Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets
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OK, I quit. $510.00. Giving up early, but I am tired, have other things to do, just not intrested anymore today. I was up late, up again before 6am, in a hotel with a single computer, questionable internet connection speed... Talking myself into waiting for Monday.
My trades were there, I just did not take them. I could have made double goal with ease, but just not high on the confidence factor today and decided to play it easy.
Thanks again to everyone who keeps coming back for some reason. Just to watch a guy struggle to find his way through this maze. @Deucalion, @researcher247, @zt379, @Surly, @Big Mike, @greenr, @josh, @gain247, @PandaWarrior, @Monaco357 ... You guys have become my extended family, and when I am here I never feel like I am having to do this alone.
Hedvig, the finger was more for me. lol! Trade safe everyone.
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The following 6 users say Thank You to GaryD for this post:
Lock in them ticks and have a great week end, does not matter that you didn’t not hit your daily PnL, what matters is your alive to see another day, you followed your plan and you kept your discipline
This is what i love about futures.io (formerly BMT), even know most of us don’t know each other in person. This is the place we all come to almost socialize and talk and meet people that understand us as traders
I am pretty secluded in the Uk and trading is not the norm or a talked about or a under stood business to most of the public. I think in the USA it is a lot more under stood and talked about
Most of my friends and faily think i am NUT`s and i boar them to death 99% of the time
BTM is the only place i can real come and talk a language people actually understand. I mean is trading really that alien, because to me it seems like it
Would recommend any level trader come join the futures.io (formerly BMT) community
We can all learn and trade together
have a great week end every one
and congrats on your successful week and great journal keeping Gary
" I will follow my rules, I will take my stops, I will be disciplined and i will work with the market....NOT AGAINST IT! Professional mind control is the key"
Last edited by greenr; June 1st, 2012 at 11:17 AM.
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GD - As you know I love your journal but I don't get here that often... so I'm a little behind. I wanted to comment on this specifically and also your other comments in this and other posts about swing/scalp.
If it were only as simple as "I can make 10 ticks a day so why don't I trade 40 contracts and make bank?". It is not that simple because your trading takes guts, it takes judgment, it takes acting in the face of uncertainty and putting your best abilities up against the market. This is not a math equation. I firmly believe that you have within you what you are looking for - you know things that you do not always allow yourself to "know" or act on. There is magic in that place between what your rational mind thinks and what your whole being can understand - this is why it resonates with us so much when Yoda says "NO! Try not. DO... or do not. There is no try."
Your approach to trading requires that you get into that place. If you are not in tune with yourself and confident, you won't get into that place - you must have the pieces of the puzzle (YOUR puzzle) in place and then you need to step into the unknown. You will only do that when you're aligned - thus I agree that it is important to work out truly where your trading lies between swinging and scalping - this is part of that alignment.
I'll leave you with a video that I was watching every day for a while - the most important line is "What are you waiting for? Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"
Due to time constraints, please do not PM me if your question can be resolved or answered on the forum.
Need help? 1) Stop changing things. No new indicators, charts, or methods. Be consistent with what is in front of you first. 2) Start a journal and post to it daily with the trades you made to show your strengths and weaknesses. 3) Set goals for yourself to reach daily. Make them about how you trade, not how much money you make. 4) Accept responsibility for your actions. Stop looking elsewhere to explain away poor performance. 5) Where to start as a trader? Watch this webinar and read this thread for hundreds of questions and answers. 6) Help using the forum? Watch this video to learn general tips on using the site.
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In the future, you might Ctrl-A select all, then Ctrl-C copy anytime you write a long post. That way if an error occurs, you can Ctrl-V re-paste it.
Mike
Due to time constraints, please do not PM me if your question can be resolved or answered on the forum.
Need help? 1) Stop changing things. No new indicators, charts, or methods. Be consistent with what is in front of you first. 2) Start a journal and post to it daily with the trades you made to show your strengths and weaknesses. 3) Set goals for yourself to reach daily. Make them about how you trade, not how much money you make. 4) Accept responsibility for your actions. Stop looking elsewhere to explain away poor performance. 5) Where to start as a trader? Watch this webinar and read this thread for hundreds of questions and answers. 6) Help using the forum? Watch this video to learn general tips on using the site.
If you want to support our community, become an Elite Member.
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@researcher247 nailed me this week. "Fucking ponderous". I am bound by my preference of the known. I trade in a manner that allows me to believe in probability, while desiring to commit myself further to the lesser known. @greenr asked why not get 10 ticks? Because it really is not about the money. It is about proving something to myself.
It is about going headfirst into what I believe, not what I know.
It is about returning to the person I once was, not in terms of money as much in terms of a belief in abundance, and a confidence in the face of, who knows what.
I am typing ever so slowly, tiny little phone keyboard, at a bar in just one more strange town, walked here in the rain.
There is nothing I would rather do than become myself, again. So I keep coming back here (futures.io (formerly BMT)), telling myself what to do to get there.
I trade very well. But my confidence is shattered from things not related to trading.
I have another shot at things, and do not want to fuck it up. So I trade like I am scared. Every day.
And I watch this over and over, and wonder why I don't just go with it, as I said to @Deucalion?
Because, I can't be wrong again. And the pressure that brings nearly kills me. At a minimum, it castrates me.
Last edited by GaryD; June 1st, 2012 at 10:00 PM.
Reason: fingers are so much better than thumbs
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Platform: Abacus, Slide Rule, HP-65, Metastock, TOS, NT
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Welcome to the Happy Bar my friend, been there done that. I came to the conclusion that what I knew back then was no longer relevant, that I need to go with the flow, and that I can be wrong again in a small way but right more often for the long therm.
Gary, this is why I said I made a poor mistake on the swing QM exit, because I was looking for a simple (SIMPLE) clear sign to exit. I jumped the gun by over analysing. Leaving about 14K of profit on the table, even though the realized profit was good enough to make my yearly targets already. My exit should have been the DX pin bar at yesterday's close as shown
Simple. Swing trading allows you to wait for clear, unequivocal signs of exit without double guessing and fretting over ticks. My belief is that swing trading is easier technically. My day trade mindset colored that exit. Can it be changed - yes, is it easy? I think so. Everything is easy once you strip away the pretensions and the over complications.
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Tis why, I like what PandaW does, trying to strip away everything, a maniacal drive to minimalism. He does it better than me.
Last edited by Deucalion; June 1st, 2012 at 09:05 PM.
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Oh man, I feel your pain...I have thought those same thoughts over and over again....I will say this though, I thought it wasn't about the money, but it is in some respect....to be completely honest, we look ourselves in the eye every morning and we are defined by our success or failure as much as we strive not to be. And like it or not, success is very much measured by money.....its a way of keeping score.
I know this much after two hard years of struggle....I will never be the same person every again....in fact, I don't want to be that person again. I am less arrogant, more patient, more thankful, more generous than before I lost so much money in the real estate business. I thought I deserved the success I was having...and the truth is, no one deserves anything, its a result of choices and timing, just like in trading. Do it right and make money, do it wrong and lose it.....
You and I will never win trading not to lose. Trading scared means trading defeated before you even start. In this business as in any, you need a winning attitude before you win. You can't depend on winning to develop the winning mindset. However, small wins early develop confidence or can rebuild confidence if its been lost and confidence leads to better and bigger wins. You know how to win with smaller size. In the beginning of this thread, you were killing it....then you started experimenting, trying to be something you weren't. Sure recipe for failure. You are trading conflicted and that will always self destruct.
Take some time and become comfortable with who you are as a trader. If you are a scalper, scalp the hell out of it....then scale up size. Its totally doable. I promise you, if you can trade 1 and 2 lots successfully as a scalper or at least looking for 30-60 ticks a trade, you can do it with 5-10 lots and even more......If a swing trader, stop thinking like a scalper and be a swing trader....but for the sake of your sanity and your financial future, decide....then attack.
I remember a post where you had done a study on the average size of swings and the probability of a certain number of ticks being obtained on any given trade. Seems like the sweet spot was 30-45 ticks....this is something you can nail day in and day out....10 ticks sounds nice in terms of taking home some money every day, but you know you can find enough good trades to average 30-45 ticks every single day.....and with 5-10 lots, you're making some nice money...its not F*&K you money, but's its still really nice....I mean 30 ticks x 5 lots is $1500 a day...200 trading days is $300K...10 lots, 600K....a nice living to be sure....and if you scale it up from there, the skys the limit....
Keep it simple, keep it consistent, don't let others influence who you are and what you know you can do....and scale up in measured, methodical steps.....
Cheers.....
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
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