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Well I'm trying to follow my rules and I'm getting chopped to peices.
9 losses in a row following the rules!!!
Ok I did what I was suppose to do and started in a drawdown and it just kept going down and down and down.
Problem always seems to be following the rules makes me feel like its wrong. Only to switch to say range trading right at the wrong time. Don't do THAT!
Sure drawdowns happen. But everytime I go live and everytime I follow the rules I set for myself I feel I lose.
The thing is I know its all me and these are excuses but I have to work through them.
I'm assuming the two peice of information people would give me is... 1) stop trading and/or 2) have a plan. Stick to the plan.
Neither seem all that inviting. I'm sticking to the plan but the plan doesn't have enough flexibility other than stopping and that's not a viable long term plan.
So sticking to the plan! The losses are of manageable sizes even though I'm catching falling knives and throwing knives and chef knives...
I know Ill be more mad at myself if I didn't just trade like I should. EVEN IF I LOST!!
MY GOAL IS GOOD TRADING NOW. Not profits.
Just trade what you see and keep those loses small!
It's a choppy, low volume (80% of normal), low range, day. Quad witching opex is tomorrow. Random shakeouts on minor Covid news. It's all part of the game. Markets can be a bit unusual nearing opex, but they can just be that way sometimes for no apparent reason. When did you realize that today was rangey and choppy? The sooner you realize these things, the sooner you can adapt. Trading is not just showing up and blindly following some plan.
I used to play the victim like this too. Very rarely I still act out, but fortunately my wife, who respects herself far too much to be with a man who whines like a baby, doesn't put up with that shit for very long, and I get my ass in gear. I suggest that if you want to delay blow up #3, you man up and stop acting like a child.
It's not a good look for you. On Monday you learned, I thought, that the market doesn't care about you. You weren't there, and it did its thing, and you did yours. You are irrelevant in every way to the market. This "poor me" attitude will not help you in any way. Growth hurts.
Have you considered limiting yourself to 2 trades a day. 17 separate trades is crazy to me.
BTW, don't be so quick to discount our community like you did a few posts back. There are people here that will help you if you let them.
As for posting results from profitable traders, I can speak from experience both as a trader that did exactly that in real time for months, every day, with statements to back it up a while back, as well as admin of a community of over 100k traders -- which I've observed for more than 10 years.
They exist, but it's not easy obviously. I'd suggest you stop focusing on such things. Surely you believe somebody makes money trading, that should be enough. I see far too many people become obsessed with vendors, systems, indicators, and the almighty "prove it mentality".
I can tell you, again from experience, the moment I did "prove it" it still wasn't enough for many. They just shift to another rationale. And this is me talking, someone that goes to extremes to ensure total transparency here.
Seriously, advice which has been repeated by me for years is simple. Trade way, way, way less. Stop searching externally, start searching inside. Accept responsibility for everything that happens, no excuses at all.
If you cannot master yourself, you will not master trading. And you do need to be a master to be long term successful.
Last, you do come across as someone with a really short fuse. I have to say, that's a really bad thing for a trader. Listen to @josh, he's a great trader with great hard earned advice.
If any of this upsets you greatly for whatever reason, have you considered packing it up? Unless you resign your trading to the "hobby" category, it's honestly great advice to probably stop if you cannot stay very calm and in control of your emotions.
Best of luck, I hope this somehow gets through and helps. Sorry I can't type more, it's just I've done that for years and it's hard to repeat do many times.
Btw just saw your last post about sim & every single time.
Got news for you, sincerely listen to me -- it's not the market, it's you! You are behaving extremely different sim vs cash.
I'll repeat more advice, put a webcam on your upper body and make sure you can see your butt and back in your office chair. Record during your trading session. Also record your DOM/trades. SnagIt/Camtasia can do PiP recording like this, others too. Helped me a lot around 10 years ago.
Replay it and learn about your emotions and the signals your producing and reacting to. One is blaming and not taking responsibility.
Hi josh. Wow. Thank you the support from everyone it's amazing!
Well the plan was to wait and take with trend entries or at least stop entries in the direction of current trend. Clearly that is not the best strategy in a trading range.
You are definitely right. I should have stopped as soon as I realized we were in a trading range which was early enough but my logic, and I struggled with this at the time, was you don't try to pick tops and bottoms. Take the signals and use stops that are reasonable and try to go for more than what your risking. That is the plan.
I believe I stuck to it pretty good. I took small loss after small loss exactly where I said I would but it just came back and got me everytime. Yes this sure sounds like victimitis but it's only partly.
I took the trades and managed them. On me %100. My thoughts just overlay ontop of the market. Of course its gonna do whatever its gonna so. But it DID go from where I entered and hit my stop before it hit my target. I had no control over that. Unless I intervened. Which I try not to. Except for trailing.
So ya I'm pissed the matket took me out over and over but I don't play the victim here honestly. Those were the cards played... and those were the cards dealt.
But heres where I really NEED to work on myself. I have a ridiculously passionate personality. Very extreme in every sense.
I do this to my poor wife in text too. Ill rant like an idiot for two hours before getting home then be in a great mood and wondering why shes so standoffish. Hmmnnn. I wonder?
Also after taking your advice and taking some time off I switched to 5 min charts. After reading Big Mike respond to me here as well. I'd be remissed if I didn't learn anything so I'm switching higher timeframe again. To an hourly chart. The further away I get from the "noise" for my personality the better.
Thank you both so much!!!
But please if I'm sugar coating it. Lemme have it!
Thank you Big Mike. You words are heard, appreciated and going to be implied and implemented.
I wrote a post above to josh so won't regurgitate here I just want you know I have gone from the 1 min chart to the 5 min chart after taking break like josh suggested.
Now I realize I need to step back even more. I am going to try trading on no less than a 60 min chart. I am a chart trader. Thats just in me. But hopefully larger timeframes will level me out.
I know I sound crazy sometimes but Ive made more progress since joining FIO than I had in 6 years myself.
After talking to another trader that was really truly trying to help, I've come to the conclusion that this was a nice foray onto this forum but Im really starting to think this forum is not for me. At least not as a participant.
I think people want to help in general here and this is the most caring forum I've ever been on with the absolute BEST people but the more I look for answers outside myself the more I just get the same answers. You need to look inside.
I need to learn to work my edge. I know what expectancy is. I know what risk and reward and probably are. I know WHAT I need to do. I need to learn to DO it and do it consistently.
I don't know any great skill that comes from ease. Knowing is the easy part. I have to go through the losses. And I'm learning to live with alot of smaller losses vs trying to avoid them. That's just where I'm at.
Im trying to stay in the futures game in live mode full time. Thats it. Thats my goal. F the SIM.
Im not committing huge amounts of capital at any one time. I need to find out what is wrong and fix it. That's painful and I'm learning but it's neccessary.
Thank you josh and Big Mike and TropicalTrader and others who have helped me along the way.
I think josh(s) advice about pulling yourself away one full day then only watch and no trades the next day was probably the greatest advice that made the biggest difference. I will never forget how hard it was at first and easy it was once I did it. It was easier to step away today after getting frustrated.
But looking at my trading I'M PROUD OF MYSELF! Yes it was frustrating. Yes I was close to doing something stupid and losing even more but I didn't! And thats another experience. I just took loss after loss.
I'm getting too caught up in what I SHOULD be doing do on here. Thats not an excuse it's the truth for me. It's just distracting. Amazing people on here but distracting.
I'll just fill out my spreadsheets and start camming my trades again. That WAS the most helpful and I stopped when I came on here to journal. But this too was an experience.
Im transitioning from SIM to live trading this month for the first time since first trying to trade futures live a year ago. I got REALLY slaughtered back then. So I'm not like that anymore but I have along way to go.
But like I said I think it's just time for me to move on. In the words of the littlest hobo...
Every stop I make, I make a new friend,
Can't stay for long, just turn around I'm gone again...
My biggest regret in trading is tied to my luckiest streak.
I'm not profitable right now, but I believe I am moving in the right direction. Here's a short story for anyone interested.
In late 2018 I wanted to learn day trading futures. Mack's price action was a very non intimidating and intuitively easy place to start. By early 2019, I switched off Sim to live cash. In April 2019, I took my 20k account up to 55k. I could not lose. Every loss was followed by another 10 consecutive 8 tick wins. I felt invincible. By the end of April, I was trading size way too large. I also publicly told everyone about my new trading success. I mean I had just grinded my way up to 35k in a single month, over hundred trades. By this point my benchmark for success was 35k per month in trading income, anything less would have been disappointing.
Well my fortunes turned in May, I dropped the account from 55k down to 5k. Not only did I lose the 35k gains, and I didn't take out any profit, I also lost 15k of initial capital. I was devastated. Why did the method work so well in April but not in May? I decided it must be my psychology. So I spent the remainder of 2019 working on myself, and tweaking the scalping method. The returns of that period were mostly breakeven, and eventually trending down. I was at a loss. Again I thought to myself, if only I could get lucky like in April, then I'll use my new hardened psychology to not bet so big and preserve those gains. Well that never happened, and 3 total blown up accounts later, I came to the decision at the beginning of 2020 that it's not psychology, it was actually my method. I just got insanely lucky that 1 month, which led me to waste almost an entire year trying to make a bad method work.
This is a repost of my response to hen322 for kind his/her kind comments to me on his/her journal.
Hi hen322. Thank you so much for reading my journal!
I really appreciate when people see and comment on it as hopefully newer people will see this and go wow that guys just crazy. Then see themselves go through the same thing. And go oh OK its not that easy.
But in any case. Im AM still trading and trading live only. No SIM. And thats been the big transition for me.
I only have alerts set to tell me whan someone comments to me on FIO. Like you did.
I have done SO MUCH BETTER since I left. Like night and day. So much less stress because I don't feel like I'm going to be chastised.
There are people that are VEHEMENTLY against daytrading. It CANNOT be done and anyone who tries is a complete degenerate loser gambler!
Thats the feeling this forum gave me. DON'T daytrade... do what "I" do. Of course they never say that and they really do MEAN WELL. Yet it is what it is.
I believe everyone on here and especially everyone that took the time to read and give me advice had the BEST intentions.
Problem was following others advice FOR Me was exactly the WRONG thing to do. It was NOTHING but a conflict of interest for me.
I also found as soon as I wrote something I felt I had to stick to it. The market is fluid and dynamic so looking for rules is one thing that messes me up.
I don't care what others think of my trading and most wouldn't understand it anyway. Also, its a constant work in progress. But the only way to make it work is the way I do it.
I take dozens of trades a day and scratch on most right now. Small losses and small gains and a few big runners.
I am changing this as I learn. This is NOT how I started my journal.
When I started my journal I was trading WAY differently but when I WROTE IT I felt I...
1) Had to stick to what I wrote.
And
2) Had to PROVE that it was a profitable strategy otherwise people would tell me what I was doing wrong.
Neither was helpful.
I have IMMENSE respect for Lance Beggs and after leaving here and coming across this article. I found partly why I stuggled on here...
The article above is why I'm focusing on myself FIRST. You said it. I KNOW all this stuff. It's up to ME to trust it and trade it.
I blewout twice and almost a third before leaving here and focusing on MY trading.
Still only have a hit rate of ~%50 but my wins are almost twice as much as my loses and I'm really comfortable trading like this as my drawdowns come from lots of small losses. Not getting stuck in trades and taking big hits.
Maybe this is what everyone was trying to tell me... but I dont think so.
My charts are a mess and I would be embarrassed to show them as people would jump all over me. But my LIVE stats are starting to get to real statistical significant levels and they are constantly improving.
I enjoy chatting on here. Maybe I just drop the journal and just chat on here.
Wow that ended up longer than I thought as usual.
Thanks again hen322!
(Going to repost in my old journal if I ever go read again)
