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Often times, its the losing weeks that offer the best lessons. This week I struggled with holding trades early in the week. Then I took a day off, which turned out to be the best trading day of week for my style and time frames. Then today, my style was completely ill suited for what was presented today.
So how is this a great lesson?
Its simple really. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I had plenty of opportunity. That opportunity did not present the way I liked and as a result, I cut winners short. I did manage to stay above water but the occasional full on stop out day like today resulted in a losing week....my first one in a long time.
The lesson is this. I don't trade time, I trade structure. And structure cares nothing about time. This means I must stay with the trade regardless of how long its taking. Just hang in there. Had I stayed with the structure, I would have had a 100+ week instead of a losing week.
On Wednesday, I was long and almost out of time. I had to leave for SoCal. It was either close the trade and leave or stay home. So I closed the trade. I should have just got up and walked away. I would have had $500 waiting for me when I got home....but that assumes no freak flash crashes occurs, no power interruptions, etc....still smarter to just close the trade....or wait a few minutes longer.
Either way, the week was lost on Monday and Tuesday when I closed the winning trades short. Small decisions compound themselves over time and in this case, led to a losing week.
I preach holding the winners and let them overcome the losers thereby producing a profit over time. This is impossible to do if you cut them short!
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
hey panda, why not setup something like teamviewer so you can see your trades/manage them on the road? i even use it to play cards on my main pc on my N7 tablet while im out and about..
dont believe anything you hear and only half of what you see
Pretty simple actually. I trade while in front of the computer. When I'm away from it with my family, I put trading out of my mind. I try as hard as I can to be present in the moment with my family. Life's to short to be obsessed by relatively trivial stuff.
While I love trading and talking about trading and even teaching about trading when opportunity presents itself, it's not my life. I understand those who feel differently and that's a valid choice, just not mine.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
That as well but more specifically since I trade tick charts, time structure is not dependent on time in the sense that if "X" time period bar is broken, then structure is broken. I don't have a time filter for a trade. My point was this, my trade guidelines say to stay in a trade until I reach my target or if that's not reached before structure changes, then either exit at the structure change or reverse at that point. Time is never an element of that decision.
In this case, time is only relevant with regard to my level of patience or lack thereof.
Occasionally price moves fast and other times the structure looks exactly the same but took 3 times as long to complete. The structure looks the same in both cases. The result is the same but the time is not. This is what I mean by time being irrelevant to structure. At least in my case....
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Good stuff Brian, I have found this out as well. Trade the price action and structure, time means nothing except to play tricks on larger time frame candle closes. Duration is of no importance. I hadidentical trades taken 10 seconds to target as well as 20 minutes.
It's interesting, Gann of course found the exact opposite - that time is more important than price.
I think it depends on whether we are just trading structure (e.g. pullback/breakout/breakdown to likely target, fib or volume related), then we only need price, or if we are also trading context (e.g. wave/cycle, place/degree, corrective/impulsive) then time often says more clearly where we are likely to be. Days when we get both are a real bonus.
I think time extensions be it Gann or Fib are used to find swing high or low around the level, gann also uses it for determining speed lines. But we are talking here about trade management and its duration and on far more smaller level. Imo
That's what I thought you meant. It makes for interesting discussion because people have very different opinions on the subject of "time" in markets, since the globalization of financial markets has seemingly made the time of day less important than previously.
Some believe that the price is the price, and it doesn't matter whether it took 30 seconds to get there, or whether it took 2 hours; an activity-based chart (tick, volume, range) would not discriminate. While I appreciate the practicality of this view from a chart reading perspective, IMHO the reality is quite different. Simply the fact that liquidity and volume are follow the same pattern every day except in rare cases, shows that in fact time is a very important factor in markets, because those who trade markets live by the rule of time, whether they like it or not.
Another point that is rather tangential but still works towards the idea is that of options and time decay. Time is a hugely important factor in option pricing. Given that, and the fact that writers (or holders) of options may trade underlyings depending on their option positions (a large put writer may bid a security up ahead of expiration in order to keep the premium, for example), it is reasonable to conclude that any instrument with an associated option contract may itself be subject to the effects of time decay. This is a bit more obscure, but it seems plausible nonetheless.
dont believe anything you hear and only half of what you see 
