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Winning in Trading... and Beyond

  #21 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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As the trading progresses, I can almost hear the demons we are fighting inside my head:

Demon No. 1: Frontrunning - i.e. taking a trade because "so many things support it" instead of the disciplined wait for the setup

Demon No. 2: Self-doubt - hesitation to enter even when a valid setup has set itself up for entry.

Demon No. 3: Wanting to be right on every trade - Clinging to losers even beyond point of validity - with hope as basis instead of technicals; AND Holding to winners beyond expected targets to catch "home-runs" or dreaming about 'hail-Mary rides' that would otherwise be missed if I was not always in.


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  #22 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
Mumbai, India
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Some more of "mentor advice":


Studying other traders methods is a good practice, it let's you look over another trader's shoulder and gain insight into what they do. But always remember, you are not them. For you to be successful you must learn how YOU trade profitably. There is no exact instruction manual out there. There are pieces of information, tools, that you learn, experiment with, tweak, use for awhile, then abandon. Over time you find one that resonates with you, and it finds a permanent home in your trading arsenal. And then you keep looking until you find another. You make them yours and you get to where you understand them better than anyone else does.




The solution is simple, not easy, but simple.

LET YOUR PROFITS RUN (meaning, make the market prove that it's turning against you before pulling the plug)
CUT YOUR LOSSES SHORT (meaning, when the market turns against you, take the hit, do not make the market chase you.)

And finally, understand this:
HOPE IS NOT A TRADING STRATEGY.

Paper trade with all the seriousness of a live account.
DO NOT TRADE WITH MONEY UNTIL YOU MAKE PAPER MONEY
IF YOU "GET BORED" and restless paper trading, then this business is NOT for you. (yes it is a business).

Here are the rules to read aloud before the first trade early every morning:
I hope they help you.

- I am involved in the market for one reason only... to systematically, consistently pull money from the market on a daily basis.
- I do not trade impulsively
- I am a conservative trader
- I only trade my established setups
- I always let the market come to me
- I have my limit and stop losses in place ahead of time
- I do not chase the market, EVER.
- After losing a trade, I step back, waiting a while to trade again, if at all
- After a large loss (yes, it happens) I cease all trading for the remainder of the session.
- I keep tight stop losses and DO NOT move the stop back when the market moves against me.
- I do not get frustrated
- I am a trading robot, I am Spock , I pride myself on being a creature of pure, unflappable logic.
- I control my emotion so that it does not control or influence me.
- I NEVER "Throw caution to the wind"
- I NEVER place overnight trades and look away
- I let my profits run, particularly following the PROVEN morning reversal.
- I trade as though I have 100 cars on all the time, regardless of how many I have in.
- I am perfectly content to exit the day with $ x profit per contract
- I DO NOT overtrade
- 95% of all the money I have lost was from overtrading or retreating a stop loss when losing.
- I NEVER trade if I am edgy or have butterflies (for whatever reason)
- I always eat a solid breakfast and NEVER drink coffee before entering the market.
- I seek out 7,8,9,or 10 ratings (out of 10) for trading environments (locations to trade, no distractions)
- I put a minimum of 1 hour research and number crunching before entering my first trade.
- After winning a good size trade, or any trade, I know that I AM NOT INDESTRUCTIBLE
- After winning, I only trade again if the trade is one of my established setups
- I am a student of the market and will continue to learn until my very last trade.
- Of the 22 or so trading days per month, I only trade approximately 15 of them.
- I am not in this to play games, for the thrill or the risk.
- This is NOT gambling, any more than buying or selling real estate is gambling.
- After losing a trade, I do not get frustrated or angry, as it is merely part of the process, much like accepting rejection as a commissioned salesperson.
- I proceed confidently, understanding that with the consistent, intelligent use of stop losses, this is NOT a dangerous endeavor.
- While in a winning trade, my method for letting my profits run is by sitting back and looking at the big picture after my stop loss is positioned to guarantee me a tiny profit.
- I behave as a HUGE Trader every day, in every trade, in order to become that HUGE Trader.
- I understand that I must constantly adapt to what the market is doing.
- On Trending days I force myself to let profits ride. On smaller days I take what I can get, never hoping for more.
- If I miss my entry point (for whatever reason) I simply wait patiently for a retracement or a pull back and execute an intelligent market entry, rather than foolishly chase the market.
- I never have or share disbelief of behavior or price level in the market because robots do not emote.
- I never let the size of my account interfere with my rules.
- I occupy myself with other tasks while trading, understanding that staring at the charts = LOSING.
- I understand that the market can and does move fast and can turn on a dime covering considerable distance.


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  #23 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
Mumbai, India
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The first short scalp trade I took was well managed, and produced a 6 tick profit. The second one was a wild ride however. My computer was running hot and froze up possibly due to recording / streaming eating up memory and when I had made an entry it hung up before I could place the stop / target!

I had to babysit that trade as it hd swiftly moved against me. It ended up profitable.

First trade (short video):



Also note that I was caught off guard and the market action shouted of the illiquid / large spread news trading ladder, but I survived it. Too much was on luck today that I would've liked.


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  #24 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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While the average swing length does vary based on which session is in progress, trying to use it as a paradigm is asking for trouble. Also, I am not a big fan of basing my trading on backtesting one of many concepts in exclusivity to others. Markets may be cyclic and fractal, but their nature is more of a beast than a small trader would like to believe.

Basically I am more of a 'feel' person. I nose my way around and poke and prod for signs that perhaps make it slightly more favorable to go long, short or stay out - it is a consideration of a lot of subtle factors.

Though most traders do not admit it (even system traders), trading is more emotional than we like and the search fr ENTRIES is really the seeking of comfort. Once a trend is underway, where am I most comfortable in entering? Where is the point of being wrong small enough to be comfortable.... ?


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  #25 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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Once I place a trade I either let it take out a target or take out a tipping point adjusted stop.

Meanwhile price keeps backing and filling.

If the trade becomes a loser NOW then I would have been in a losing trade for more than x hours which makes me tend to skew towards impatient entries. This is where the focus shifts from the markets to the trader.

However it is part f my strategy that emphasizes the importance of skillfully cutting ALL losers early no matter how good the price action looks!


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  #26 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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The 'medium term' range of the EURUSD finally seems to be consigned to history and a successful breakout to the top HAS HAPPENED. Though I made money on Thursday and Friday, I was looking at mean reversals and felt the price action contained too many 'switches'.



Just when everybody 'spots the trend' is when everything turns upside down.



Tip
Secrets of Professional Turf Betting https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Professional-Betting-Robert-Bacon/dp/B000CSN91C

There is no danger of the public ever finding any key to the secret of winning. The crazy gambling urge and speculative hysteria that overcomes most players at the track makes that fact a certainty. But, if the public play ever did get wise to the facts of life, the principle of ever-changing cycles of results would move the form away from the public immediately.
The principle of ever-changing trends works to force quick and drastic changes of results sequences when the public happens to get wise to a winning idea.
The public can never catch up to the form – or the game ceases.
Some amateur players carry inconsistency to such a degree that they demand consistency from the horses, while at the same time being utterly inconsistent in their methods of play. It’s not the races that beat these players – it’s the switches!



https://dailyspeculations.com/Letter/bacon.htm is an interesting read if you are further interested.


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  #27 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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I am suddenly disengaged, still reading the reaction as the market breaks the prior tops.

Did I make a huge profit on these two volatile days? No. I feel numb, but it is a soothing numb not a disgusted, brooding raging numb. I feel no emotions even though I missed the opportunities for big money.

Earlier I would journal to show how skilled or right I was on each trade - now I feel I have taken some steps ahead after the recent big falls.


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  #28 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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Reading finance news is an amusing past time - the reasons for market sentiment never matter after the fact do they?


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  #29 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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Posts: 1,802 since Feb 2012
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Sometimes I feel there are three reasons for my failures in the market:

1. When comfortably green there is a huge load on my mind - feel like I'm one of the Pilgrims from John Bunyan carrying my load that crushes me with its weight. There is a desire to lose to lighten that load.

2. The desire to increase risk when I'm winning does not move in parallel with the inner construct to 'stay the familiar same old me'.

3. The boldness sometimes works and sometimes turns upon itself - for example for entries where I would've loved to have entered correctly at the EMA / correct place I turn inwards and find no courage to take the 'riskier' entry with the bigger stop fearing that I would reduce my equity. Earlier I used to go into a 'study loop' to 'discover' what price would do next.

Of course the correct road is to internalize 'take your stops and trade anyway' - feel the fear and do it anyway.


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  #30 (permalink)
 
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 iqgod 
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I traded with too much live capital before I was really ready. Sure I had amazing profitable days on the end. But was it trading? I believe it was more a result of beginner's luck.

Beginner's luck can be a strange thing. Once touched by its magic and you sort of get hooked to it. I mean lady luck and all that, who wouldn't want such stuff? But the Midas Touch is a fool's enterprise, mostly it ends in a blown up account.

Perhaps what really made me a real trader is blowing up again and again and again. Complete accounts lost, lot of crying like a baby, not pleasant for a man past his thirties.

So when you define yourself as a TRADER be sure you really mean it. Be sure you are not playing wth fire unprotected. Safety first, and perhaps you will make some real money that you can keep. Like any honest person minding his business, you need ethics of the highest order to work unsupervised and you need to win your own trust the hard way.


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