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Zen & the Art of The Small Account


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Zen & the Art of The Small Account

  #681 (permalink)
 
PandaWarrior's Avatar
 PandaWarrior 
In the heat
 
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I am currently +$100. I may be back later today, but I have some things to do for the next couple of hours and so I am calling it quits for now.

Today has been a rotation day so far. Which has been good for trading. Trouble is I have not taken every signal. But I overcame yesterday's issue of moving the stop so that was good.

You will see from the chart I have made a couple of small changes. I removed the 8&21EMAs from the chart and replace with Sharky's StepMa. It does just as good a job and its linear which I really like. I also removed the 300SMA which represented the higher time frame and over the last few days I have noticed it does a great job of telling me where the longer term trend is. But I can see that on my chart without the MA and it has kept me out of some good trades.

I am a ten and sometimes twenty tick scalper. I don't need a 300MA on my chart. I need a short term trend and the three tools I have do that. I trust the tools, and now I am getting better and better at recognizing where I need to be in the trade. The last real hurdle here is just taking every real signal.

So thats it for me today unless I get everything done and then I'll be back,

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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  #682 (permalink)
 
PandaWarrior's Avatar
 PandaWarrior 
In the heat
 
Experience: None
Posts: 3,165 since Mar 2010
Thanks Given: 6,329
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Well today may be a watershed day for me. I started at 6:30AZ time and finished at around 7:00AZ time.

As a scalper, I have always known I can and should be done most days inside an hour. That has been very difficult to achieve for me for several reasons. First of all, I have been reluctant to take every signal. Second, I have been distrustful of my price reading skills. Third, I wanted to be like Mike and not use indicators so I spent a lot of time trying to eliminate them. This actually was a good exercise as it forced me to rely on my brain instead of squiggly lines. Fourth, and this is a big one, I liked being in front of the "puter" as my dad calls it and trading. And lastly, I just did not know when to quit.

I have learned from @sharky its ok to trust indicators IF you only use them to filter price action for you AND they tell you something you understand about price action and are willing to trust what they are telling you. Otherwise, forget it. So I stopped feeling guilty for using indicators, went through a couple of variations on a theme and now have arrived at a point where I trust what the indicators are telling me. Are they fool proof? Of course not, but are they statistically right more often than not? Yes. And this is important. If you don't believe they are right more often than not, then you will lose.

One caveat, I still believe the fewer the indicators the better. To many and information overload sets in and the ability to make decisions diminishes very rapidly. On a personal level, I think 2-3 price action indicators and perhaps some S/R stuff may be ok. I have seen charts with 3-4 oscillators, 4-5 MA's, all kinds of dots, arrows and lines and I get a headache just looking at it. I get all these are trying to give the trader the best possible entry, but in the end, you need to trust and the more things you have to trust, the less likely you will be to actually take a trade and you will always have in the back of your mind the question, "Did I read all those whiz bang indicators right?" You have to answer that question every time you take a trade. So the fewer things to trust (or distrust) the better.

So today, I took all but one of my legitimate signals and ended the day +20 ticks and I am done for the day. I had planned on shooting for 30 ticks a day but that was tough to achieve and I can do 20 pretty easily I think and I did the math and I can live on 20 ticks a day. So why force it? After a few months of doing 20 consistently, I may shoot for 30. Who knows and right now, who cares.

My goal for the foreseeable future is to duplicate this day over and over.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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  #683 (permalink)
 
PandaWarrior's Avatar
 PandaWarrior 
In the heat
 
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aztrader9 View Post


One caveat, I still believe the fewer the indicators the better. To many and information overload sets in and the ability to make decisions diminishes very rapidly. On a personal level, I think 2-3 price action indicators and perhaps some S/R stuff may be ok. I have seen charts with 3-4 oscillators, 4-5 MA's, all kinds of dots, arrows and lines and I get a headache just looking at it. I get all these are trying to give the trader the best possible entry, but in the end, you need to trust and the more things you have to trust, the less likely you will be to actually take a trade and you will always have in the back of your mind the question, "Did I read all those whiz bang indicators right?" You have to answer that question every time you take a trade. So the fewer things to trust (or distrust) the better.

So this is an example of what I was talking about here. I dont know who's chart this is and don't care but imho, this thing has way to many things to keep track of and more importantly, to many things to trust......I'm just saying....

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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  #684 (permalink)
 
Gary's Avatar
 Gary 
Near Dallas, Texas, US
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: ZenFire
Trading: CL
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aztrader9 View Post
So this is an example of what I was talking about here. I dont know who's chart this is and don't care but imho, this thing has way to many things to keep track of and more importantly, to many things to trust......I'm just saying....

Had to put my sunglasses on for that one.



Have a good weekend.

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal
  #685 (permalink)
 
PandaWarrior's Avatar
 PandaWarrior 
In the heat
 
Experience: None
Posts: 3,165 since Mar 2010
Thanks Given: 6,329
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Day two.....but it took a lot longer than I wanted...

I missed three great opportunities early and was kicking myself for not taking them....but I remained disciplined and waited for another signal to come my way. I did not chase nor did I force a trade. The pace of the price action was really bad for me today. It seemed like repeat of yesterday's really slow grind up. When I looked at a 5m chart, I could see how bad it was after the first move up this morning.

But I waited and waited and finally took some trades. I was up quite a bit, gave most of it back and then I stepped away for a while and came back to it. I nailed two trades back to back and was done for the day.

We just had a little earthquake right now as I am typing....very freaky....I was in a real bad one in California back in the early 80's and still freak out when anything rocks the building even a little bit......

Back to trading. Today closes out my first really profitable week in a while. The last two months have been basically BE or small losses....

I am looking forward to next week.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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  #686 (permalink)
 incometrade 
Rochester Hills, Michigan
 
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Here is mine its called the kaleidoscope range breakout,pullback,scalp,trend chart...Any questions let me know!

Incometrade
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  #687 (permalink)
 
Gary's Avatar
 Gary 
Near Dallas, Texas, US
 
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incometrade View Post
Here is mine its called the kaleidoscope range breakout,pullback,scalp,trend chart...Any questions let me know!

Groovy.

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal
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  #688 (permalink)
 
tderrick's Avatar
 tderrick 
Nashville, Tennessee
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninja / Jigsaw / 9G
Broker: AMP / CQG
Trading: NQ, YM and ES
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aztrader9 View Post
So this is an example of what I was talking about here. I dont know who's chart this is and don't care but imho, this thing has way to many things to keep track of and more importantly, to many things to trust......I'm just saying....


I call those charts Modern Art... Can you even see what the price bars are doing in there?


AJ
Nashville, Tennessee


"Life On The Edge of SR"
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal
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  #689 (permalink)
 
tderrick's Avatar
 tderrick 
Nashville, Tennessee
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninja / Jigsaw / 9G
Broker: AMP / CQG
Trading: NQ, YM and ES
Posts: 1,588 since Sep 2010
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aztrader9 View Post
Day two.....but it took a lot longer than I wanted...

I missed three great opportunities early and was kicking myself for not taking them....but I remained disciplined and waited for another signal to come my way. I did not chase nor did I force a trade. The pace of the price action was really bad for me today. It seemed like repeat of yesterday's really slow grind up. When I looked at a 5m chart, I could see how bad it was after the first move up this morning.

But I waited and waited and finally took some trades. I was up quite a bit, gave most of it back and then I stepped away for a while and came back to it. I nailed two trades back to back and was done for the day.

We just had a little earthquake right now as I am typing....very freaky....I was in a real bad one in California back in the early 80's and still freak out when anything rocks the building even a little bit......

Back to trading. Today closes out my first really profitable week in a while. The last two months have been basically BE or small losses....

I am looking forward to next week.



Oh yea, .... now we're rockin baby....


AJ
Nashville, Tennessee


"Life On The Edge of SR"
Follow me on Twitter Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal
Thanked by:
  #690 (permalink)
 
PandaWarrior's Avatar
 PandaWarrior 
In the heat
 
Experience: None
Posts: 3,165 since Mar 2010
Thanks Given: 6,329
Thanks Received: 13,404


I was nervous coming into today. I knew CL was gonna be wild after last night. I also knew that I could trade it but was just a wee bit nervous. After my second trade, I could feel my heart pounding pretty hard. That sensation has not been around for a while. I suppose it will never really ever leave permanently. My trading buddy said, if you were looking at this chart in hindsight, would you be nervous about the trades? And the answer is of course not, so I settled in and made my money for the day.

What I did wrong today:
1. I took one trade that did not meet my rules. That trade was a loser. The previous trade was also a loser which put me down -11 ticks.
2. I also had one stop a bit to close, this did not hurt me though in this case.
3. I had a +2 trade that I should have left alone, it would have stopped out but I closed it early as my kid was trying to climb on my lap. So I just closed it so I did not have to worry. Turns out it was a smart thing but absent my little one, it would have been a stop.

What I did right today:
1. I stayed with my rules 99% of the time.
2. I was really patient today both for the entry and the exit
3. I passed on a what turned out to be a real good trade but I did not like the set up so I passed. And I did not feel bad about it. This is a huge improvement for me.
4. After I experienced the heart pounding sensations, I continued to trade. In the old days, I would have quit right there. Would not have been able to pull the trigger again the rest of the day. This was the hardest part of the day. But once I successfully took the next trade, the rest of the day was easy.

A nice day with +16 ticks. My daily target is 20 and I will normally stop if I net 15-20 so once I get to +15 or better, I just stop. This took me 6 trades today.....although had I just held the first trade, I could have gotten all 20 in one trade....but so what, I did what I needed to do which was make money and that is good enough for me today.

Cheers

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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