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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

  #1641 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

closed +25, I don't trust ES

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

Started this thread

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  #1642 (permalink)
 
Sunil P's Avatar
 Sunil P 
los angeles
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: nt
Trading: cl
Posts: 290 since Jan 2012


Deucalion View Post
This is the only reason to have a journal IMO, not to post wins, show skill or wins but see how you felt and perhaps why you either acted in haste or missed signals. Do that Gary, change this journal into cataloguing only things you missed...not a one journal that does that here on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT)...a journal with a difference. Because no one can demand to see you live trades or your explanations. No one has that right. That is the primary reason I stopped both of my blogs, after the euphoria of how "great" and "skilled" I was wore off...I realized the best learning came from the falls...and not from seeing my wins....a delicate balance between positive and negative re-enforcement. Some people work better with positive, others with negative.

Price wise.....good behaviour today.. fairly symmetrical and contextual.....the so called value areas are where the waves held.

if this was meant for me,which I deduce it is.

1. Just showing how indicators work and KIS is the way to go. No disrespect to anyone anywhere.
It just works for me.
2. One thing I learned early in trading was humility and am still learning that daily. As markets are more powerfully than myself or my account. Having blown accounts,I still have to go back and reread those trades and the mistakes to keep me in the grove today..
3. Following the plan and indicators with proper position sizing and thus MM is the key to success.

I just see people running from indicator to indicator..plan to plan. By showing how it CAN be done,there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Also as we all know there are many ways to skin the cat.



Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream
I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been
To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal
  #1643 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011



josh View Post
I don't know about crude, but in equities it's really mostly about Greece. Optimistic news has been flowing today, and so the market has been buying. There is still a possibility that foreign bondholders not bound by Greek law (14% of total debt) can spoil the loan from the IMF, but as of 1am EST we will know for sure the status of the debt swap, and as of now they have 80% committed, and only need 66% to trigger the CACs necessary to force everyone to participate. In short, I think this is a done deal, and so does the market. Uncertainly still looms as I mentioned, but this deadline is not until March 20, and will probably be a concern as that date looms.

Technicals may give us locations to trade, but it's the collective sentiment of the market that gives the direction, IMO. Short of any real uncertainty suddenly happening from Greece, I don't see a big selloff happening. But as always, the unexpected looms and can always happen... Plus, crude is a strange animal on its own, and may react in ways other markets would not.


I was just being sarcastic. I sometimes laugh at the "reasons" the news posts.

ES appears to be wanting to blow stops above the market, is why I dropped the short in CL.

Started this thread
  #1644 (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


GaryD View Post
I was just being sarcastic. I sometimes laugh at the "reasons" the news posts.

ES appears to be wanting to blow stops above the market, is why I dropped the short in CL.

Indeed Gary, "Market rises on good ADP numbers" but it does so before the numbers come out, for example, is one of my favorite scenarios.

Thanked by:
  #1645 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

I may not do any better than where I am today. I have a psychological block for two reasons;

1) I wanted to be a buyer at support, and missed it. That was the best R/R trade of the day, and I don't want to take the scraps.

2) I am up every day this week, which is now riding in my subconscious and pulling back my desire to take another risk.

Between those two, I really want to see something good, and this flopping around action is not it. I may buy around 106.30, or sell a low volume retest up to as high as 107.50 area.

Started this thread
  #1646 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


Deucalion View Post
This is the only reason to have a journal IMO, not to post wins, show skill or wins but see how you felt and perhaps why you either acted in haste or missed signals. Do that Gary, change this journal into cataloguing only things you missed...not a one journal that does that here on futures.io (formerly BMT)...a journal with a difference. Because no one can demand to see you live trades or your explanations. No one has that right. That is the primary reason I stopped both of my blogs, after the euphoria of how "great" and "skilled" I was wore off...I realized the best learning came from the falls...and not from seeing my wins....a delicate balance between positive and negative re-enforcement. Some people work better with positive, others with negative.


I have only read maybe 2 or 3 other journals here, and none beyond a few pages. I really don't know what is out there. I read "Zen and the art of traing a small account" when I first found futures.io (formerly BMT). Great title, and that trader had a similar background to mine. I read Sharky's trading 101 (or something similarly named). He had some great concepts and I spoke with him some when I first joined. Another trader I found similarities with.

I read Bugs Bunny's thread once, Perry's once. I think that is it. They all have their thing going on, and may have incredible information to share. They may have great journals, make great profits, I have not gone back to check. When I left my last mentor, I saw it as throwing myself out of the nest, and I actually apologized to them as I went away, but If I was going to learn to be a real "trader", I had to learn to do it alone. Set my own S/R levels, find my own setups, fix my own problems. It was amazingly scary after having someone to watch for so long, let someone else tell me where to trade. And I lost money again at first. It sucked. I considered going back many times over the following months, but I saw that as weakness.

So I started studying like a crazy person. 24 hours a day I had a laptop, multiple trading books, watched every webinar I could find (how I discovered futures.io (formerly BMT)), backtested over and over and over. Surprised my wife hung in there. I don't know if I have never met anyone as tenacious as I can be when the presssure is on. I have often said "get there or die trying", and I'm not kidding sometimes.

Had I started this journal a few years ago I could write about how "I lost my butt today", or "I just blew up, again!". That is a very '"real" journal topic. And I'm sure there would be lessons to learn.

But I don't really do that any more. Of course I have losing days, losing trades, maybe losing streaks occasionally, and I try to show those. But more often than not, if I am losing, they were trades out of boredom, scalps, reckless entries that I would not post live anyway. I said recently my trading had been mostly flat to lower, and that was from a mental fog I was having. But most of those trades I did not feel strongly enough about to bother showing the live entry.

As weird as it sounds, I typically know when I am setting a bad example. I have done it so many times , I just know, and most times just bail, +2, -2, does not matter. They nearly wash. I have taken after hours trades that never get mentioned, win or lose. That is because after hours is not a timeframe I am good at, so I think of that differently. I am only anything resembling a proficient trader between the hours of 8:30am and 2:30pm EST. The rest of the time I am just playing around.

I do try to log my struggles, debates, confusion. My recent issue with not wanting to give up trading while living from one airport to the next is an example, or my desire to take major swings versus my reality of grabbing 50 ticks. Today I did post a "fall" of sorts; I made my buy zone too tight, and by being too narrow-sighted I missed a great trade. Yesterday was somewhat of a failed trade as well, I had an initial profit target of 100 ticks and stepped out at my normal range and got 45. I struggle with the memory of my past financial loss, I struggle to balance my personal time.

Those are my failures.

It would be very rare to see me take a loss of greater than 35 ticks. I may set it there, but I almost never plan on it getting hit. It is an emergency stop. If I did actually allow my stops to get hit where I initially place them, I might be able to show a very poor performance. lol!

But the positive effect this journal has had on me was not the only reason I started the thread. I wanted to show that one can trade profitably, and how, as best as is possible by still images and delayed text.

Silly, maybe. But when I was really trying hard to learn, I felt like I had no one. Sure I paid for some mentoring, sure I took some classes, I had email correspondence, chat rooms, etc. But no one seemed to show me all the parts by taking me by the hand and going one step at a time. I really try to show that. I start with a higher timeframe area of possible interest, show how I read volume in those area, show my chart settings, my lines and their explanations, discuss when and why I enter. I have paid thousands in education, and never got that level of detail in a total package that really spoke to me.

Should I keep my knowledge to myself? I wonder that sometimes. If I ever trade outside investor capital, I will keep my mouth shut. I have recently considered that maybe what is already posted here is enough, and I should just quietly slip away.

There are two major rules in trading;

1) Markets go one of two directions.
2) Keep winners larger than losers.

It is not that difficult of a concept. The difficulty lies within, and that is something that I can talk about from my perspective, and do, but human psychology has far more going on than the markets do. If only that was so simple...



ES finally blew the stops it was targetting.

STAY SAFE!!

Started this thread
  #1647 (permalink)
 
Deucalion's Avatar
 Deucalion 
Calgary, Canada
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Multiple
Broker: Multiple
Trading: Multiple
Posts: 428 since Aug 2009


GaryD View Post
I have only read maybe 2 or 3 other journals here, and none beyond a few pages. I really don't know what is out there. I read "Zen and the art of traing a small account" when I first found nexusfi.com (formerly BMT). Great title, and that trader had a similar background to mine. I read Sharky's trading 101 (or something similarly named). He had some great concepts and I spoke with him some when I first joined. Another trader I found similarities with.

I read Bugs Bunny's thread once, Perry's once. I think that is it. They all have their thing going on, and may have incredible information to share. They may have great journals, make great profits, I have not gone back to check. When I left my last mentor, I saw it as throwing myself out of the nest, and I actually apologized to them as I went away, but If I was going to learn to be a real "trader", I had to learn to do it alone. Set my own S/R levels, find my own setups, fix my own problems. It was amazingly scary after having someone to watch for so long, let someone else tell me where to trade. And I lost money again at first. It sucked. I considered going back many times over the following months, but I saw that as weakness.

So I started studying like a crazy person. 24 hours a day I had a laptop, multiple trading books, watched every webinar I could find (how I discovered nexusfi.com (formerly BMT)), backtested over and over and over. Surprised my wife hung in there. I don't know if I have never met anyone as tenacious as I can be when the presssure is on. I have often said "get there or die trying", and I'm not kidding sometimes.

Had I started this journal a few years ago I could write about how "I lost my butt today", or "I just blew up, again!". That is a very '"real" journal topic. And I'm sure there would be lessons to learn.

But I don't really do that any more. Of course I have losing days, losing trades, maybe losing streaks occasionally, and I try to show those. But more often than not, if I am losing, they were trades out of boredom, scalps, reckless entries that I would not post live anyway. I said recently my trading had been mostly flat to lower, and that was from a mental fog I was having. But most of those trades I did not feel strongly enough about to bother showing the live entry.

As weird as it sounds, I typically know when I am setting a bad example. I have done it so many times , I just know, and most times just bail, +2, -2, does not matter. They nearly wash. I have taken after hours trades that never get mentioned, win or lose. That is because after hours is not a timeframe I am good at, so I think of that differently. I am only anything resembling a proficient trader between the hours of 8:30am and 2:30pm EST. The rest of the time I am just playing around.

I do try to log my struggles, debates, confusion. My recent issue with not wanting to give up trading while living from one airport to the next is an example, or my desire to take major swings versus my reality of grabbing 50 ticks. Today I did post a "fall" of sorts; I made my buy zone too tight, and by being too narrow-sighted I missed a great trade. Yesterday was somewhat of a failed trade as well, I had an initial profit target of 100 ticks and stepped out at my normal range and got 45. I struggle with the memory of my past financial loss, I struggle to balance my personal time.

Those are my failures.

It would be very rare to see me take a loss of greater than 35 ticks. I may set it there, but I almost never plan on it getting hit. It is an emergency stop. If I did actually allow my stops to get hit where I initially place them, I might be able to show a very poor performance. lol!

But the positive effect this journal has had on me was not the only reason I started the thread. I wanted to show that one can trade profitably, and how, as best as is possible by still images and delayed text.

Silly, maybe. But when I was really trying hard to learn, I felt like I had no one. Sure I paid for some mentoring, sure I took some classes, I had email correspondence, chat rooms, etc. But no one seemed to show me all the parts by taking me by the hand and going one step at a time. I really try to show that. I start with a higher timeframe area of possible interest, show how I read volume in those area, show my chart settings, my lines and their explanations, discuss when and why I enter. I have paid thousands in education, and never got that level of detail in a total package that really spoke to me.

Should I keep my knowledge to myself? I wonder that sometimes. If I ever trade outside investor capital, I will keep my mouth shut. I have recently considered that maybe what is already posted here is enough, and I should just quietly slip away.

There are two major rules in trading;

1) Markets go one of two directions.
2) Keep winners larger than losers.

It is not that difficult of a concept. The difficulty lies within, and that is something that I can talk about from my perspective, and do, but human psychology has far more going on than the markets do. If only that was so simple...



ES finally blew the stops it was targetting.

STAY SAFE!!

Good points.....we all learn different ways..I learn with negative re-enforcement, must be something wrong with my wiring....

ES..blew stops...curious you said that...I was watching ES at that exact time. Red herring IMO......If I traded ES I would have shorted that zone aggressively...too many damn confluences....retailers put their stops where...either at obvious highs or at daily ATR's...blow then both and reverse...


  #1648 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

If I had started a thread titled, "I blew up my account, again!", and then made 5, 10, 20 posts, all basically, you know, blew up again, at what point would that go from being informative to pathetic? Would it show perserverance or stupidity? Would it be something you would want to learn, or a titel you might laugh at?

I have blown up more than once, and can't think of any real reason why I should have kept going. But I did. I would switch to sim, think I had it all figured out, reload an account. Oops. Back to sim... lol! I posted a thread here about it.



I am going to start a new thread in that direction, with the purpose being to try to make something constructive out of it, and see what happens.

Started this thread
  #1649 (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


Deucalion View Post
If I traded ES I would have shorted that zone aggressively
...blow then both and reverse...

It will be interesting to see what happens tonight at 1am EST, if anything, when the PSI results are made official. Has the market already priced it in, as reports today were saying there was 85-90% cooperation, and thus they will "sell the news," or will there be a big push up, ahead of NFP too? I am in a sim long 4 @ 66.25 trade, as I knew I would hold it overnight and don't do that normally with actual money. It will be fun to see what happens. Maybe being long ahead of this is a bad idea, but I sure wouldn't want to be short. With just two hours to go, the market certainly has not reversed strongly, not yet anyway...

  #1650 (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


Gary, thanks for the post above. I'm sure we all think it and I try to hit the thanks button as often as possible, but THANK YOU for your honest insights into your successes and problems. You are very real, and I respect and appreciate that so much. I am constantly encouraged by your posting of live trades--if for no other reason, to root along with you, and to see someone actually succeed. There are so many out there who say they are successful, but 99% of them won't prove it, because they are lying and their ego won't allow them to be honest. You actually are doing it, and that means a lot to many people, myself included. Both in your wins and in your losses, you are honest and that alone is priceless in this community when so many simply are not and are only after an ego boost or a buck.

You don't owe anything to anyone, but your generosity in sharing lifts my spirits and encourages me to keep going when I have a bad day. You have no idea how many times I've had my head hung low after a bad day, and then I look at your journal, and seeing your success gives me the motivation to pick myself up and keep going.

Thanked by:

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Last Updated on May 23, 2014


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