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Five A Day


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Five A Day

  #141 (permalink)
 
ratfink's Avatar
 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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Chop day in the markets, not much on offer without care, especially with errands and odd-jobs in the way as well. Still tried to manufacture a few trades out of it and finished -6 for the pleasure. Have to learn how to handle the boredom factor and the importance of NOT-trading, especially when it is so obvious. Spent a couple of hours revisiting old workspaces as if somehow they would be showing hidden answers, ha, ha, what a battle it is to keep it between the ears. Cleared back out, looking to stick to the Dax alone and not play Euro-fire at the same time for now, whether I can see its routes or not.

Learned a lot from FT's webinar and the Douglas summary, going to have to establish a routine for reinforcing it continually, so easy for the old habits to keep coming to the front, particularly on days when Mr M is giving nothing away for anyone. Somehow I have made the stop sizing and money management aspects of trading stick, that is what is saving the accounts but we're treading water until I can kill the over-trading and get with a wholesome trade selection plan.

edit: no change this morning, not even worth a new post, managed to hit the button 10 times, it's like a different person sits down when the lights are on from the one that thinks things through when it's dark. Ended -21, the only 2 sensible trades would have yielded +54 instead. Have got to force myself into rules first mode with a formal time and number mechanism soon.

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  #142 (permalink)
 
ratfink's Avatar
 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
Market Wizard
 
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Reached a stage where I know I have to do this on my own or stop. Will be my last post here for a while, I intend to use the last 3 months of this year as a decision time. Either I am trading sensibly by the end of the year and will renew my eSignal service or I will know it is beyond my emotional/mental makeup to do this and will call it quits for good and repair to some other form of life and stop kidding myself.

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  #143 (permalink)
 
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 cory 
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ratfink View Post
Reached a stage where I know I have to do this on my own or stop. Will be my last post here for a while, I intend to use the last 3 months of this year as a decision time. Either I am trading sensibly by the end of the year and will renew my eSignal service or I will know it is beyond my emotional/mental makeup to do this and will call it quits for good and repair to some other form of life and stop kidding myself.

3 months is not much of time to make any decision but Esignal is expensive to keep.

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  #144 (permalink)
 GFIs1 
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ratfink View Post
Reached a stage where I know I have to do this on my own or stop. Will be my last post here for a while, I intend to use the last 3 months of this year as a decision time. Either I am trading sensibly by the end of the year and will renew my eSignal service or I will know it is beyond my emotional/mental makeup to do this and will call it quits for good and repair to some other form of life and stop kidding myself.

Hi ratfink

Appreciated your inputs always.
The sabbatical you are wanting to take is a good decision.
Overlooking a full year in trading - there are quarters with not much results. One quarter might be pushing things
and normally one quarter during the year is a loss.
Looking back to the summer quarter here - which is about to finish now - this was a no-go because of low volumes
and of moves over night.
So I am maybe taking a trading pause next year from July to September... - just my thoughts.

Have a great time!
GFIs1

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  #145 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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Hi @GFIs1, Thanks for the support - greatly appreciated. I also took time off over the summer as in previous years, also needed for building works in my case as well as the market doldrums always worth avoiding. My decision now is really more to focus on making myself trade in a sensible and more attentive manner.

As an example, futures.io (formerly BMT) is wonderful but I have found it has become an addiction for me, such that I feel compelled to read every post on the site every day and I do this instead of watching and waiting for great setups. Then, when I am angry at myself for missing great setups I punish myself by taking stupid ones...duh.

Secondly I have realised that making rules is pointless unless they mean something, until they do I could write a thousand journals and I won't alter a bit. Fortunately after reading the Power of Habit book and a few chapters of De Bono something snapped last week and I knew that I could be different.

Today was better so I may try and keep some level of contact in here and even post something with numbers again when I get the number of trades below 5..., that at least will tell me that I am regaining control over my own actions, but I know I need at least 3 months to prove just that.

Best Wishes to you!

Travel Well
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  #146 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
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I have decided to keep a weekly public update, something to do with the crisis battle of trying to make myself accountable to myself one day.

Last 3 days of the week were the only trading days, first 2 positive, last negative enough to wipe out the first two. Managed to control the futures.io (formerly BMT) addiction but catching up selectively today, thanks to all for such great posts in so many places.

Most absurd thing is still when I get to the end of a day and look back in the trading account and see 12, 20 and 23 trades of which I am barely conscious - how did they get there??? Who did it??? What did it???

Only the now ingrained stop and money management is preventing a nuclear event, but how come that has gone into the lump of wet fat so well but the ability to wait or sit remains elusive?

Fell into the old trap of reviewing charts and adding, ha, ha, ha. All back out by end of Friday, Euro charts also dropped, I am not a Euro trader, I don't *need* to see it. Fell into the old trap of looking at larger timeframe charts and creating or inventing imaginary wave patterns and thus biasing trades, past the trash time for that, well as I know them all.

Have a new sticker on the bottom of the monitor TPTPR:

TIME - e.g. of day, duration of a correction, etc
PLACE - fib level, hwb, gap, OR, hod, lod, sup/res, etc
TREND - bull/bear/chop? ema/sma/channel
PATTERN - many, but more than an ABC not needed for a kick-off
REACTION - e.g breadth, volume, reversal bar/spike

Then Take The Trade

The rest has to be automatic anyway, stops, limits, etc and I know that works now, I just need to get on and use the system. I know many would put PROFILE at the front of that list, I understand that but don't relate to it so well. Could also use TYPE e.g.scalp or swing but I choose to keep it simpler for now.

Next week I will only have one workspace open - that is the mission should I choose to accept it.

Travel Well
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  #147 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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ratfink View Post
Next week I will only have one workspace open - that is the mission should I choose to accept it.

And I will take 5 or less trades a day. 30 minute highlight boundaries will now forcibly dictate a minimum period for when a new trade is available for consideration - I HAVE to make this stick. I have put the Mordaunt-Short's back on the office shelves, the Cranberries are playing right now, Dolores is my favourite wailer ever, we will have music next week.

Travel Well
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  #148 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
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Thanks Received: 8,425

So many statistics are created for measuring profitability but for me that seems like putting the cart before the horse - I need to measure my trading behaviour first. Half or even three quarters of my days being positive means little if I'm out of control.

The daily SMA(3) of the number of trades I take finally has a negative slope, that is progress, and if I take no more trades today its value will only be twice what I set out for it to be in the first rules of this journal, that's a better indication of the work still to do.

For next week (and all weeks if it looks like it works) my new daily measure of behavioural sensibility (SMB) will be that the square of my number of trades taken has to remain less than half the modulo sum of points gained and lost. I am currently miles away from meeting that goal but think it will be a painfully accurate measure of how I really behave as a trader and a great target if I am to get past this decider quarter.

Examples:

3 straight losers -10, -10, -10 SMB = (3 X 3) < (10+10+10)/2 or 9 < 15 so I behaved ok but traded lousily

5 winners, 2 losers, +4, +8, -10, +21, +7, -10, +33 SMB = (7 X 7) < (4+8+10+21+7+10+33) / 2 or 49 > 46.5 so net +63 seems like a great positive trading day but underneath the measure suggests behaviour is only borderline sensible (in this case taking small winners)

2 winners, 1 loser -10, +17, +29 SMB = (3 X 3) < (10+17+29) /2 or 9 < 28 so I behaved remarkably well and with net +36 points also had a good positive trading day

OR yesterday, 7 winners, 5 losers, no point showing the maths as 144 is not less than 75 (stupid small wins and scared small losses), now you see what I mean - the behavioural truth of SMB is painful and is helping me to see the difference between having a positive trading day and also behaving like a good trader, let alone a great one.

Work in progress, have a great weekend.

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  #149 (permalink)
 
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 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Thanks Given: 17,423
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Good start to the week with 3 positive days, 3 winners from 5 trades, 7 from 11 and 5 from 7 but only a handful of points each day, so a good hit rate but failing my SMB measure by miles as my number of trades sticking at 5 or above is way too many unless I can really start to sit on a few. Man do I ever struggle with that one.

I sooooo need to get beyond this scared scalping mentality, on the other hand I am feeling more comfortable with my setups and approach and the market situation is to say the least tough with the political waters, so I'll hold the birching for now.

Development wise I've chucked out some more cherished pretty stuff, looks better feels better runs better and by golly it better be better.

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  #150 (permalink)
 GFIs1 
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There is ONE proven trading behaviour (read on several threads here) that could PREVENT from
following every trade as long til' the BRAIN-trigger says "to get OUT" // or scalping on every turning point:

1) If the setup after trading plan is ok - ENTER
2) SET the stop
3) SET the target price or a target time
4) SHUT DOWN the computer!

Come back really later and check the result.
You will be amazed :-)

Good trades!
GFIs1

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Last Updated on March 28, 2014


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