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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets
Thanks, both for letting me know you got something from this monster of a thread, and for sending me that article.
Looking at myself here tonight even, in a new "home", rented a townhouse for a month as I am tired of hotels, ... I looked at 3 rentals, narrowed to two because of the resort-style community (frisbee golf 50' outside my front door), but between the two, went with the bigger trading desk...laptop and two monitors already up and running, in a trade even.
I do not know how to do something casually when it comes to work. Even as a musician I played sometimes 8, 10, 12 hours a day. Once a workoholic, maybe not always, but often one.
Mostly. Sometimes I feel I do it thinking someone else can relate and feel good about that. Sometimes I do it thinking maybe some tiny drops of experience will filter into the mind of a trader a step or two behind me. But overall, for me. It has become a place where I can throw my thoughts on the floor and sort through them. It has become a place where I feel I am gaining friends I enjoy conversing with.
My charts let me see things I was thinking previously, and I always read my own thought from the day or night before prior to starting the day. It is weird how I can think 'short" at 10pm, and wake up buying. So I use it to do a little mindset time travel. I wake up, read "local DB", and it kicks me into gear a little faster for some reason. Even though the lines are saved on the chart right in front of me, I always have so many on both sides of the trade.
One cool thing here is I never know when I will meet someone new here. There are a few that I have met that I have really gotten comfortable with, feel attached to even. So staying active here is also like keeping in touch, without obligation to reply.
I was up +17 on a 2 contract trade, and let it come back on me to zero. Short after the EIA. Then left, and it did come down... I used to get so frustrated by that, tonight I laughed at it. Not surprising. The major trend is up. but the move down was heavy, and there is confluence at 94.70 - 95.17.
What do you love more, your trading or your work? If you had to pick just one which would it be?
Reading through your posts I get the feeling that you enjoy working hard and being constantly challenged, maybe you simply enjoy the challenge of trading while managing your other job?
It is not a black and white question for me as of today. I prefer trading overall, if all other things were equal. The pros of trading are the unlimited potential, the independence, the time at home. The negative is uncertainty, but I am finding that only really exists when I am not comfortable. So once that aspect has been removed or considerably diminished, trading full time is the way I want to go. I am good for a "guaranteed" $500-$1000, I habve jus seen it enough to question it much anymore. And the only thing between me and a higher amount is my thought process. Too much financial damage in my history is what I have identified as the number one issue, and I am working on it.
But meanwhile, the business I have built back up pays well. The hours are grueling, the travel exhausting, I miss my wife and my dog, I spend a lot of my time in places whre I basically know no one. But I stay very busy when I am away, and that takes the place to some degree. The problem with this income is I have money but no life.
I am fairly certain if I remove the noise of the 60 hours per week in business, I would trade much better and calmer. Today I dropped trades that were worth 2-3 times more, and I do that a lot. I learned to scalp, that is a part of it, but if I don't have to be out of a trade due to time constraints, I let them do their thing far more often, and the results are significant.
I was going to go full time this month, my main client lost a major revenue source, and therefore so did I, and everything I had going was set to end in about a 3 week window, with nothing else lined up. Since then, I got another project in Virginia, another one in Colorado, and have been solicited by the company that took over the business of my current client.
Working on contract has an almost guaranteed income attached to it, and working harder and faster causes my daily income to increase considerably, so I work extremely hard and very long hours. Psychologically I have some catching up to do, whether it is real or not.
In this Denver assignment I am in now, I almost get the best of both. I have taken on the role of my own superintendent, so there is no time managing them and answering questions, I schedule my meetings to occur no earlier than 10am Denver, a slow time for trading, and am pushing for no earlier than noon. If I have all my meetings from 12 to 6pm Denver time, I have 8am-2pm EST to trade. This week is not going to work, as the project is just getting underway and I am learning who I am working with, but maybe by next week.
Maybe I should move to California?
I know that I will trade full time, and I know that it is not far away. I am not looking for work, but when it came to me, was something I know well, the price was right... Trading will be there when this one is over.
My guess is I will be out of here in no more than 7 weeks, and possibly as little as 5.
An additional incentive for me on this one is i have never really spent much time in Colorado in the summer, Skiied here a lot, but I did not realize how beautiful it was. I broke my travel budget by $700 and goy a place that looks like Club Med, have a full fledged trade desk, just as good as in Orlando, and plan to spend some time unwinding and exploring. I know Florida too well, and it carries some unpleasant memories. I still live in one of them.
This trip could just turn out to be a major milestone for my trading psychologicaly. It feels like it is headed that way. I have a few outdoor adventures already lined up, something as a diversion to work/trading, which I need.
