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gretaro's 2014

  #11 (permalink)
 
Cashish's Avatar
 Cashish 
Miami FL USA
 
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gretaro View Post
My biggest problem?! I am scared.


Scared of what? What's the fear that has you "looking for the door" after you enter the position? What does it feel like? How does your physical body respond, are you nervous or relaxed? What, if any, self-talk goes on in your head? Do you immediately start talking yourself out of the trade or second guessing your analysis? Do you honestly believe there is something/anything to be scared of?

You have to do better than just saying, "I am scared."

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  #12 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
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@Cashish.

I have thought about this for a while. Why am I scared?

I am scared of taking a loss after the trade moves in my favor. If the trade never moves in my favor I do not really feel any urgency of taking the trade of. I have often moved my stop further away hoping that the trade will come back. If however the trade moves in my favor I immediately start to feel the urge to take the trade of. Not let it turn into a looser. I can feel the tension in my body and I have begun sweating. I am trading sim but I am sweating!

Why is this? I know this is because I really want to succeed as a trader. You have pointed out that it is obvious that I am in a hurry. So taking a loss is (in my mind) confirmation that I am not succeeding. That is why it feels bad, is hard to accept and makes me do things that are detrimental to my long term success as a trader. It has also led to me always searching for new things and never really sticking to anything long enough to really find out if it will work or if it suits me. I therefore totally lack a plan; a consistent method of trading.

I have however been slowly moving towards a way of trading that seems to make sense to me. So far it has mostly been about where to and where not to enter. I have mostly been in the dark about where and how to exit my trades.

When it comes to exiting there are two sides. My stop-loss and my profit target. Regarding stop losses I have been torn between if to have them close (above/below my signal bar) or further away so not to be stop out by some noise. Regarding profit targets I know I should get the most out of my trades but also I have found the urge to take profits so one of two things happen: 1. I take profits to soon (just a few ticks from what is available) or 2. I hold the trade hoping it will run, the trade moves in my favor, stalls and then begins to come back and I take profits or get out B/E. In both cases I get less than what I should have but when I get stopped out I get it all . That is also why I am afraid of taking losses.

As a way of solving this problem with taking profits I have thought about scaling out of the trade. There has however been some debate about if scaling out is good or bad. Al Brooks however talks about in his course that you should view your position as two separate trades, a scalp and a swing. I had never thought about it like that but this makes total sense to me and it solves the issue because then your lots traded serve a different purpose. Also to hear Al talk about that thinking about taking profits at 1 or 2 times your initial or actual risk makes mathematical sense has helped me understand the fact that trading is a game of probabilities. Do I fully understand it – no probably not – but this fact should hopefully enforce in my mind that you need to have rules and taking losses has to be part of those rules.

I have accepted the fact that I will not be profitable for some time. I have however set myself the goal to be trading real money, without sweat, by the end of this year. So, in a hurry, just not as much as before.

YES!
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  #13 (permalink)
 
Cashish's Avatar
 Cashish 
Miami FL USA
 
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gretaro View Post

So taking a loss is (in my mind) confirmation that I am not succeeding.

You're going to have to change your thinking about this.



gretaro View Post

That is why it feels bad, is hard to accept and makes me do things that are detrimental to my long term success as a trader.


Easy for me to say, "change your thinking" ,,, but it appears you do realize there's a snowball effect attached to the way you are thinking about losses. You have a lot of good information in your last post, you are definitely on the right track. Fear, greed, trading plan, entries, exits, stop-loss placement, scaling in/out and METHOD. It's all there, everything MOST traders struggle with day in and day out! AND you have a job, and a newborn baby and a toddler and a wife!

I'll offer a suggestion, take it easy. Write out your vision of what your trading "looks like" and how a normal trading day might unfold. This will allow you to categorize all the essential moving parts,, THEN you'll be able to focus on each piece of the puzzle individually and setup some type of "litmus test" to follow/grade/chart your progress.

Throwing it all together in one insurmountable basket of tangled processes, will keep you searching for your lost wholeness until your baby girl goes off to college

The only perfect trade is the one we didn't take, but wished we did. ALL the rest are the results of decisions we make with what information we have at the time.

Once the hammer falls on the primer and the bullet leaves the barrel,, we can't call it back!

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  #14 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
Posts: 85 since Apr 2012
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Been a while since I posted.

I have been trading tough (in sim of course) and for the first time finding a little consistency. I took together my results for 3-20 March.

I have been watching and trading multiple instruments. I am trying to eliminate impulsive trading by doing that so that I will hopefully wait for good set ups. Also because I can not always trade at the same time so when I have time I want to be able to look over few instruments hoping to find a good set up. Anyway those were my results.

6A = $1.510 (151 tick (5 tick average net profit), profit factor 3.63. Max drawdown $325. %profit78.57).
6E = $775 (62 tick (2 tick average net profit), profit factor 2. Max drawdown $512.50. %profit56).
CL = $970 (97 tick (4 tick average net profit), profit factor 1.60. Max drawdown $785. %profit54.17).
EX = $520 (52 tick (4 tick average net profit), profit factor 3.48. Max drawdown $210. %profit84.62).
ES = -$5.675 (-454 (-6 tick average net profit), profit factor 0.45. Max drawdown $8.800. %profit43.84). Mostly due to one trade.

In the beginning of March I decided that I would scalp out at 4 ticks in all but 6A, 5 ticks, and CL, 15 ticks, and keep a runner which I then did not really let play out in any but CL.

ES was a mess due to the cardinal sin of moving my stop further away before finally throwing in the towel. This trade thought my two things thou. 1) Do not move your stop. 2) The big profits are made on your runners.

Also I am not really worried about my ES results. I know I can do better. I was rushing things there and not waiting for the right moment. I will do better there in the future.

For this week (24-28 March) I have set myself the goal to reach on average $500 a day trading a 5 lot. I hope of course to get more but if after I close out my last trade my net p&l is around $500 I will stop for the day (might trade more but will categorize those trades as sim - even tough I am trading in sim )

My trades today:








Reached my goal today. ($747 in sim money )

YES!
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  #15 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
Posts: 85 since Apr 2012
Thanks Given: 589
Thanks Received: 101

Back from vacation. Felt good to relax and not think about work or trading. Spent time with family and friends. Now back to work.

I have been thinking about setting goals in relation to my trading. I have a clear vision how I see myself after reaching success (meaning being able to trade for a living) but I have not really drilled down into how to get there. Getting there means setting myself small daily goals that are not that far out of reach.

After reading and listening to Al Brooks and others I have decided to set myself the daily goal of reaching between 6-10 ticks per day per contract traded. Begin by trading 1 contract and then build from there. Not increasing my daily tick goal but rather increase my size. Set it up in a table.



I know this looks easy in excel and everything will change when the market punches me in the face. But I have to start somewhere and have some guideline. I can always adapt it as time goes by. I look at it as a cash flow forecast. It time to treat this as a business.

I really feel the time has come to start trading live. I have been on sim for a long time and feel that I need to take the next step. Am I ready? Yes and No. More No probably. But I will never learn to deal with the psychological aspects of trading live by staying on sim forever.

YES!
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  #16 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
Posts: 85 since Apr 2012
Thanks Given: 589
Thanks Received: 101

Live trade in the ES today.







Trade management was poor but entry was good.

Overall I felt nervous and did not let the trade have a chance to work itself out. Also trading 1 contract does not allow you to scale out so it is more difficult to hold on.

Overall I feel good though that I have decided to take the next step.

YES!
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  #17 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
Posts: 85 since Apr 2012
Thanks Given: 589
Thanks Received: 101

Two live trades today. I came in late as always because preparing breakfast for the family and getting the older one ready for kindergarten always takes more time than expected. I have been thinking about stop trading the morning session in Europe since it often leaves me frustrated because I usually miss out on the best moves. But since I knew I would not be able to trade later today I decided to try to find opportunities.

6E was a decent set up but just did not work out.






The Bund trade was however a violation of my rules since I do not like to trade breakouts. For my defense I think it was a decent trade. Yesterday was an inside day and before I entered I waited for price to break and then placed a limit order that got filled on quick pullback. Got 5 ticks in the green but not any further. Bailed out for -3 ticks when price fell below a small volume cluster on the DOM that I used as a support for my stop (I however forgot to take a snapshot if my DOM so I can not show it).





So today 6E -5 ticks and FGBL -3 ticks. No disaster but not good.

YES!
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  #18 (permalink)
Stylez777
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gretaro View Post
@Cashish.

I have accepted the fact that I will not be profitable for some time.

Hey gretaro,

I wanted to comment on what you said above. I am no trading guru, I don't have all the answers nor do I know much about trading futures apart from what I have been personally learning the past few months. I have, in the past, been a high stakes no-limit poker player. What that has done for me is given me a mindset about money and the feelings that go along with it. Putting $5,000 in a pot when you are holding the best possible hand before any cards come out and then having lady luck swing the odds and take it all from you in the blink of an eye tends to either break your nerves or help you develop balls of steel! You need to keep a focused mindset or else your gameplan will end up destroyed!

The statement you made, pretty much is admitting defeat before you even started! Why would you ever accept the fact that you won't be profitable? Understanding that you may take lumps as a part of the learning process is one thing, but accepting it? nope it is never acceptable. You are not a computer, you are human. You are making your trades and your emotions go into every single trade so if you already start accepting that you probably won't make money, what do you think will happen? Alter how you perceive things in your mind and it will help to alter the outcome.

You also mentioned being scared of not letting a winner turn into a loser. You cannot, in any portion of life, go into something with scared money. If you are playing with scared money you'll never win. You will be too emotional and you will make mistakes and even just a small minor loss with scared money will crush you and cause you to make even bigger mistakes! You always have to play to win, you can't play not too lose. Now, before people rip my head-off I am not advocating taking major risks or not being risk adverse. Risk management and capital preservation are your biggest priorities, but that doesn't mean you play not to lose, you still are looking to make money and make profit.

I'm not trying to be a new age self-help guru here :-) I'm tying to share with you the things I learned about and had worked on with my mindset when I was risking large sums of money on something that took a lot of skill but still had many elements of luck involved! I hope some of this can help you alter your mindset as your prepare to eventually go live, hopefully it will serve me well also when I go live eventually.

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  #19 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
Posts: 85 since Apr 2012
Thanks Given: 589
Thanks Received: 101

Hey @Stylez777. Thanks for your input.

You are right. This statement does not put me in the right frame of mind. Of course I do not accept not being profitable. If I would accept that I should not waste my time trying to learn how to trade. What I however have to accept (and have had problems with) is that I will have losing trades and trades that are slightly in profit might turn up losers if I am trying to catch larger moves.

I have often felt lately that my mind was not really there or not fully focused on trading. The reason I believe is that I have been trading in sim for too long. That is why I have decided to start putting my feet in the water with the sharks and trade live (and also by taking a Combine with TST which puts some pressure on me and if passed lets my trade money that's not scared).

I believe that this will really focus my mind. I have reached a point where I really want to take the next step in my trading journey. I think jumping in the deep end will force me to be more disciplined and focused.

YES!
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  #20 (permalink)
 
gretaro's Avatar
 gretaro 
Reykjavik, Iceland
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: SierraChart, cTrader
Broker: FXCM, IC Markets
Trading: EUR, AUD, S&P, Bund, Oil, Gold
Posts: 85 since Apr 2012
Thanks Given: 589
Thanks Received: 101


Here is a trade I took in the 6A today (sim trade but on TST 30K Combine).

I was biased short based on the 60 min chart. Sold short and got stopped out for -6 ticks. Resold higher and got total 23 ticks. Happy that I stuck to my bias and had the guts to sell again. Also happy that I managed to follow price lower and accept that I would have to give up some gains (if stopped out on my trail) to allow price room to move lower.

What I could have done better was to add to my trade when I had the confidence that price was heading lower.




YES!
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