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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets
I see you like to use a 1 min volume chart and you have a good vision for reading volume
Why do you not trade off your 1 min chart?
Why do you execute off a 6 range?
Just curious, you seem to use minute charts for everything but your execution chart
Why a 6 range
" 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"
Ryan, I don't know if there is an answer other than that is what I have taught myself to do. I understand what you are saying, and I have tried it, but each chart shows something different to me, for some reason.
The 6 range with the gives me a frame of reference that never changes during fast or slow periods of motion. That keeps the indicators appearing relatively consistent to me, which gives my mind more comfort for some reason.
Indicators on a 1 minute chart seem too fast to mean anything, except for volume, because breaking it into 60 second chunks really lets you see what happens where. It is very similar to using volume ladders (VL). The number in the VL box may tell you something, but not everything.
I have considered trying a VL on a 6 range, which might combine both pieces of information into an easier to watch format, or finding some volatility-based indicator group that could be applied to the 1-minute, but another possibility is I have just become so familiar that it is not comfortable to make an abrupt change.
I know I have been posting about recent problems, but none are not related to charts or indicators. They are related to time, fear, ego, loss, uncertainty, and confidence. The time it would take for me to create a new chart setup is wasted until I address those greater concerns.
My "edge" existed more in my psychology than my charts, and over the past few months has seen a major shift. I have effectively turned my own edge against myself, somehow. I truly believe moving back into a past house, one that generates feelings of failure, was a factor. But I think all it really did was trigger some deeper suppressed emotions and feelings. Pandora's Box was opened, and I now have to deal with some things that maybe I denied doing the first time around.
I have the feeling, and maybe even the knowing, that the difference in our ages will have you think of what I just typed above in one way today, in another way in 10 years, and yet another in 20+. If your head is still fairly pure and full of optimism today, your challenge is different than mine. Although, at 44, I am still growing.
I had a relapse. It happens, so I hear, although that does not make it feel any better. I am working on things daily, and today require less time on charts and setups and more time on myself.
Thanks for just being out there with the feedback and encouragement.
Looking back over my posts, I see something differently than I did before. I had a post months ago, I was riding my bike and came to a cemetery. At the time, nearly all of my thoughts, and that is an intense concept, somehow tied into my trading. But turning the focus inside out, or, if trading was not any part of the thought, the post, the background...
Trading is not as hard, knowing how to trade is not as hard, as getting the mind to go along with the theory. I do not doubt that I could trade profitably. I question whether I can stomach it.
I am shaking my head, with a weird grin, or grimace, or look of... but what I wrote is the truth.
My greatest trading came when I was deeply into antidepressants and ready to accept any glimmer of hope, and I am possibly seeing why. The medications took away any fear of loss, and the desire to believe in something caused me to do so. I was trading well, working well, feeling good. So I went off the medications, starting feeling ramped up about work, trading, life... succeeding again... Everything was moving in the right direction.
Then I became torn between incomes, more aware of my past, moved back into a home that triggered memories of who I was, started to feel like I was closer to becoming what I was possibly, and overconfidence kicked in.
Overconfidence. Nailed me. And it was enough to send my whole mindset down a different path.
I am not posting this to dwell on it, I am documenting my awareness of it. I lowered my discipline, believeing I was able to because I was a "better trader" today. And that one step can be more than enough to take the "better" right out of that equation.
I am seeing that as one of my toughest posts. But not realizing it until after I hit "Submit". Not sure how, or why, to explain. Something to do with ego maybe... Listening to Eckhart Tolle, I have separated myself from the thoughts possibly, and just seeing if I can describe them without judgement?
Medication took away not the fear of loss but the thoughts of fear of loss.
Fear of loss only came from the thoughts of them.
Your “separation “ from your thoughts now, seem to suggest there for, your ability to separate yourself from fear of loss.
Because fear of loss is just a thought.
The separation tells us that we are not what we think.
Hence we are not the fear of loss or rather the fear of loss is actually not us.
So there is actually no fear to fear or loss to fear.
Ego, from my understanding is a construct of the mind.
Ego uses thought to control us, or our innate being-ness, for the sake of a better word,
We have emotional responses, such as fear, to the thought.
So if the thought is actually not us, but the ego, then the emotion is not us but rather a response to the ego.
The emotion is, as Tolle puts it, fuel or food for the thought which is in effect is feeding the ego.
One step on, we must consider that the ego can only exist in terms of the past or future.
It uses, via thoughts, the past and future to validate it's (the egos') existence.
This, it seems, is why the Now has the power to transcend us beyond this internal war,
because the ego cannot survive in the now.
Indeed, the ego cannot exist in the now absent any perspective to the past or future.
This is because the Now is the acceptance of what is, the reality of what is,
which is not what was (past) or what will be (future), being the only places the ego can exist.
So it seems, the ego uses thought to keep us either in the past or future rather than Now.
To protect itself from death.
Trouble is, we are so used to believing this illusion that we see it and fear it as our own death.
This, it seems is why we are so attached to the past, and need the future to believe in.
It would appear that it is not actually our true self that needs the past or future, but our ego.
The ego uses fear (as well as other emotions triggered by and feeding thoughts) to stop us existing in the now.
Time, something Tolle has helped me understand more fully, or at least the illusion of time is the portal.
Or rather the present moment, which is the only place absent of time is the portal
to becoming aware of the illusion of the ego and the illusion of fear, because time is an illusion and the ego
can only exist relative to time (past or future).
Because in the present moment, the ego will die, hence it will create fear, by creating thoughts relative to past and future.
Accepting the reality that now, the present moment is all that actually exists,
in a sense allows us (gives us the opportunity) to face the fear,
or rather to face the illusion that fear is, and in doing so, in the very moment of the awareness of this,
the illusion is dissipated and gone.
But this awarness can only happen in the present moment.
Indeed it is the awarness of the present moment itself that allows all of this.
The energy of that ego driven illusion (as all things have energy) does not die, but rather is transformed into positive energy that we can call awareness which, in turn, now feeds our sense of true self.
This I understand to be the sense of of the start of fulfilment.
It all becomes a self generating principle of experiencing the now by becoming aware of it which in turn makes us aware of emotion such as fear, but that the present moment awareness dispels the illusion because the Now is without time, or rather Now is absent the past and future.
That ride to the cemetery, may well have been serendipity telling you where life actually is, Now, by taking you to a place where it isn't....a cemetery, the Past. !
(and serendipidous of you to return to that post now perhaps !).
Just to add, in light of your “My greatest trading came when I was deeply into antidepressants and ready to accept any glimmer of hope”
That would seem to me to be saying the same as my greatest trading came from going or seeing past my thoughts.
Or rather ego generated thoughts and emotions of fear to protect itself from it's (not your) death.
Your awareness of this would there for be your medicine now, perhaps.
And your acceptance of Now rather than hope would dispel the notion of any future need or want.
I'm not sure it was your lowering of discipline that affected things but rather your lack of awareness to
not allow your thinking, as a process of the ego's method to survive, to not influence you emotionally.
This is what the medication numbed you to (allowed), so coming off it, opened you to being susceptible to it.
Something self awareness can now allow you to deal with perhaps.
It's often just a matter of being aware of what we need to be aware of and how and what that relates to. But it all appears to be about the Now.
I wonder how what you wrote above would transpire to absent any reference to the past or future.
Non of this is easy but, imo certainly profound in how it can allow us to move beyond a particular plateau, which is all you are on at the moment it would seem. A perspective worth remembering...lol
Just some thoughts.
Wishing you wellness..
PS: apologies if I come across as some perdantic prat.
It's really not me...!
Wonderful call, Mike. I cooked dinner tonight, and pumped that webinar through the ceiling speakers as I did. I am going to listen again at least once when I can focus more. Thanks.
I am going to come back to your post later when I have time. Too much today. But as I glanced through it I caught this line. futures.io (formerly BMT) has the added benefit of expanding my working vocabularly. I will have to look that one up.
Although, at 44, I am still growing.
