mfbreakout 

got stopped out @ 93.95. Long again 94.02. stop loss 93.79.

Once a re short level is taken out by buyers, i want to be long on pullbacks. Small size ,since it's a counter trend trade.

One 1st try got stopped out. 2nd try gave some 46 ticks.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/cun77u.jpg[/img]

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/9x686p.jpg[/img]

I am about to get out

Closed +22

day recap:

-14
-11
+22

net -3

mfbreakout 

Once a re short level is taken out by buyers, i want to be long on pullbacks. Small size ,since it's a counter trend trade. One 1st try got stopped out. 2nd try gave some 46 ticks.

recap of the day.

+40, +60, -36, -15,+100, +46, -25= net 166 ticks.

Into Oil Pit close 94.44 was broken on 2637 cars.

So, 94.50 is first marker now.

mfbreakout 

recap of the day. +40, +60, -36, -15,+100, +46, -25= net 166 ticks. Into Oil Pit close 94.44 was broken on 2637 cars. So, 94.50 is first marker now.

Great day. I like that your winners outsize your losers. I'm not familiar with the trading method you mentioned, but I'll look into it. Thanks for posting your trades and your setups. Would you be interested in participating in a simple version of a trading contest? Not really to see who is better, but to learn from?

GaryD 

Great day. I like that your winners outsize your losers. I'm not familiar with the trading method you mentioned, but I'll look into it. Thanks for posting your trades and your setups. Would you be interested in participating in a simple version of a trading contest? Not really to see who is better, but to learn from?

Sounds good Gary. Sign me up. I trade based off Mark Fisher- Mr. Fisher is a living trading legend- ACD trading method as detailed in his book " The logical Trader".

Big Mike 

Appreciate the details. But, is this normal for you to feel this way? I would suggest you are trading a bit too big if so. I prefer to trade a size where my butt is firmly planted at the back of my chair, my feet are flat on the ground, I am not arched over my keyboard.... etc. Usually if I find myself in the opposite position, it means I should get out of the trade. I know and agree that taking trades where others refuse to take them is part of the business, but you don't have to take them with such size that you stress out. Mike

No, not normal for me in a trade with the trend. And I did not completely realize it might be normal for countertrend trades, but am working to understand myself more.

It's not an issue of size, I have learned that lesson more than once. What you are picking up may be that my trades recently are geared towards a thought process I am going through. I posted several days/weeks ago that I exitted a trade out of fear. It was a solid winner, but the reason I got out was wrong.

I know enough not to get hurt, but I am not necessarily trying to make money as much as I am trying to shift some thought patterns. To me, my post about tasting adrenaline was the most significant realization I had for the day. May sound like I've gone off the deep end, but I am doing it with extreme clarity. More than I will ever know trading, I can know myself. And I have the belief that my approach to the markets would be better if I would tweak certain things. One of those is not care as much about the outcome. I have been repeating lately, "optimize yourself". What I mean is, find the sweet spots in your own reactions, motivations, beliefs. I wish someone could make that as easy as writing code, but the only way I can see to do that is what I am doing lately; Do the analysis, make the entry, forget the trade for a minute, look at myself. if I could do genetic testing on this, I would. If I could export to excel, I would.

Here's what I got out of today's trading; My learned reaction to the last trade I entered today would have been to close when the trade reached the 50ish area, and then look to re-enter possibly on aanother pullback the the DC. I learned to believe that, because if you look at crude's typical swing on a 6 range, the odds favor that as an optimized distance. But today, I sat and just let the market go, and worked on acknowledging my fear.

Keep in mind, the post of heart rate and adrenaline, I never noticed those things before I started trying to.

I can trade profitably. But I can't do it to where I would recommend that someone else trust me to do it for them. But, I have had the desire to do that since I took my first trade. You probably know I came into trading from a major loss elsewhere. My close friends and family lost as well, many because they had invested with me, and I'm not talking about a few hundred thousand. The real estate collapse where I live was possibly one of the worst in the US. In some ways, I may have silently chosen to be the martyr. But not forever. My goal is not to be wealthy, it's more than that. It is to find a better way.

I'm backtesting myself right now, and that can mean pushing limits and testing boundaries. What is the optimum setting for my trading beliefs and actions?

It is not the fear of losing a few hundred dollars on a trade. It's the fear of the unknown. Where should I get out of a good trade?

Stop losses, max drawdowns, risk as % of equity, instrument volatility... We have to put so much emphasis on those things just to survive as traders, that we may neglect other things that are potentially more important. Like, relaxing, seeing how far a trade can go, learning how far it can go, understanding what keeps us from aloowing it.

And what holds us back, in some form or another, I believe, is fear.