Thank you for posting your written journal entries. These are true gems. I read those lines such as " you don't have the skill to day trade" or " the problem is you" and it reminds me of when I (just recently) wrote that myself. I'm basically still-grinding along. Making small improvements daily. Thank you again for sharing this.

One thing that this journal is hammering home for me is that if you are learning to trade this way one of the biggest skills that needs to be mastered is being able to take a loss. I feel like you have to be able to look at a trade in a completely unbiased way and say this isn't working/this looks wrong/this doens't look like it is going to play out like I had planned and then get out the trade. Then look at the trade and think do I want to be now trading the other way(Something IT7 does supremely well). The 2 most important aspects I am working on is unbiased Adaptability and Intuition in all of my trades. I feel like now there is now magic analysis that you are suddenly going to learn that is going to make you certain trades are going to work so it is always going to come down to how you manage the trades that don't work and then of course exiting profitable trades at the right time is a nightmare.

I scaled into another trade today, as it went in my favor. Once I had scaled in, I thought to bring up the recording tool and let you see me manage the trade. Not much to it, just protect downside and protect profits.

The entry (hammer candle formed as price slowed entering a support level), added to it quickly on a break above the hammer close, and then added again on a strong bull candle.

You see me take 4/12 off the table because price stalled for a few candles. Sorry it ran out of time, but you know by that point the trade was over.

Screenr - indextrader7: 7-19-12 live [AUTOLINK]scaled in[/AUTOLINK] trade mgmt

Really nicely done, thanks for the video. Lots to think about from your posts over the last few days!

1. Shorted as price broke down after a deep retracement up.

2. Went long as there wasn't the follow through down I was wanting. This wasn't a good decision, as my breakdown (short) bias was still the correct one, this up leg was simply a small retrace back up to test the recent highs.

3. The bad trade wasn't working out (as most bad trades don't), and I re-aligned with the correct bias for the down move. I added to my position as it broke below the lower tail of the entry candle.

Still pretty much in experimentation mode with this adding to winning positions thing. Learning things daily.

Here's the trades for today:

The price you pay (both emotional and mathematical) for having big winners from adding to a winning trade while keeping initial capital risk small is that your longer term winning pct will drop to 30-40%. [But I think you already sense this without having to experience 100's of attempts.]

Well, I got out of this short trade too early for sure. I just didn't like the way price action was shaping up with the small body candles, seemed like the bears were struggling to win.

Not to worry. I've done my job. I've managed risk. Endless more opportunities abound.

SteveH 

I think psychology in trading is over-rated. You don't need psychology to tell you to stop doing stupid things which never work mathematically over the long term. You need common sense and emotional maturity. If you have to start digging into Mommy/Daddy issues in this game, you're done. Go find a normal job where you don't get money taken from you for every little mistake you make.

A more correct statement would be that all trading education is "over-rated" - that is the point of marketing and advertising - to make something more desirable than it actually is..

However, your contention that psychology is unimportant is fanciful. Why do you think Steven Cohen (SAC capital) hired Ari Kiev to work for his hedge fun for 6+ years. Why do you think one of the most successful hedge funds in the world hired Brett Steenbarger to be their full-time, on the floor psychologist(and likely pay him 7 figures)? Why do you think Ed Seykota formed his "Trading Tribes" to deal with personal psychological issues? It wasn't to distract them from analysis and trading - it was because once you master a method of trading, you will still be held back by any psychological issues you have not yet dealt with.

One's propensity to hold or add to losers, take profits early, gamble to win back losses, etc are all related to how well one handles anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional difficulty. Like it or not, these things are influenced more than any other single factor by the way one's primary care-givers treated them during their early years.

You certainly don't need to delve into personal psychology to make a little money at trading - you only need to do that if you want to make a lot of money from trading.

IT7 - I wanted to add my voice to the thanks for starting and maintaining this journal. Good work, I've enjoyed reading/watching it. If you're interested in a different take on trading psychology, I wanted to encourage you to check out Ari Kiev's book "the Psychology of Risk" - you might really like Ari. He's got a lot of free podcasts here. His approach is different from the other popular trading psych guys.

Also - I used the 250 tick chart when I traded the TF (and would again if I traded TF) - one thing I found useful to have on my chart was a "tick counter". Its a small indicator that counts down the number of ticks on each bar so that you know when the current bar will close and next bar will start. I got mine from some thread here on futures.io (formerly BMT) but forget where - I exported the indicator from NT and attached it here if you want to try to install it to check it out (I may or may not have done it correctly so let me know if it works).

Happy trading!