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TF day trading

  #851 (permalink)
 
bluemele's Avatar
 bluemele 
Honolulu, Hawaii
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Ok, today was just practice but a tough day. Switching between Vovan's setup and my own, just playing around really and due to market conditions and spreads don't feel like being live until I can get comfortable with holding stops and hitting longer targets. It may just not be in my nature. I need to spend some time reflecting as it has taken me 2 years to get to where I am and I was trading profitably almost every day. Then since Vovan's comment I am questioning my trading and thinking that what I was originally taught is exactly what he is saying (Mostly) and then I realize my current method really isn't the trail that will lead me to the mountaintop I want? hmmmm.

I am glad I have gotten shaken up some as I need this as a wake-up to pull my resections from the mountain tops to make sure I am actually where I think I am.

Will decide this weekend what my strategy is, because my goal is just a couple points a day, but it would be very nice to trade longer setups. I just haven't ever been consistent long enough with them. That is my fault and I hope to grow. Let's see where this turns out.

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  #852 (permalink)
 
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 PandaWarrior 
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bluemele View Post
Ok, today was just practice but a tough day. Switching between Vovan's setup and my own, just playing around really and due to market conditions and spreads don't feel like being live until I can get comfortable with holding stops and hitting longer targets. It may just not be in my nature. I need to spend some time reflecting as it has taken me 2 years to get to where I am and I was trading profitably almost every day. Then since Vovan's comment I am questioning my trading and thinking that what I was originally taught is exactly what he is saying (Mostly) and then I realize my current method really isn't the trail that will lead me to the mountaintop I want? hmmmm.

I am glad I have gotten shaken up some as I need this as a wake-up to pull my resections from the mountain tops to make sure I am actually where I think I am.

Will decide this weekend what my strategy is, because my goal is just a couple points a day, but it would be very nice to trade longer setups. I just haven't ever been consistent long enough with them. That is my fault and I hope to grow. Let's see where this turns out.

Video is attached.

I noticed a couple of things here.

1. You let someone else get under your skin. Even though the comments may have been accurate and well intentioned, you still let it affect you.

2. A follow on to #1, you deviated from the progress you've made by changing your charts after months of swearing you'd never do that.

3. I think you have the same problem I have had. Listening to the idea that you need to let your winners run and cut your losses. I have always defined winners running as somehow meaning a hundred ticks or something. But in truth, a winner is anything you say it is. For instance, I am looking for ten ticks. This week I decided to cut my losers short with an aggressive stop. Letting my winners run means letting the trade get to 10 ticks before I bail out but it also means letting the trail take me out to prevent any large full stop losers.

Define what a "winner" is. How many of those you need a week, and then don't allow outside influences to sway you from your definition of a winner.

If a winner is 20 tick on TF and you need 5 of those a week, then don't freak out when someone else trading the same method as you get 50 of them. The idea is to take as much from the market as YOU need and nothing more. Be comfortable with the idea you may NEVER get a big run, but if your method allows you to take as much money from the market with 10 trades as one person gets with 1 trade and it fits your personality and comfort zone, don't worry about it anymore.

One nice thing about being ok with smaller winners is you don't need to be right about the major moves, just right about the current trade. I was wrong several times today about the overall direction but right about my trades. I made money on those and if I had been looking for bigger targets, I would have stopped out. Not saying my way is right or wrong. I am just saying if you can hit 2 points a day with consistency and without working to darn hard, then run your trading business in a manner that exploits that 2 points day with with ruthless efficiency.

If you can accurately identify a 100 tick runner every couple of days and you can sit at the computer long enough each day to watch for that set up, then do the same with that as you would on the 2 points a day. But I suspect you would rather trade 100 lots with a small stop and get two points a day quickly than wait around all day long for one set up that may or may not appear to get 100 ticks with 10 lots with a larger stop demanded by the higher time frames required to look for the larger moves.

Anyway, I've butted into your thread long enough now. Hope something I said helps with your decision making this weekend. I have one last thing to say though. Once I made the emotional commitment to my style, it gelled with the intellectual belief I've long held about how I should trade but refused do to all kinds of intellectual and emotional conflict. For the first time in two years, my emotional assurance that I will be successful is now in line with the intellectual belief that I'd eventually win. Now I feel excited to go to work each day. All the other 4:30AM mornings I got out of bed knowing it was 50/50 if I would make money that day and if I did, I probably wouldn't know why and if I lost money that day, I wouldn't know why. This has been the best week of my trading career in more ways than one.

Embracing your identity as a trader is probably the most important thing you can do.

My thoughts are with you this weekend. Good luck.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci


Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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  #853 (permalink)
 
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 bluemele 
Honolulu, Hawaii
 
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@PandaWarrior,

Yes, that is funny you wrote that is I hear you telling me that already. My wife pretty much said the same thing but with a bit more emotion. I guess my hopes were that someday I would start trading larger runs, but like Vovan mentioned, until I change my habits it will not happen. So, I have a choice, accept this as my reality or 'change'.

Before reconsidering all this, I have been largely profitable day-in-day-out, but with small wins. 2 point here, 3 points there, 0 points here. After having been live and trying the larger runs, I just never found myself hitting them and making a 'go', but does that mean I can't or does it mean that I have not 'evolved' or does that mean, that is just who I am.

I have to thank Vovan for showing me again what I originally began with (minus the larger stops) as I think it has been a good slap in the face to say, Hey, is this what you want or not! I am not sure.

My goals are not to trade and make 200.00 per day or even 2K per day, but more like 20K or 100K, so that tells me that unless the TF starts trading a lot more volume, then I probably will not be hitting my goal. I can continue what I am doing and easily make a few hundred thousand a year if I put in as much time as I did trading. It is a matter of do I really enjoy doing that other 'stuff' anymore etc..

Maybe I could have two systems, one longer term, one shorter term, not sure. That is what I am reflecting. As my wife said this morning, "Do what you are doing now, make your money and then decide later if you want to climb a different mountain!"

Kind of like Horst changing from TF, CL --> ES because he won't ever be able to trade the # of contracts that he really wants to trade.

Oh, the joy of reflection and you are not interrupting my thread. Thanks for your valued input and I say that to all. It is greatly appreciated, some will be tossed, others will slap me upside the face etc...

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  #854 (permalink)
 
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 vovan348 
Moscow
 
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@PandaWarrior
I just want to make it clear. I don't want to get under someone's skin. In every video he says: "I have to let my winners run.". At least now he can see that it's not what he needs and he understand what is more important for him. He will stop biting himself up for not letting his trade run.

@bluemele I didn't say that you are trading wrong. The only thing I think is wrong is moving your stop to BE+1 after a couple ticks in your favor and you keep taking trades in the same area. I think even with scalping you have to trail it after some point that you think is important (high/low, bar etc.). I have no idea what Henry teaches, or did. Most important: I don't know what is right, or wrong for you and no one does but you.

I shared my thoughts and answered your question. That's it. You are the only one who makes decisions!!!

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  #855 (permalink)
 
bluemele's Avatar
 bluemele 
Honolulu, Hawaii
 
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vovan348 View Post
@PandaWarrior
I just want to make it clear. I don't want to get under someone's skin. In every video he says: "I have to let my winners run.". At least now he can see that it's not what he needs and he understand what is more important for him. He will stop biting himself up for not letting his trade run.

@bluemele I didn't say that you are trading wrong. The only thing I think is wrong is moving your stop to BE+1 after a couple ticks in your favor and you keep taking trades in the same area. I think even with scalping you have to trail it after some point that you think is important (high/low, bar etc.). I have no idea what Henry teaches, or did. Most important: I don't know what is right, or wrong for you and no one does but you.

I shared my thoughts and answered your question. That's it. You are the only one who makes decisions!!!

Yes, it sounds like I am blaming you. I apologize for that as you are only trying to help me. In doing so you have unleashed a lot of built-up questions I guess. Not your fault and I thank you for that! That is the benefit of having a public forum. This is all part of the journey.

Please do not accept any 'blame' for anything I do and that is not intended. I do not need to justify, just that you really made me wake-up to the fact that I may not be doing what I need to do for the long term.

@s far as PW, I think he was just saying that he has gone down this journey and that at some point I will probably come out realizing that I must decide my own path subconsciously and let it 'flow' baby.

You bring up great points and you are SPOT on. If I am saying those things it has been buried there all along and I think PW has gone through this same journey of what is enough, who am I as a trader and what is the best way for "ME".

Please again, this is a boost to your ability as a trader and friend, not a negative. I know it may sound like that, but that is not my intention and I apologize if any of it was construed that way. A lot of what you say sounds like it is coming from Henry as that is what EVERYBODY teaches on trading, which makes sense.

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  #856 (permalink)
 
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 bluemele 
Honolulu, Hawaii
 
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Oh, and I think every trader questions himself often and goes through these but I am sure they become less and less as time goes forward.

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  #857 (permalink)
 
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 vovan348 
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Don't worry!! No hard feelings!!!

I respect every opinion. I just didn't wanna look like a bad guy!

If I messed up your mind and got you of the course, I didn't mean to.

We just had a conversation. I didn't know that you are gonna change your way of trading. I shared my thoughts and that's what everybody does here. That's a reason why we all got here.

Any ways you are a big boy and you know what you are doing.

Let's see how next week is gonna be.

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  #858 (permalink)
 HighRise1202 
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bluemele View Post

My goals are not to trade and make 200.00 per day or even 2K per day, but more like 20K or 100K,

I applaud your goal of making big money trading. To get there, here is the best way, according to many who have done so. Make your first goal 200 (OR LESS) per day. Stay there until you are confident in a mature way. Then move your goal up gradually, incrementally.

I can't do this. At the first sign of real success, my mind short circuits.

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  #859 (permalink)
 
bluemele's Avatar
 bluemele 
Honolulu, Hawaii
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Yes, baby steps are nice in success. I guess I have always wanted to be the catapult success guy, but have come to realize how quickly that tends to crumble.

per Vovan, I am not 'changing' the way I am trading, but more of a reevaluation per the way I was originally taught.

Horst chimed in over the weekend and gave me some guidance and he is right on. I am focused too much on the short term which is fine, but if I focus on honing in on the larger areas then my chances of getting a nice runner are better.

I have this inner struggle that has been with me for quite some time and PW mentions this above. I still have not resolved it but the 2 days of no posting/charting, nothing has left me with some clarity as to my conflict.

I honestly don't know if I believe it is worth trying to get the 5 point runners. I will do my best to change that way of thinking but in my mind I spit out acidic thoughts like, "It is 200 times more difficult to figure out the long term than it is the next couple points and you will end up making 10 gifts to get there anyways."

hmmmmm. I have to resolve this conflict and it has been something my wife and I have had a problem with.

I think at the end of the day, my entries aren't what is killing me, it is really my trade management which is what Vovan and others were trying to help me understand or NOT ACCEPT.

I will continue down that path with a bad week behind me, still profitable overall and will take a week to be sim/sim to get my bearings. I will focus my entries on the better areas for safer returns. I have to get over the 'being right' issue too!

I am growing, getting better, day-in, day-out and I go through one of these melt-downs every few months but they get further and farther apart each time.

Aloha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  #860 (permalink)
 
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 cory 
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maybe for each 3 successful short targets you give yourself 1 long target.

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