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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets


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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets

  #2511 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011




There went my retirement.

Started this thread

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
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NinjaTrader
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NinjaTrader
 
  #2512 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

BTW, this is a journal as much as anything. Talking directly to myself is only mild insanity. Example; "Gary, you need to pay attention this this". That is how journals work sometimes, they are conversations with myself, instructions from various levels of consciousness that the mind moves through as a normal course.

Referring to myself in true third person would be more like, "If Gary doesn't start trading size the way I have told him to, I'm going to have to have a serious talk with him."

What I really need is a symbol to replace my name...and just refer to myself as The Trader.


Started this thread
  #2513 (permalink)
 
josh's Avatar
 josh 
Georgia, US
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: None
Platform: SC
Broker: Denali+Rithmic
Trading: ES, NQ, YM
Posts: 6,216 since Jan 2011
Thanks Given: 6,752
Thanks Received: 18,136


Josh likes reading Gary's journal. Josh thinks Gary is awesome. Josh hopes Gary has a good weekend!

(can't embed)

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  #2514 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


josh View Post
Josh likes reading Gary's journal. Josh thinks Gary is awesome. Josh hopes Gary has a good weekend!

The Jimmy - YouTube (can't embed)




I was hoping someone would get my sense of humor. Many don't, but I am used to that by now. Thanks Josh.

Started this thread
  #2515 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

My wife decided to go to yoga, and my pool pump stopped working, so I return to the place I spend the rest of my life. And yes, short TF at 764.6...closed already.

Started this thread
  #2516 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


GaryD View Post
Of all the things that I do not know about a trade, which do I not know the least?


1) Where price is likely to go in the next 5 minutes, far more than the next 5 days.

2) That movement repeats itself over and over, and I have studied the most common motion for the market I chose, and I recognize it many times when it occurs.

3) That volume moves markets, and by reading volume I can get a better clue into the future direction, if only for the next five minutes.

4) The smaller the target, the higher the probability it will get hit. 12-15 ticks is very common, 20-25 is the next level, 30-40 next, and 50-60, very rare to not pull back first.

5) That the greatest volume occurs at key areas, and for some reason those are the easiest for me to read.




Trying to justify the greater size made me want a better risk to reward, but that is changing things. I want to make scalp entries on major turns. Maybe I will occasionally. But that does not present the highest probability.

Greater risk to reward comes with lesser probability. So I push the size envelope and also shift into a lower probabilty area than the zone I am most familiar with, and it causes frustration that the results change.

I read many places about the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". What about doing something different and expecting the same results?

Scalping, for me, is intense. But with a single contract the intensity feels more like fun, maybe like raquetball. Think fast, move fast, score in minutes if not seconds. Intense, but without stress the decision process becomes simple.

I have spent so many years, spending more hours studying charts than I should admit, that I have become fixated on the art of "guessing" where a market is going to turn. I do failry well at it, but my mind is not yet comfortable in that space when it comes to taking a trade. The reason is, probability.

I know if an area where a turn might occur starts to look like it is going to occur, and if I am watching the same areas other traders are watching, in that tiny moment in time everything seems to align. The unknown provides a burst of energy, and that rush of volume can get me in and out of the market quickly and with better chances of short-term success.

The way I learned that was by accident. I would see price hit a support zone, big volume comes in and the market pushes up, I buy in and set my target for the moon, and then it fizzles... I would then often get stopped out. Exactly what I did Wednesday, as if I regressed years in my knowledge.

Afterwards, as a means of surviving, I would scalp back 4 ticks, 6 ticks, with the goal of getting back to even so I was ready to trade again. I started focusing on scalps, but that only gave so-so results. So I then started trying to hold winners longer than losesr. That was a turning point.

I learned that it was not that easy to define by distance though, and also learned it was easier to define by time, and probability. So many times I will get in ta trade, if it runs, I let it, if it looks iffy, I get back out.

Keeping the targets within a range that occurs over and over and over makes it not feel like anything if I miss a trade, or am wrong on a trade. In crude, 15-50 ticks is that range, for me and the way I see the market, or what I believe could happen 20 times a day. That perspective always made losses easier.

During the swing attemmpt that maxed me out this week, I completely ignored the moment of that trade, and only thought of the possibility. And that was the most frustrating part. I stopped being afraid for that moment.

The synergy I am looking for may just be "the wrong dream" as suggested by @zt379. I may have it backwards.

Started this thread
  #2517 (permalink)
 greenr 
london/england
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra charts, NinjaTrader, VK Trader
Broker: CQG, AMP, VK, Kinetick
Trading: CL/6E/TF/ES
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GaryD View Post
BTW, this is a journal as much as anything. Talking directly to myself is only mild insanity. Example; "Gary, you need to pay attention this this". That is how journals work sometimes, they are conversations with myself, instructions from various levels of consciousness that the mind moves through as a normal course.

Referring to myself in true third person would be more like, "If Gary doesn't start trading size the way I have told him to, I'm going to have to have a serious talk with him."

What I really need is a symbol to replace my name...and just refer to myself as The Trader.


Mr Gary, this is your journal and a marvellous one I must say too

You talk to yourself and act insane as much as you like, this is the point in this so don’t listen to us idiots

It’s for your benefit not ours and you’re only going to learn by jotting down your thoughts and emotions in real time

Just good to have some fun at the same time or we just become miserable

P.S if my self or any one els is treading on your toes in this thread, you need to hilight this. It`s your work and will reflect your life not ours

have a great week end, dream of surfing these crude waves

" I will follow my rules, I will take my stops, I will be disciplined and i will work with the market....NOT AGAINST IT! Professional mind control is the key"
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  #2518 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


greenr View Post
Mr Gary, this is your journal and a marvellous one I must say too

You talk to yourself and act insane as much as you like, this is the point in this so don’t listen to us idiots

It’s for your benefit not ours and you’re only going to learn by jotting down your thoughts and emotions in real time

Just good to have some fun at the same time or we just become miserable

P.S if my self or any one els is treading on your toes in this thread, you need to hilight this. It`s your work and will reflect your life not ours

have a great week end, dream of surfing these crude waves


That whole thing was just me being goofy. It did not work so well for some guy who used to be "Prince". Although, I did notice it looked like a "T"...

I saw the comments about "losing it" on Friday as funny, not serious. I just decided to run with it a little. A benefit of keeping this journal online is the fun that comes out occasionally. It is good to laugh, to make fun of ourselves, to be made fun of even in the right context. Being too serious can be a flaw.

I don't have to agree with the posts, sometimes even skim through them if I don't feel like listening at the moment, but always go back and read at some point. Even when I do not agree, it gives me the opportunity to challenge my beliefs and possibly reaffirm them.

I am ok with the fact I told myself something. Who hasn't at some point called themself by name in some sort of internal dialogue, and I choose that word with precision. Our thoughts often manifest as conversations with ourselves, as if there were two parties involved. I called myself out on that one for inflection, a purposeful push deeper into my mind to drive home a point. I am a better scalper than I am a swing trader. Truthfully, I am not a swing trader today. I seem to want to be, and that seems to overshadow the best use of my abilities sometimes.

This is my place to drag my thoughts into the daylight, and the comments from others are my only proof of that occuring. Sure, I see names log on at the bottom of the screen sometimes, but that is not the same though. I could still just be on display, a sole performer, nervous to be surrounded by nothing but spectators. The outside posts become those sharing the stage. If posting here never brought comments from others, I would quit posting.

Started this thread
  #2519 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

@zt379 and his "Wrong Dream" post came back to haunt me this week. I watched that when he posted it, smiled, thought yeah, maybe, and then back to whatever the next thought of the day was.

It was easier to search for the video on Youtube today than find it in this thread (I probabaly just have no idea how to search a thread correctly), but I did just watch that clip again this morning. It probably does not make sense to anyone without knowing all the background behind it, but it makes sense to me.

I do have the wrong dream. And until I change that dream, I will not be satisfied. The "dream" and the "goal" are in conflict, near reverse polarity from each other, and yet they seem to be so alike on the surface. Like the forest and the trees.

Started this thread
  #2520 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


All traders deal with an incredibly wide range of emotions. If you haven't, you might just have not traded enough yet.

I have some that have been identified as being especially troublesome in the past, some still sneak up on me still. I found some humor in telling myself today that each day I should do a roll call;


G: “Fear, Impatience, Greed, Anger, Self-Pity, Over-Confidence, Revenge, Hope, Stubborness”

E: “All here and accounted for, sir.”

G: “Good. Now that I know you are here, and that my job is to manage you all, let's trade.”




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