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Hi Mastercraft, yeah i definitely agree with you, the same thing happens to me. Thank you for sharing your experience, i felt like there was something seriously wrong with me, thinking about how stupid can be being profitable when you risk your capital and totally mess up on sim just cause of the combine. But yeah there has to be something that lower your focus knowing you're not really betting on something that pays your bills end month. But hell.. i needed to withdraw most of my capital in order to start moving things around as i will be moving to Miami in August. Took me 4 years to get a green card. I've bought a house on the NW 11 avenue, near west little river, close to the 934. Where are you?
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Ya i agree, i think it is due to knowing it really doesnt matter whether you win or lose since there is no money on the line and therefore no attachment. but hey you live and learn!
That is awesome, congratulations on the house and the big move. Hopefully trump doesnt discourage you, or somehow revoke your green card by august! lol just kidding
I am in winter haven, pretty much dead center of the state. But i lived in south florida (ft lauderdale area) for a while and still have some family there. It is nice, but expensive and theres a lot of traffic.
OK so yeah i have addressed this losing week. An entire week of losers. Happens? Yes it happens and for a reason. I have studied the case, i have revised every trade i took during this week, i also studied the many setups (strong setups) that i didn't take during the entire week. I have downloaded the whole week market data and runned it on ninjatrader playback connection. I have done a step by step emotions analysis at the points where i took the trades.
At first i thought the problem was the pressure of thinking of being observed by some masters traders at TST, then i changed my mind thinking the problem was not producing real moneys while the combine was in place... but after all the above analysis i definitely found the main problem: i wanted to take only the best trades and waited the best setups to come and give me 50+ ticks and do the combine in 6 days. Its not the case, you cant do this. Its pure luck if you acheive this, or you have to be a really good trader which i am not still. I mean i can't produce 3k in 6 days if my daily limit is 1k. I just can't stand the daily limit, its too small to operate the way i am used to. I do have produced 3600$ the week before i joined the combine, say from 8 to 15 March, and it was my real account but i didn't have any daily limit. So this would bring anybody to try and find a winner to begin the day and you let the time to pass, the chart to fill with bars and you aren't taking any trade because you simply just CAN'T STAND starting the day with a loser, and you end up taking a bad trade because you have to pass the combine in a too small period and you can't let a day to pass without raising the account toward you goal. I know i have read this hundreds of times in the forum so here it is my part to add up to the big lesson:
I was used to trade 2 contracts and usually take setups that only allow SL not bigger than 20 ticks so for 2 contracts its 400$ in case you are totally wrong (i trade CL mostly). Again it is too much and i get waaaaaay out of my comfort zone everytime i take a trade that can potentially eat 40% of my max allowed loss.
I had to change strategy and here it is.. to face the small daily limit i will only trade 1 contract and add to a winner position when its proven to be always in my direction. I will only trade 1 contract if the stop loss is bigger than 10 ticks, and perhaps take 2 contracts trades if the stop loss is very small. Thats the plan for the coming week. Slow but sure.
When will i be raising to 2-3 contracts? I don't think i will as long as my daily limit is 1k. I am wondering what if i took the 150k combine with 3k daily loss? I am pretty sure things would have gone much better.
So i found a problem and the relative solution. What could stop me getting funded now? Well, we will see this coming week.
27-03-17
Instruments: CL - GC
Time frame: 5 min
Indicators: EMA 20
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
Crude oil (CL)
Trade 1
Always in short i shorted the pullback thinking on price to break 47 level. I could have shorted below as i am used to but we were too close to 47.00 so was risky. Got 1 contract plus another 1 at previous level breakout.
Trade 2
With the price bouncing form EMA, i was pretty sure the it would rally to pivot at 48.12. I was actually too sure it would and i lost moneys instead of lock in profit.
Trade 3
Long thinking on a follow-through to pivot. Micro double bottom 379-381, too weak setup thought.
Gold (GL)
Trade 1
H2 setup, bought the high of bar 187, good premises, bad outcome, but i am ok with it.
Trade 2
A good trader should know when to let a winner go and when a winner turns against him. I don't master it very well still. And i can see this on my trades, lots of decent trades for 10 ticks that gets to 9 and reverse hitting my SL.
Trade 3
I should stop thinking on breakouts all the time and start treating things for what they are: trading ranges.
28-03-17
Instruments: CL - GC
Time frame: 5 min
Indicators: EMA 20
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
Crude oil (CL)
Trade 1
Shorted the BO of that weak DB thinking the price would test 48 level. I am trading with no confidence at all and this de-centered psychology shows up on my trades. I am really thinking that 50k combine isn't suited for my level of risk. Too many good trades gone bad cause of too tight stop losses and fear of futher drawdown that ends up slowly piercing my capital.
Trade 2
H1 setup, gone long 1 tick above bar 323. I was expecting bar 339 to come sooner than that and i panicked out for no reason from a good setup.
Gold (GL)
I just can't rely anymore on my stop losses and my entries, i know i am still a beginner but this is way beyond my understanding. SHould work on that right now.
S&P 500 (ES)
Trade 1
NO comment. Target was last higher high and previous HOD with 1 runner. Closed the trade with 1 tick profit. Shame on me.
I am not trading relaxed, i do enjoy trading... the time flight when i am looking the charts, but i am not relaxed anymore.. i am trading nervous, and this should change in order to let me win the combine. There will be no more moving the stop loss around, i will not change the logic of my choices unless price behaviours changes. Tomorrow will hopefully be a better day, do i have lost my touch? I don't think so. I'd rather scratch the combine and get back to my real account. Let's see.
Thank you mate, any soothing word is really appreciated. And yeah i understand your point of view. My way of trading is not perfect but it worked untill now. I can be wrong as everybody does and sometime i am wrong 20 ticks but then the patience always paid me off givin some good trades (some of them are here in the journal). But definitely if there is something to learn from the combine, is to work on risk.. work very hard on turning the risk:reward to your favor. I often had trades that gone deadly wrong for about 28 ticks for 2 contracts; over 10.000 euros (my starting capital), 600 euros is 6% and i am ok with that cause i know my expectancy (win rate*average win size)-(lose rate*average lose size) is green in the long run, but these trades, suddenly resumed from grave before hitting my stop loss and then rewared me with 50 points profit. Would you risk a trade like that if you had 1k limit? I don't so i keep taking trades like i am used to and i do that wrong because i am kind of aggresive trader, is this doesn't suit the combine rules. But i want to stay in the combine because i know i will be forced to learn how to timing my setups better and this my friend is a fuking great deal if you ask me.. so... welcome losers if they teach me how to take better winners in the future.
Tomorrow i will be back on my old but always good H1-H2 / L1-L2 strategy, rather than trading breakouts the way i am doing. I think it better suits the combine rules, see if i can push it a bit higher.
29-03-17
Instruments: CL - ES
Time frame: 5 min
Indicators: EMA 20
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
I am glad i took my time to set back to discipline and bring a fresh market analysis every morning as it should be every trading day. This always helps to have a plan to enter the market. Having a plan keep me focused on what the real movement of the price is instead of betting on something that i hope it will happens. With the plan i don't have any hopes.. i just happily sit on my hands to see how the price unfolds and i often wait for a second entry because at such point i know that my plan will work or perhaps fail and no problems.. what fails 90% of the time reverse and i had a plan for it too. With that said i now feel like an idiot for having broke the rule of having a plan every trading day.
Crude oil (CL)
Trade 1
Was looking to trade the breakout of R at 48.66, entered before the breakout as i saw the long tail of bar 330 i said ok thats my entry. Bought its close for 20 ticks per 2 contracts and 1 runner, too bad the runner got stopped out during the news by 1 or 2 ticks as i had auto trail on on it for 15 ticks behind or i would have closed it like 10 minutes ago (1.20am ET time right now) at 49.50 (93 ticks). I could have entered again at 49.00 break because i knew that price would likely to go further at least to 49.50 but hey i made 550$ from this trade not really needing anything else for today.
Emini (ES)
Trade 1
That is a H2 buy sitting there from signal bar 327 and got in at the big bull 331 bar probably ES following CL rally today.
