bluemele 

Papa, I guess I missed it but your TP is 5 ticks? What is your stop?

I am using an 8 tick target, but slippage this morning gave 14 ticks on the second trade. The stop is adjusted to be under/above a recent price swing or some other support/resistance.

Papa15

papa15 

I am using an 8 tick target, but slippage this morning gave 14 ticks on the second trade. The stop is adjusted to be under/above a recent price swing or some other support/resistance. Papa15

Looking at your trades today, it seems that you could have easily doubled that and it would have worked out nicely except maybe one trade which would have been close.

After I finished with the NT trading, I switched over to SC. I was 3 for 3 there (over about a 25 min period), so overall 8 for 8.

I have attached my SC setup so you can see how it compares to the NT one.

Yes, I could use a bigger target but for now I am comfortable with the setup I am using. Will look at that at some point in the future.

Papa15

Today I experimented with a couple of things, but without much success. This is Wednesday with the crude inventory report at 10:30, so the prudent course of action is to sleep in or do something else, but I wanted to gather some data.

First, I saw a divergence setup on the ergodics, so I thought I would try a sim trade. This is a counter-trend trade and I normally don't trade these as past results were not good. This trade went my way for about 5-6 ticks, then reversed and resumed the trend and stopped me out. The better trade here would have been to let the counter-trend retrace occur and then enter with trend. That is what I have been doing for the past several days, and this trade confirms to me that is the better course of action. The second ellipse shows a trade that meets that criteria.

The third ellipse was a losing trade. It met my criteria, but time of day is not good as it occurred just after the pit open and the initial opening excitement had not settled down. The fourth ellipse (third red one) was another loser. I knew it was near the NYSE open and that the short term ergodic was below 0, but it had turned up and crossed its signal line. The trade was a loser and confirmed to me to stay out of the market around the NYSE opening.

The next trade I put on a larger profit target (driven by curiosity as well as the fact I was deep in a hole and wanted to get out). The profit was placed just before yesterday's 2:30 pit closing price. It took a while, and gave a lot of heat, but it was a successful trade.

The last 2 trades were according to the rules/guidelines, although the next to last one was pretty close to the oil inventory report.

Overall, the day was profitable in sim dollars, but much more so in terms of gathering data. It is best to stay out before the inventory report. It is best to leave counter trend trades alone (there are plenty of with trend trades to take). Right now I would rather take several trades with smaller profit targets and take less heat, than go for larger profits. Just me.

An interesting day. It was a positive day (for sim dollars) but a poor trading day. The timing of my entries was off and I took lots of heat. It caused me to really look hard at the charts and I think I see the mistake I made. It is an old, bad habit of mine....entering on anticipating the signal rather than waiting for it to really be there.

I have attached 2 desktops, one showing good entries and the other showing a bad entry. The key is to enter when all the indicators line up....it is not a lot of them. It only requires a little patience. The key is to trade in the direction the larger chart indicates (per the longer term ergodic) and just wait for the smaller indicators to fall into line. When that happens the trade moves quickly from entry to target.

I did have one loser today and I gave it plenty of room since the entry was right at a resistance level (it was the third time testing it, so I kinda, sorta thought it would get through after a slight pullback). That trade failed, but I saw good entries in the opposite direction and I took a larger profit target (by a factor of 2, wohoo) than normal.

Overall, the trading was not as clean and crisp as I would wish, but it was a very instructive day.
Papa15

Papa,

I hope to give you some advice on 'sim' trading. Something I realize in your writing and the way you are experimenting. One thing I would do is never consider the buttons as 'sim'. You have to realize that everything you do and every trade you take is REAL Dollars. If you have a bad day, you don't discount it because it was 'sim' and in live you probably wouldn't have done that etc.. Your brain will play lots of games with you.

People who think sim and live are different is because they have chosen to. IF you think about it, even when you trade live, you are not actually touching the $ bills and handing them to someone, so it is imaginary as it gets removed from your account as well. Also, when we touch money, it is not a direct relection of the food or other goods, so there are several abstractions one must make and adding "SIM" on top could not be a problem.

Try SIM for a certain period of time and what you click on your trader is FOR REAL and that will be the only way in my opinion to go live again. I treat SIM the exact same way as live. Terrible for me right now, as my EGO is a bit damaged, but overall I know I am not ready yet. It may take you some time, but you have a choice to make it real.

I am excited for you!

P.S. Did Greg Louganis the old Gold Medal Diver ever say to himself, well, this is only simulation and practice, it isn't the competition so it does't really count and I will just do a belly flop. haha...

bluemele 

Papa, I hope to give you some advice on 'sim' trading. Something I realize in your writing and the way you are experimenting. One thing I would do is never consider the buttons as 'sim'. You have to realize that everything you do and every trade you take is REAL Dollars. If you have a bad day, you don't discount it because it was 'sim' and in live you probably wouldn't have done that etc.. Your brain will play lots of games with you. People who think sim and live are different is because they have chosen to. IF you think about it, even when you trade live, you are not actually touching the $ bills and handing them to someone, so it is imaginary as it gets removed from your account as well. Also, when we touch money, it is not a direct relection of the food or other goods, so there are several abstractions one must make and adding "SIM" on top could not be a problem. Try SIM for a certain period of time and what you click on your trader is FOR REAL and that will be the only way in my opinion to go live again. I treat SIM the exact same way as live. Terrible for me right now, as my EGO is a bit damaged, but overall I know I am not ready yet. It may take you some time, but you have a choice to make it real. I am excited for you! P.S. Did Greg Louganis the old Gold Medal Diver ever say to himself, well, this is only simulation and practice, it isn't the competition so it does't really count and I will just do a belly flop. haha...

Bluemele
I just try to be clear to everyone when I am using sim dollars and when I am using real dollars. I try to trade sim as close as possible as to how I trade real dollars, but try as I might, it really is not the same. I focus on making the same entries, and use the same targets, but the truth is I allow more heat in sim than I do in real trading. I will also try some trades in sim that I would with not real money.

Your advice is spot on and I try to follow it, but....
Papa15

I agree. In my opinion, IF the money issue is an issue, than the account size is probably too small for the size of trading you are doing. Just my 25 cents advice. I know mine is...

Just a realization I have made about myself and may not be true for you.

I just finished my best week in years. I am absolutely floored at how well the ergodic system worked. Today I did 9 trades, with 7 winners, 1 loser, and 1 scratch. On some of the trades I upped the profit target to 10 ticks. I added the signal line to the long term ergodic on the smaller chart; basically, I went long when both ergodics were above their signal lines and short when they were below. I stayed out if they were not in agreement. Please be aware that the long term ergodic on the smaller chart is essentially the short term ergodic on the larger tick chart, so this was an experiment to see if I can go to 1 tick chart. I have not made my mind up on this yet.

Another thing I did today. I worked out and did work around the house until after 9am. I had thought about not starting until 10 am and in fact I am going to work toward that end. Yesterday after I posted, I started watching a basketball game and traded during it, and was very successful (about $650), so I don't have to jump into the game at the beginning (in basketball parlance, I don't have to start the game, but can come off the bench and make a contribution ). This gets me out of the opening volatility and misses most news announcements.

Will probably go live some time next week.

Have a great week end everyone.
Papa15

Went back to real money trading today using the ergodic system. Overall a good day; was 5 for 6. For that, I am glad. But.....there is always a but isn't there? I did not trade as well as I shoulda.

What I did right: I skipped looking at the charts early. Instead I worked out from 8:50 to 9:30. I figured there would be extra volatility as a result of what is happening in the Mid-East and in Japan, and did not want to be over-run in the opening excitement. I waited for setups to occur and hit 2 winners right off the bat. I thought about quitting for the day. I made a phone call and sent some emails and looked back at the trading screen.

What I did wrong: 1. I did not quit when I thought about it. 2. I looked back at the screen and thought I saw a setup for a long. I entered and started taking heat. 3. I hate writing this, but I moved my stop. I turned an acceptable loss into a large loss. I went from being up $150 to down $150 very, very quickly.

What I did right (part 2): Instead of trash talking myself as I have done in the past, I took a little break and resumed trading. I hit 3 winners in a row, the last one for 15 ticks (which to me is a huge win). I got above $100 for the day and did quit.

I like to make a reasonable daily goal and then quit, using as few trades as possible. The $150 in 2 quick trades more than satisfies me, but I made several mistakes, paid for it, and then was able to salvage a decent day. For that, I am grateful. Taking 6 trades to do it is not as efficient as I would like to be, but it is a good start. Taking as many practice trades as I did last week helped with this.

Analyzing the loser, I see my mistake right off the bat. I had placed a buy stop above the 3 candles to the left (on the short term chart on the left). The short term ergodic on this chart (the white line) was above its signal line (yellow line) and the long term ergodic was positive. On the larger time frame chart, the short term ergodic was not above its signal line, so the entry signal was not valid. I had placed the buy stop thinking that the long time frame chart would have a valid buy signal if price reached that level (anticipating a signal again, slap upside the head). I compounded the entry mistake with poor trade management.

I am happy it was a positive day. I am happy I can see the mistake(s) I made and how to correct them.
Papa15