Well said, Lancelot, and so important for so many traders.

I used to think I could "tell" when something was going against me and was a sure loser, but Cl can be extremely tricky and it's countertrend noise isn't always a good enough reason to liquidate a valid trade. A few years ago, with my total belief in scalping immediate momentum, I would have considered my last sentence to be Blasphemy. But I have entered trades on CL with overwhelming speed and order flow..only to have it go up 6 ticks or so retrace a bit and do nothing for 5 minutes or more before going back up and hitting 10 ticks or more. I've seen it too many times. And it can make you pull the plug on some winners.

I struggled with this same phenomenon when I learned to trade stocks. Did it again when I moved to futures. I found my itchy fingers getting me out of trades I knew I should stay in. What finally got me over the hump was a lesson I learned from rock climbing, where I'm often far above protection, but pull it together and continue up. That pull up is based on training, repetition, and controlling fear. I knew my trades worked, but feared the fall, feared missing the small gain. Rock climbing falls have never hurt me, and they've taught me that I don't get better until I climb routes that are initially too hard for me.

And that little lesson pushed me to stay in trades, dampening the fear while knowing I would survive the loss if it came.

That said, it ain't easy. Thanks much for your very valuable thread, Lance. Thoughtful, reasoned, smart. Solid stuff.

Michael

I was chatting with a CL trader recently ,about his struggles going from SIM to live, and I thought I would share a few things. He relayed to me a little about his system (which was fairly similar to mine),and mentioned he had had several months of great results on SIM. However, the last few times he had gone live in the past year or so, it had always been a disaster. So like many, he found himself going live for a few weeks, suffering some losses , and then going back to SIM to "work things out." This pattern had gone on for years and was something I could relate to...having been there myself.
He seemed very puzzled why his system worked so well on SIM, but always failed miserably live. He now has been back to live for about three weeks and has won about 50 ticks the first week, but has lost the last two weeks by about 40 ticks each week. The main problem he has told me is that he can't seem to hold a trade..for even a 10 tick target, let alone a 20. He said he wins 20 tick trades all the time on SIM, but now when price pauses or bounce a few ticks against him, he immediately tries to get out at even. He says he feels so much adrenaline that he feels his heart start speeding up and pounding. He's been incredibly depressed the last week or so, since he was hitting his goal on SIM virtually every week.

If some of you think the guy sounds like a weak "Beta Male" type, and you are just a SIM trader...you may be in for a little adjustment period of your own. I can definitely identify with this guy. I had almost the exact same issue when I would go live. Once I made my final live transition, I made up my mind I was not going to return to SIM, no matter what. And it was time to sink or swim. I had been going back and forth from SIM to live for years and if many of you here are honest, I bet a lot of you have, too.

The big problem that comes up is fear of loss. It is 100 times more magnified live than SIM and it will make you pull the plug on lots of winning trades. And if you time in a trade like I do (and the guy I was chatting with)on Small time frames, you can have issues when watching your trade journey to it's target. Lots of things happen on that journey: Ideally, it can blast right to your target quickly...or it can suddenly pause and not do much for 10 minutes or so but bounce a few ticks up and down. Each one of those little downward ticks can be stressful. Or the trade can go against you 6 or 7 ticks and look like a sure loser. But many of these trades go on to win and by getting out of them, you can't make up for your inevitable losses. Watching that P and L and looking at a tiny timeframe can be so much harder live than SIM ..especially if you've had a few losing weeks.

What worked for me was..after taking my entry, I stopped watching the 2 range chart while I was in the trade. Instead I'd look at a 5 minute chart with no profit and loss showing. The slower movement was much less stressful on my brain. If I had a stop as large as 15 and say a target of 20 or 30..I would set price alerts when I was 10 ticks down and maybe 10 ticks up. On the 5 minute chart I drew a green horizontal line where my target was and a red line where my stop was. So basically, no interference until the 10 tick alert sounded and then maybe a quick glance at my 2 range to see if I thought it could go further. But looking at the empty 5 minute chart was much easier on my brain in terms of staying in a trade. I don't always do that now, but when I was going from SIM to live, it helped me stay in my trades. I had broke even on so many winning trades initially, I had to do this to stay in them. Also one can set price alerts at the target and stop ..and simply walk out of the room ..you will hear the alert when either has been hit and then you can come in and verify your platform worked...lol.

Hopefully this will help the guy or someone else who may have trouble staying in their trades.

I've had this problem too, not being able to hold a trade to target through those small pullbacks but now I've gone too far the other way - holding on too long. For instance, if I'm in a long I'm seeing the trade move up within a few ticks of target or key level (eg. yesterday's close, high, vwap, etc) then pullback, stall, move up again, only to fall just short again and once again pullback, stall, move up again, fall short again and then absolutely explode down in the opposite direction. I try to look for waning momentum, number of attempts to move up and anything else that will give me clues that it's not going to work out. Sometimes the orders just seem to come out of nowhere. Any suggestions or advice as to how you handle these situations. Thanks.

Hi Lancelot,

I was re-watching some of your video at the time when CL was over 100$. I would like to know if you find CL more easy to trade now that we are much lower or more difficult?

I was looking at what you called at the time "small targets" of 40 of 50 ticks... and today 40 or 50 ticks is quite a big runner. I wasn't trading at that time but it is fascinating to see "small" intraday moves of 100 up follow by a 100 ticks down and all of that in less than 1 hours.

I do notice lately on some trading threads, there are people claiming they make 30 to 50 ticks a day..or more..on a regular basis. I notice they also say this is disappointing...and that they should be making much more.
Lets look at this realistically. Even a modest 30 ticks a day for 5 days is 150 ticks a week. Doing that and you can fairly quickly build up a small account to where you can trade 5 contracts. So 30 ticks a day(150 ticks a week) x 5 contracts ($50 a tick) is $7500 a week...$30,000 a month.. or $360,000 a year. 10 contracts is $720,000 a year. 20 contracts is $1,440,000.00 a year.

So all these guys that are whining that they only had a day where they made 40 ticks or so seem kind of silly. Because if they are being real and trading real money, well, then we should have a new crop of Futures.io millionaires in no time, right?

I think what you are referring to is a deliberate institutional ploy to cause the infamous "trapped traders " syndrome. What happens is you have a lot of people in a trade..assuming it has to hit that key level of support . As they make attempts, the institutions know these multitude of traders are going to hold for at least those last few ticks to hit their target. Then, they suddenly go the opposite way..and you get a snowballing effect. The scared traders try to liquidate as the price starts surging down..then others start getting their stops hit..and the orderflow can cause a quick 100 tick reversal. I see this a lot when price in CL has suddenly surged up and it's racing to that key level. In fact I try to get out before I get all the way to the top. I like to wait for those reversals and try to jump in, and grab some ticks. I do try to look for something that fails at least three times. Three seems to be a key number in a lot of these type of moves. Also, in CL..I see this a lot more when it reverses from long positions. Maybe try getting into some trades and getting out several ticks before that key reversal area.