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Like a turtle to his balcony...

  #1231 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

In response to some thoughts that I have gone into some mix of a trading chaos of indicators and styles, actually it is much simpler than that. I copied my screen layout and gave some explanation to the order and logic of it. I did bring back a 6-range, just because I appreciate what it shows inside a time bar, but the only things from the past are long term S/R levels, and 1 min VSA. Other than that, it is all about value.

The 6-range indicators I posted for a reply to @Silver Dragon I actually made on the spot.

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  #1232 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

Traded the month of December 2012 on replay using nothing but TPOs. Came out 56% wins, $900.00 profit before commissions. Did not follw the rules exactly.

GREAT tool in Sierra, speed up play, step forward and back, blends backtesting with live feel. At a speed of 22 I can do a day every 15 minutes. Never even thought of this before, mostly because that speed does not allow absorbtion using many charts, but with TPOs, in/out range, in/out balnce, open type... very entertaining and speeds the learning process.

Trading more size too, 3 contract entry, peel off risk as it goes, max 3x to 9 contracts. Add in on winners on pullbacks, sclae out of losers.

Going to add Vwap as a stop management tool. Doing January and February now.

I added a clock to monitor market time, get to 10m in and pause, is there a trade? Get to B period, now? And so forth.





To make sure I don't "cheat", I collapse the window, enter a week's range, click "Go To Begining", hit start, and watch one day unfold with no trades. next day, GO.

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  #1233 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


And another cool thing about it, I have a max down, and when it hits I have to just watch the rest of the day, and stlll try to learn from it. In other words, I get to practice losing at the same time. Feeling it, even slow down the speed some and rub it in!

I am laughing. Doors open, wind blowing in off the lake, jamming some new music in my Recently Added folder. Can't think of anything I'd rather do right now.

Fished early in the morning, read, chores, fixed the refrigerator, and now just chilling. And I picked this.

When I was a musician I would often play all day when I could. One Thanksgiving I recorded from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed. Wrote a song for my friend Tuna Can. For some reason I can get lost in things like this. I thought it was normal, but today, different than when I was a kid, they define things like antisocial behavior and add it to a list of possibles, like autism, ADD, Asbergers...

Maybe that is also part f the 11 posts a day thing.

Absolutely they are connected. Not that it is a bad thing. I choose it. We all choose more than we admit. For some crazy reason our minds prefer that we are victims, for some reason is othen an easer role to play.

The winning or losing, I choose it, by how I approach it.

Holding winners and dropping losers is an example.

Whether it feels like work or feels fun is another. (@greenr)


And the topic has come up recently about "Catching Big Waves" I honestly just got cold chills this second.

Somewhere in that behemoth is something that went "click". I think I know what, not ready to look yet. But it headed south somewhere after a great longterm run, the kind where I thought I was over the final hump.

Overconfidence is what got me, I know that. And I know I started to realize that chronologically around the time I made some comment about taking Market Wizards to the beach, and I studied quotes about fear. I had tasted it again pretty hard by then. Some day I will go back.


And so, the reason I moved on from whatever I knew before; charts, setups, everything.

All methods of analyzing the market are to show similar things;

1) up or down
2) what is "Higher probability"

I get the gist of trading, and a certain period T3, or Dondhian Channel, or fib ratio, or wave pattern, or MACD, or any other of the infinite number of indicators alone, or even in combination... without comprehension... is not even the piss after drinking from the Holy Grail.

Indicators themselves do not matter, other than they are what I was used to seeing. And visuals are easy to start over with. Motion has not changed since the last time I was here, and I have some new lessons to learn. Wipe the chart clean, as I have done thousands of times with SR calculation, and start over.

MP revolves around RISK, how to define it, when to press it, where to get in, out, visually. And the indicators I can get used to.

So yes, I have chosen a style that does not do near as well, and I am not wanting to let go of knowing certain major inflection points. @greener, you know I would never Skype you about getting out of a trade that I only thought you might be in, unless I felt about as strong as it gets for me. And that is from scalping skills, believe it or not, more than fibs.

This time I wanted something that fit my personality. And a played with a lot of new indicators, after that however many month break I took. And traded in sim with whatever I wanted for the day.

Then I read something by @Private Banker, and right after talked to @greenr, and between the two I found what would make me comfortable. Not a set of indicators, harmony with a way I already lookded at the market but did not have words to organize it with.




______________________________________________________



The footprint will replace my 1m VSA eventually. Same theory, tougher for me to read but getting better.

The profile will replace the fibs. Shows the same types of things, all we really want to know is where the key areas are, right?

And decided to do it and love it, so I started this new thread where I get goofy sometimes, downright strage others. I was a handful in my HS and college days. And don't get many places in the world to do it anymore at 44 to be 45. But a year ago or so, when @Big Mike said use discretion and keep it adult, it opened a venue for me.

I was angry and working myself to death, had just recently lost everything and not even out of it yet. That is where the need for survival came from, why I could not allow myself to give up.

And it served a purpose.

But now I just really want to be a trader. I am making money, very decent money without trading. So I don't care so much if this is not a great style for me yet. I will go to sim if needed. And venting frustrations feels good and allows me to read it and think about it, so that they don't go back into storage to surface again someday. I do walk when I get a taste of hidden revenge in my mouth. No one has to push me away these days.


That floodgate just opened after thinking how good it felt to be here sim trading. These type of posts release a lot of pressure. And was the extended answer to several questions recently from @Silver Dragon, @lancelottrader, maybe others. Probably others who have thought it but not said anything.

And I post this stuff the same reason I started a thread the first time; it helps me, and if I can share something with someone else about some of the struggles, wins, losses, tricks and discoveries, personal lessons, life lessons, why not?

Here is the background behind my infatuation with MP. I never did understand the market the way "trained" traders do. I was an outsider on a mission and learned to trade by "street smarts". And that is an edge, no doubt. But knowing what the trained guys are doing never hurts. I thought before I did not need that... lol!!!

It is a LOT of work and study and discipline and patience. So? What else should I do? If I enjoy it, why does it matter? Fishing isn't all fun and games either. A day offshore was easily $500.00 of fuel, plus ice, plus bait, plus drinks, plus boat depreciation, insurance, maintenance, repairs... Fish I caught myself probably averaged $300.00 a pound. And I had to clean it, cook it, and clean the boat. Trading is kind of like that.

The world's best fisherman earned it. Who catches the most fish?



The guy who goes fishing the most.



Oh, and is very serious about it.

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  #1234 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

The quote below started from a private message from a trader who I will keep anonymous. Who it is from does not really matter, as it applies to all traders at many different levels.

I changed the wording to summarize it into it's basic question; How does one learn to trade?.



Quoting 

GaryD, I need your help.

I have spent 1 year trading and working on mind training, but and I am struggling to find a method with an edge.

I do not know where I can learn, who to trust, or even which theories to follow.



The best answers I could give you are ones you will most likely forget sooner than you should. I am guessing that because I did, and I would bet nearly all traders do it. We want to jump in and start making some money.

But the best truthful summary I can give you; there is no single source, and it takes a long time.

Becoming a trader is like becoming brain surgeon. There is no 2-year degree option. I am in my 6th year of trading. The guys on futures.io (formerly BMT) who are the best have been at it longer than I have, some of them 15-20 years, or more.

To help understand why it takes so much work, consider this. Trading is, without question, the largest "business" in the world. More money changes hands on the exchanges than anywhere else. And because of that, it draws the toughest, most competitive, most brilliant minds in the world. And they do not plan to give up easily.

Where to start? It does not hurt to understand many aspects of trading. I have over 30 trading books, including wave structure, psychology, candlesticks, order flow, chart patterns, position sizing, and most recently market profile. It all boils down to up, down, or sideways, and all theories have some beneficial information that shows that. But the best they can do is show what happened in the past. It is always up to you as the trader to make a decision what to do with the information.

One specific question was regarding where buyers and sellers are. They tend to gather around key price levels. Scale out the view of a chart and look for major structure. Watch a small timeframe volume indicator, I use a 1m chart, which over time will help you confirm which areas are holding the most buyers and sellers. But even then, knowing where they will be does not always help determine which direction the market will go from there.

I often post key levels here for crude oil and share whatever I learn as I go, and many other traders here post similar information for other markets and from their experience.

To make clear that this is an ongoing process, I practiced this weekend trading over 60 days of charts at a speed of one RTH session every 7.5 minutes, just watching market profile charts and Vwap. And I am just now drinking coffee this Sunday morning getting ready to do another 30 days of replay trading, and then probably read 100 pages more on market profile.

Regarding signing up for a trading education, many of the places that sell trading educations are in the business of selling trading educations. Not that some don't provide good information, many do, but a part of that business model requires that they bring in new business. The marketing is designed to lure you with hype and encouragement. They sell the dream, and there are a lot of buyers.

My advice would be to keep your education costs low by watching as many of the free webinars on futures.io (formerly BMT) as you can stand, buying some books for $30 or less a piece (my collection cost less than $1,000.00), and start experimenting with the things you are learning by trading them in simulation. The real education expense will be high enough when you go live.

I wish there were a connect-the-dots method that worked, but I have not found one. You have to take it all in, and then use your own judgement. And then know what you know well enough, and have watched it work enough times, that you begin to trust your own judgement. Get comfortable because it is a long journey. That does not mean you won't make it, but the sooner you accept that fact the easier it will be.

Make the decision that is what you are going to do, start taking it in one step at a time. Relax because the opportunity is there every single day and will wait for you. Open yourself up to trading being something other than what it appears to be. Roll up your sleeves, get in there and start studying.

Good luck, keep at it. I am here if you have trouble with something specific and will often respond with charts and comments. Most likely, anyone here who posts regulary will do the same.

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  #1235 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011




Crude came out of the gate strong with what appeared as an Opening Drive, tested the excess of Thursday, and then, reversed. I was expecting a short around the retest of the high side of ETH Vwap, but got stopped out at -13. The W4 zone held on Friday around 92, and has set the stage for a W5.


Meanwhile, having opened in range and only marginally out of value, price just hit 90% of Friday's range, so I am not currently interested in trading continuation as an impulse move. I may trade a pullback to ETH 1SD, but monitoring ES for a potential DT.








EDIT: Out. Bought 94.02 after buyer absorbtion right on 1SD to the tick, took 20 ticks and flat. Still not sure about ES, may regret the early exit.

Plus, I am on pain medication today, feeling very sleepy. Back in green and cautious.




I traded so many TPO simulations this weekened that the 90% bugs me, and I was negative and wanted a clean slate.

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  #1236 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011




weak so far

well, now that I am posting there is a 1k bar....but not absorbtion yet

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  #1237 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

ES could take the near term high and still be a double top with the prior major.




Just added the Clock indicator to every chart. Noticed that it will make things a lot easier for me as I review the journal.

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  #1238 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

Yeah, still falling off.





Price is being accepted here, going to view E period as excess and anticipating rotation from here out, with upward bias but we could have an up close and still not go anywhere. And my head is very foggy.




May watch again in an hour, but not interested in this as it sits.

Net +7

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  #1239 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


GaryD View Post
ES could take the near term high and still be a double top with the prior major.



.


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  #1240 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


ES did not break the major high





And while CL did surpass E period, after the RTH close it pulled back inside it to 94.11. It was going to be tough going into K with ES threatening that break. The HOD was within 10% of prior range, but 110%, not 90%.





Stayed out of CL the rest of the day, Bought ES in the afternoon pullback and took .75 points from, hit my trailing stop after being up 2.00. I was guessing it would at least blow the HOD by a tick, but I guess at record highs that was more wishful thinking.

Fighting all day to stay awake. Can barely move. Not a good day to trade hard.

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