indextrader7 

After spending more time here at futures.io (formerly BMT), and seeing what other people say about being arrogant and making things about money, I don't think I should be posting any more P/L figures. This is a trade journal and we'll make it about the entries, exits, and management of them, my mindset, fears, mistakes, and successes. I think I've done a fair job so far in making the journal mainly about those things, but I really don't want people to think I'm arrogant or just trying to get followers on the journal for posting $ P/L. I just started doing it because ninjatrader made it easy, and one of the main themes of this journal is transparency. Back to focusing on ticks P/L and posting from my excel sheet trade log. Any comments on this issue are welcomed.

Hi IT7

I like everyone else who has commented agree for me this is the best journal I have ever read I have learnt so much about the psychology of trading I don't think anyone would read this and say you are posting your results to be arrogant. I think it is more the other way round you are being completely open and honest and showing the good and the bad which is a very brave thing to do.

On one hand, this was a very profitable week, but I took too much risk, and don't feel good about my performance. I'm negative on my average ticks per contract p/l for the week. Not good trading. I've got to be more consistent with my methodology and not feel the need to be right on trades at times and load up too many contracts. I think I got a bit laxed in my risk management and trade selectivity. It could be from having the performance I've had so far this year. Several times in my life I have had the tendency to slip at things once I get really good at them (not saying I'm a really good trader, just saying my performance has been) It's perfect timing for a long weekend for reflection and to get back to what's most important in trading, and that's managing risk.

Daily P/L for the week.



Here's the problem... My returns this week came completely from position sizing. If I would have traded the same position size all week, it would be a losing week. Not good. Here's two charts I whipped up showing this week's $ P/L and ticks P/L to see the difference.



Thank you guys for the kind words on the journal.

Any comments are quite welcomed as always.

Great journal!

Can't wait to trade tomorrow. I'm holding off on any more scalping for now. Had a profitable week, but it was totally due to position sizing (AKA risk). I Don't even have a 2-range chart up anymore. Backing out a bit to 250 tick, 3 min, and 30 min (short, mid, and long term charts respectively).

Back to pure price action trading on more reasonable intraday timeframes.

Found a good quote:

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -Mark Twain

SO true in trading.

More details on the move away from scalping methods:

As I mentioned, I was negative ticks/unit trading much more than I have been in the past. Ok, why was this? After much consideration, I think it comes down to not feeling comfortable with knowing where to place stops when I"m so "zoomed in" to tiny price action taking blind limit entries on pullbacks. When I'm trading support/resistance instead of those blind entries, I am absolutely certain where my stops will be.

This lack of comfort in placing stops led me to then add to positions more than I should. When I take a look on longer timeframes at many trades I took scalping, they look absolutely insane.

indextrader7,

Great journal....one of the few I read regularly mostly because I learn a lot from it.

Question about last week's trading - you mentioned one day that you had suffered an intraday drawdown and took on much more position size (risk) to reverse your loss and turn it into a massive daily gain.

Do you feel that by doing this you could have dug yourself an even deeper hole? Do you feel that your successful attempt at reversing a drawdown into a massive gain could potentially hurt you in the future?

Reason for my question: this happened to me a few times trading stocks earlier in my trading career and resulted in a blown out account as I relied on it one too many times.

Interested to hear your thoughts and good trading.

Thanks.

TrendTraderBH 

indextrader7, Great journal....one of the few I read regularly mostly because I learn a lot from it. Question about last week's trading - you mentioned one day that you had suffered an intraday drawdown and took on much more position size (risk) to reverse your loss and turn it into a massive daily gain. Do you feel that by doing this you could have dug yourself an even deeper hole? Do you feel that your successful attempt at reversing a drawdown into a massive gain could potentially hurt you in the future? Reason for my question: this happened to me a few times trading stocks earlier in my trading career and resulted in a blown out account as I relied on it one too many times. Interested to hear your thoughts and good trading. Thanks.

Of course I could have dug myself into a deeper hole! Anything can happen at anytime in the markets, and there was no certainty I was going to be "bailed out"... and that's exactly how it felt.

It actually is confusing to me that you ask... beause in my own mind I made it very clear that I was not happy with this type of trading, and understand that is extremely too much risk, and not even necessary since I have a great edge. It's embarrassing to me to even post here that I did such a thing. Real lack of professionalism on my part. I hope this clarifies my thoughts on it.

Ultimately it's a weakness of belief system on my part. If I TRULY 100% believed that I had a significant edge, and that an edge is only a higher probability of A happening over B, and that there was a random distribution between winners and losers, and that anything can happen at any time.... I wouldn't even think of putting on a trade like that. It doesn't coinside with the aforementioned belief system.

The belief system it DOES go along with is that... I KNOW WHAT THE MARKET IS GOING TO DO, AND HOW DARE IT GO THIS FAR AGAINST ME, I ABSULUTELY KNOW IT WILL TURN AROUND. I HAVE A HUGE DESIRE TO "BE RIGHT" ON THIS VERY TRADE.

Very bad stuff.

Thanks for the question, and see you around!

It's so. damn. hard. not to take profits sometimes. Up 31 ticks on the runner, and fighting not to close it out every five seconds. ha.

9:39 tightened stop. out.

Overall pretty good trading today. Had a few minor issues transitioning away from the scalping mindset, but overall the transition was smooth.

+11.6 ticks for the session
-3.0, +11.0, -12.0, +14.0, -10.0, -2.0, -5.0, -16.0, +24.8, +3.0, +1.5, -15.0, +3.0, +15.5, -9.5, +11.5, -0.2

I consider both the -16 and -15 trades to be trading mistakes. Those losses should have been better managed.




More detailed trade recap to follow.

Hope you guys are doing well today.