my life. I felt I had truly “cracked the code” and that my I was well on my way to turning my PC into my own ATM machine. I would constantly take out my calculator and estimate my earnings with various win rates. Since my stop loss was roughly less than half my target, I would still earn a substantial sum even with only a 40% win rate. I had a friend that I had known since childhood and we would speak on the phone very often. When he commented on how upbeat and enthusiastic I sounded , I had to tell him about my amazing Auto trade strategy. My conviction and euphoria were so palpable, he wanted to be in on this as well. So, he bought a Command Trade program and opened up a $50,000.00 account with MB trading. He knew me since I was a kid and he knew I wasn’t bullshitting about how great my strategy was.

I started live trading with the program. I would attach the strategy before I went to bed, and sometime during the night (if the conditions were met) the strategy would enter a trade. It would either win 100 pips or lose about 40 . For reasons now that I can barely comprehend, I went from trading 1 lot to 10 lots in less than two months. I was totally convinced that this strategy was the true Holy Grail and couldn’t possibly fail. In other words, I was totally delusional! I deposited a whopping 100k into MB trading and started to attach a 10 lot strategy ($100 a pip). So, if the trade won, it would make $10, 000.00 and if it lost…it would be a $4000 hit. But my statistics were so great, I wasn’t worried at all…initially. Even worse, my friend did the same and attached the strategy to his account.
To make a long story short, the strategy started going through a losing streak. It lost eight nights in a row. That had never happened in any of my testing. My friend and I had just evaporated $32,000 each in eight days. I started to get worried. Yes, I knew there would be some drawdown, but I didn’t know how I would mentally react. All of a sudden , the doubts poured in and my euphoria and hope disappeared. How do I know this will work? Do I really know for sure this might not keep losing and burn through almost all of my $100,000.00 account? I decided to take a break on the live autotrading and do it on SIM for a while. I felt awful my friend also had lost over $30,000.00 because of me. The SIM results show that the strategy would have continued to lose consistently for the next several months.

How could this happen? Why did it work for so long and then go bad when I had bet everything on it? I was beyond devastated. I had lived in a fantasy world for six months and had never been happier. Now I didn’t even want to get out of bed. What I had failed to realize is that the pound/yen was in a strong downward trending mode for over a year. Of course the strategy worked perfectly during that time. The Financial crisis had cause it to selloff almost every night. By the time I got to trading 10 lots with it, the conditions changed. Suddenly the pound/yen got choppy every night and caused my strategy to fail. This was an exceedingly painful lesson.
To be continued

Failure is not an option
Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #1028 (permalink)
 
Pariah Carey's Avatar
 Pariah Carey 
Memphis TN
Legendary E-mini dictator for life
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Thinkorswim
Broker: TDAmeritrade
Trading: Futures
Posts: 1,042 since Jan 2014
Thanks Given: 158
Thanks Received: 3,616

Damn. I've got Journey's Don't Stop Believin in my head as I read this.

Working hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
The movie never ends it goes on and on and on


If it weren't for people like who you used to be, markets wouldn't exist.

Money make ya handsome
Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #1029 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386


Pariah Carey View Post
Damn. I've got Journey's Don't Stop Believin in my head as I read this.

Working hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
The movie never ends it goes on and on and on


If it weren't for people like who you used to be, markets wouldn't exist.

Great song ! Those lyrics definitely fit my stories.

Failure is not an option
Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #1030 (permalink)
 lancelottrader 
west palm beach florida usa
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: ninja trader
Broker: Optimus Futures/ Rithmic
Trading: NQ
Posts: 1,112 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 1,113
Thanks Received: 5,386


Here are today's trades. I was a little hungover. Went to see the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody" about Freddie Mercury (Lead singer for the rock band Queen.. for my Millennial friends who never heard of him) and I had some Tequila at the theater lounge to get into the spirit of things.


Failure is not an option
Started this thread Reply With Quote




Last Updated on April 11, 2023


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts