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Patience is being tested from lack of trading and watching lots of movement in various instruments. Be careful, deflate the bubble before it bursts!
V shape moves in oil today frustrate me. Marked one area which turned into a success. Can’t do anything about the v shape. Players are moving the market in ways I can’t trade, so let it go.
Marked areas;
Successes: took 0/2
Failures: took 0/1
Neutral: took 0/0
Potential +45t
Tomorrow will be the same goals:
-Continue to monitor opening swing and its effect on price
-Larger chart for channels
-Mark areas of interest with colored arrows.
-1st trade will be a live trade.
-Confident, calm attitude.
-Let the need to trade and get on the board go. Maturity waits
Did not feel confident in any set up once again. Almost took a NQ trade after FOMC but hesitated and declined. Lucky I did since it failed.
Not sure if the market has changed or I have changed but I am not seeing good set ups based on my criteria. Many moves are happening without criteria that I can identify. Frustrating to see 70 ticks rip off and not have any explainable way to get on board. I would just be guessing if I did.
I do notice that the opening swing has caused me to reject more trade ideas for various reasons. This could be part of the issue
I need to get back to freely marking trade areas. I am getting too picky which is resulting in no activity and nothing to analyze.
On a positive note I am being very patient and disciplined.
Marked areas.
Successes: 0/0
Failures: took 0/3
Neutral: took 0/1
Potential, -45t
Tomorrow:
-Continue to monitor opening swing and its effect on price
-Larger chart for channels
-Mark areas of interest with colored arrows. Get into it tomorrow!
-1st trade will be a live trade.
-Confident, calm attitude.
-Do not press. Maturity waits
No trades, not feeling it. Lots of opps in hindsight. Don’t seem to be able to trust it in real time.
Reluctant to even mark areas. I am not in tune with the markets.
Got a little upset when I passed on a good signal in oil that worked spectacularly after marking a couple of duds earlier.
Marked areas:
Successes: took 0/1
Failures: took 0/2
Neutral: 0/0
Potential: 0t
Keep plugging away. No need to press. Plenty of time. Eventually I will see a trade that screams at me.
Tomorrow:
-Continue to monitor opening swing and its effect on price
-Larger chart for channels
-Mark areas of interest with colored arrows.
-1st trade will be a live trade.
-Confident, calm attitude.
-Do not press. Maturity waits
No trades. Did not see anything that gave me confidence. Managed to place more markers in real time at potential trade areas. In general, pathetic results. Very glad I am not putting real money to my ideas right now.
Marker results:
Successes (purple arrows, +30t): took 0/3
Failures (orange arrows, -15t: took 0/11
Neutral (yellow arrows, BE after reaching +20t): took 0/1
Potential: -75t
Stayed patient. Did not feel the need for speed. Did not press. Overall though, a little frustrated not seeing my ideas produce better results.
(Blue and red arrows are after the fact markers representing reasonable trade areas according to my rules.)
This was week two of the requirement that the first trade of the day be a live trade. I have taken no trades. It is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated, and therefore the right decision. This is a hurdle I need to overcome.
I have traded live before so I know what it is like. One year I took around 1500 live trades and ended the year a whopping +$40.00, including commissions. I thought it somewhat of an accomplishment considering I had to be right at least $6000 to make up for commissions. But, I also felt that it was the best I was going to do the way I was doing it, so I went back to sim to refine things.
It has been a long time in sim and in that time I believe I have developed better ways to structure my perspective on where the market is now and where it may be going. At the same time however, I have realized I am not a natural at this game, and I still lack some fundamental understandings of the market and how to take advantage of its movement. I am constantly being flummoxed by movement that seemingly comes out of nowhere. The results are not only losses, but a lot of angst watching 90 tick moves unfold without the slightest clue as to how to take advantage of them.
With that said, I also realized that more time in sim is probably not going to get me where I need to go either. I feel I have enough arrows in my puny little quiver to eke out gains if I am patient enough. I needed to take the plunge at some point and reacquaint myself with the live trading environment.
Having made this decision, I have realized that I am much more risk averse today than I was in the past. I think it has something to do with getting older, something to do with spending so much time in the comfort of sim, and something to do with being wrong so often. A dog who gets shocked by a hidden electric fence enough learns to avoid challenging that area of the yard because, well, it hurts!
There was a time where I had no problem putting a lot of money on the line against ideas that were largely unproven. It cost me dearly. Unfortunately like many traders who stick around long enough, we are the most confident when we know the least, and become less confident the more we know. Perhaps this is because the longer we stick around, the more we know what we really don’t know. We jump in with our hard earned money before we are ready, lose it, and then retreat over next several years trying to figure out how to trade. When it comes time to put money on the line again, the uncertainty of the trade and the pain of previous losses weigh heavily on the mind.
I have found myself several times in the past two weeks wanting to push the button but unable to do so. It is as if there is a hidden film covering my mouse that cannot be penetrated. The bottom line is that I have not accepted the risk. The thought of my first live trade in a long time being yet another reduction in my net worth so appalls me that I finding it difficult to take the plunge.
At some point it will happen. I will muster the courage and push the button. There is a 50/50 chance it will be a loss. What I do after that, and then after the next one, and the next one will be the challenge, and one that remains to be seen whether or not I can overcome. This is one reason I have considered doing a combine, to transfer the risk of loss to someone else. It is easier to accept the idea of potentially losing $150 a month on combines than $150 per trade in a matter of minutes.
All I can really do is continue to show up, keep an open, inquisitive, and positively expectant mind, and try to learn from every experience. I do believe that if one is able to stick around long enough they can learn to make this thing work.
This is both perceptive and brave -- brave to say it.
I'm sure that you will do whatever you need to do to take that step, when you are ready. (Actually, perhaps a little before you feel entirely ready; that's the way it seems to work.... )
Good luck, and keep going.
(The Combine may, indeed be an option, by the way. Up to you, obviously.)
It appears that you may be unsure of your edge, which might be rightly so. I would pay attention to your uncertainty. There are gradations of an edge and it could be that you're not yet satisfied with the quality of your methodology. One test that you can perform is to run your method through 10 or more drawdowns in sim and if you can successfully recover then you "should" gain more confidence and acceptance in your method. Of course, if you're not even able to recover from 10 or more drawdowns in sim then I personally wouldn't expect to do it with real money.
Also, the above process may lead to further insights and ideas on how you can improve your method before taking it live. Last, you should only go live with real money when you're 110% ready regardless of what other people may say because it's your, and only your, account.
No trades today. Saw some decent areas but nothing that turned me on enough.
Further to my earlier post, my reluctance to trade at this time is, in part (no doubt a large part), due to the fact that I am working with $3000 trade equity against typical risk of $150. This represents risk of 5% per trade. Two losses equals 10% draw down. Four losses, 20%, etc. Not exactly ideal.
The first few thousand in profits are going to be the toughest and most tricky period of growth to navigate. Ideally, I would like to get my risk per trade down to 1% or even 0.5%. This would mean equity of $15,000 to $30,000. No doubt, as my account grows I will loosen up. In the meantime I have to pick my battles carefully.
Attitude was good today in spite of watching movement all over the place. Anxiety caused by missing out is one of my faults so being mindful of my emotions in these situations is progress.
Charts annotated with reasonable areas of longs and shorts.
Tomorrow:
-Monitor opening swing and its effect on price
-Larger chart for channels. Keep eyes peeled for symmetrical channels. Breaks of these are the most effective areas
-1st trade will be a live trade.
-Patience, be ok with missing opportunities.
Whenever, you have a small account to start with your risk percentage will be higher in the beginning until you can grow your account. Set small goals, take your time and build your account. You might want to set a goal of 1 live trade a day just like a sniper who thinks along the lines of one shot, one kill.
Something to think about. 1 trade a day @ +15 ticks will double your account in 20 days or 1 trade a day @ +10 ticks will add about $2,000 to your account balance in 1 month. Then when you have doubled your account balance add 1 contract and now you will be trading 2 contracts. After, you have reached an account balance greater than $10,000 you can decide to add 1 more contract for each additional $5,000 or $10,000 you add to your account balance. Keep doing the same thing every day - 1 live trade for +10 or +15 ticks! One thing nice about this plan is that it can not only grow your account steadily but it will also increase your confidence level as a trader. Try it for 6 months, you might like it.
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