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Could have had a much bigger day had I let a few trades run farther. It's always a balance though. Today I was clearly managing trades very very tightly, so the trade off is that I only ran half a position or none on some potential bigger winners. Ok by me though. Posted the average ticks per contract p/l beside each entry.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I have come to the realization that I've been letting stats get in the way of my trading a bit. Odd, seeing as how keeping them is supposed to help your trading.
The problem is mainly based on my psychological view on my win:loss ratio. In the past, I would purposely not take small gains on trades, and place the stop at BE or for a small loss. I thought this was helpful in that I was giving the trade a chance to be a winner, while protecting against losses. The problem is that often times I knew that the trade was no longer a good one, but simply hoped it would make a miracle turn in my favor. 95% of the time the stop would just be hit, when I COULD have taken 2,3 or sometimes 5 or 6 ticks of profits.
Stats are important, but you must be self aware of how they may be affecting your decision making during trades. For me, I think I need to get back to focusing on making ticks and not losing ticks. Then I can MONITOR my stats to see if changes need to be made in my trading. Not monitor my trading to try to influence my stats. Strange how things work sometimes.
Pretty solid today. I've been much more rigid in my trade selection as of late. This is mostly a good thing, but it does pose some problems. For example, I was hesitant to pull the trigger on two great setups today, and thus had to watch them go by once the R:R was bad. I am continually searching for the optimal blend of (A) discretionary trading that allows my subconscious mind to do most of the work and have a freedom of expression, if you will, in my trading; and (B) providing a framework of "rules" and such to prevent errors and keep tight control on risk management.
The recent focus on controlling: risk per trade limits, consecutive losses leading to a timeout, daily loss limits, weekly loss limits, monthly loss limits, maximum contracts (position limits) allowable per 100k, limiting the number of trades per day, and no adding to a losing position, etc.
These things are good for many reasons, but they also change my state of mind, and I am adjusting to more "professional" trading.
Just some things I'm working though, and thought I would share.
I've got to learn how to trade days like today better. Wide swinging days. I end up looking for pullbacks, for example when we have a large move up.... I'm bullish, so I'm looking to enter long on a pullback. When I get what looks like a pullback, I enter long, and it just keeps going down down down.
I'm a big believer in the technical nature of TF moves, as far as fibs of both today's and yesterday's PA are concerned, as well as where large volume is transacted. I'd posted an analysis of yesterday's moves based on that here.
I won't get into uber-detail for today - and did not trade this today - but note the open of today had yesterday's close provide firm resistance and pressure down. There was a small bounce into the PP, but it failed, although the 50% of yesterday's range (the left-of-the-line markings, just before 09:00) provided initial support, and then 61.8% of yesterday held it to the tick. The peak volume dashed line at 844.8 seems to have resistance for now, but hopefully the PP provides support from underneath. Note that we're also at the 50% of today's range here. 23% & 78% are also highly useful, as 'last pit stops' for PA.
Days like today - awaiting Benny QE3 - serve to largely hold a vigil prior to the news, meaning, we range range aimlessly. As long as it is true aimlessness, or, there's a bias to good news, these levels can be helpful IMO.
Yes -- Fed moves almost always feature very large swings in both directions. In short, look for a wild swing, and usually a reversal almost to the point of the origination of the move, and then it is more safe to enter, only if you have reason to still take the trade of course. Look back over some fed days and rarely is it one way straight out of the gate with continuation--market must test the genuine-ness of the move by retesting deep.
