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Trailer Park Capitol

  #31 (permalink)
 
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 bobwest 
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michaelroth View Post
Today showed me that I might need to adopt more than one strategy. the strategy I was trying to use is great in a trend, but shit in range. Had I just used the trending strategy and been patient I could have netted 17 point in 1:05 in just one trade , which is great, but from 7:00 tp 9:09 there was plenty of opportunity to make 17 or more points.

Good thinking.

There are in fact two kinds of markets, or market phases or periods: trending and not-trending. A trending strategy will always work and will make you millions of (sim) dollars, except when it doesn't -- then it will lose all those dollars in up-and-down wipsaws in a range. The reverse is true for a range-trading, non-trending strategy: great success in non-trending markets, total disaster in a trend.

What to do? That's the question, of course.

Well, awareness of the question is important, if easier than the solution. My experience is that it's a pretty individual thing, not dependent so much on formal indicators and methods, but in recognizing what the market is doing, and not being too wrong for too long. Your indicators, rules and methods may help, but it's mostly up to the trader, fortunately or unfortunately. One important thing to understand is that you don't need to be right all the time. Being right fairly often, and keeping the losses low when you are not, will get you pretty far in the end. You also don't necessarily need to do well in both types of markets, just not get clobbered in either.

I'm enjoying your journal. You are definitely working on the interesting stuff.

Bob.

When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
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  #32 (permalink)
 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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I no longer chart trade like you are are doing, but I used to, and I was never successful at it.

Some things I see you doing that I used to do, that you might want to avoid:

1. I never really had a strategy that I had any confidence in. I had vague ideas for how I wanted to trade - like maybe only trading when the ADX was above/below a certain value - but my rules/guidelines were fluid and malleable. I felt this was good, because I was trying to be in tune with the market. But really all I was doing was falling victim to recency bias. I never thoroughly tested any approach to know for sure it worked, and if I had pre-tested anything I actually traded, I would have found it was no good.

2. I fell victim to "flavor of the day." Each day something new revealed itself on a chart - a new way to make money. Maybe today it is going long when price touches the EMA near support. Tomorrow it might be something based on resistance. But whatever it is, it looks delicious. And there is a new flavor everyday. Soon you'll be overwhelmed, though, and you will not be able to make a decision. You can be paralyzed by all the current setups that you remember working at one time.

3. The "just out of reach" fallacy. As I started to trade with some guidelines and ill tested "rules," it always seemed I was almost there. I was SO close to getting the analysis down - just a little tweak here or there, and I'd crack the code and be set. Problem was it ALWAYS seemed like I was just a heartbeat away from figuring it all out. For weeks and months I'd spend hours per day staring at charts, running replay and small scale tests, and yet I never got over the hump. It always seemed so close, though.

I can't tell you how to defeat these while chart trading - I eventually gave up - but these are things to watch out for.

Good luck, hopefully you will not repeat my mistakes!

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  #33 (permalink)
 
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 trendisyourfriend 
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kevinkdog View Post
I no longer chart trade like you are are doing, but I used to, and I was never successful at it.
...

Hi kevinkdog,

Interesting comment, this passage is not clear though. How do you proceed? Are you not using indicators in your mechanical strategies? Support or resistance etc.?

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  #34 (permalink)
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trendisyourfriend View Post
Hi kevinkdog,

Interesting comment, this passage is not clear though. How do you proceed? Are you not using indicators in your mechanical strategies? Support or resistance etc.?

Sorry about that. I should point out what I do might not work for everyone...

For me, the solution was coming up with rules based on patterns, indicators, statistics, anything really. The key was the ideas (which turned into rules) could be 100% tested over 10+ years. So I had confidence that they at least worked historically. They might stop working tomorrow, of course.

Doing that rigorous testing gave me confidence in how I was trading (my original point #1). And testing over a long period helped me avoid "flavor of the day" point #2, because if you look enough, you can always find examples of certain things working now and then. Finally, putting it all together in a process helped me avoid the "just out of reach" point #3 - most approaches and techniques will work wonderfully for short periods of time, but very few things work over the long haul. I bet roughly 999 out of 1000 rules I test fail.

Hope this helps clarify a bit.

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  #35 (permalink)
 
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 bobwest 
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I agree with all the points of Kevin's analysis, and I can see the value of his solutions. They're not mine, but then. we're different people.

It's funny, but in some ways Kevin and I go about similar things in very different ways. I thought he would say something like this when I saw he was reading this thread.

It may not be the same things really, nor exactly opposite ways, but I think my views are more trader-centric (trader judgment, personal detachment and loss control) -- so not emphasizing method and rules as much, not that they don't have a role -- while he is the consummate rule-based trader.

But I think we often have similar outlooks on the problems to be solved, just not the same types of solutions.

I'm not knocking his way at all (not that I'm comparing myself to him, either.) And there's always more than one thing that will work.

Also, many that don't. Which is important to know, too.

Bob.

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-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
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  #36 (permalink)
 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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bobwest View Post
I agree with all the points of Kevin's analysis, and I can see the value of his solutions. They're not mine, but then. we're different people.

It's funny, but in some ways Kevin and I go about similar things in very different ways. I thought he would say something like this when I saw he was reading this thread.

It may not be the same things really, nor exactly opposite ways, but I think my views are more trader-centric (trader judgment, personal detachment and loss control) -- so not emphasizing method and rules as much, not that they don't have a role -- while he is the consummate rule-based trader.

But I think we often have similar outlooks on the problems to be solved, just not the same types of solutions.

I'm not knocking his way at all (not that I'm comparing myself to him, either.) And there's always more than one thing that will work.

Also, many that don't. Which is important to know, too.

Bob.

Great point, and that was the reason I did not initially say "here is what I do / here is what you should do." What ended up working for me probably will not work for everyone, and OP is not asking for help anyhow.

So, I decided to focus instead on things/issues I see OP doing that I used to do - and those issues probably blocked my path to successful chart trading. I thought sharing that might be helpful.

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  #37 (permalink)
 
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 michaelroth 
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Good trading day. 8 points of ES and I'm outta here. Planned, followed and executed well. I'm putting the pieces together. A couple of more tweaks here and there, a little more practice and I think that I'll take this live in 1-2 weeks.


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  #38 (permalink)
 
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 michaelroth 
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kevinkdog View Post
Great point, and that was the reason I did not initially say "here is what I do / here is what you should do." What ended up working for me probably will not work for everyone, and OP is not asking for help anyhow.

So, I decided to focus instead on things/issues I see OP doing that I used to do - and those issues probably blocked my path to successful chart trading. I thought sharing that might be helpful.

I really appreciate the input and whole heartedly agree to your fallacies as personal issues in trading that need to be overcome. In a sense its like you are reading my mind and formalizing ideas and challenges that I'm currently working on. My biggest challenge, to me seems to be a lack of time in the saddle so to speak. The chart trading is really all I know. It will be through extensive use and testing that I will either learn to trust it with my money, or look elsewhere. Time will tell, and the telling will be does it work enough to be profitable?

I think that we can all agree on one thing- if you don't have confidence in your trades and your set-up, your going to lose money. That's what I'm looking to achieve in trading. I've been thinking a lot today about it all- that its knowledge that really is what controls risk in trading, not stop-losses, or risk to reward ratios.

Thanks again for the input!

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  #39 (permalink)
 
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 michaelroth 
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bobwest View Post
Good thinking.

There are in fact two kinds of markets, or market phases or periods: trending and not-trending. A trending strategy will always work and will make you millions of (sim) dollars, except when it doesn't -- then it will lose all those dollars in up-and-down wipsaws in a range. The reverse is true for a range-trading, non-trending strategy: great success in non-trending markets, total disaster in a trend.

What to do? That's the question, of course.

Well, awareness of the question is important, if easier than the solution. My experience is that it's a pretty individual thing, not dependent so much on formal indicators and methods, but in recognizing what the market is doing, and not being too wrong for too long. Your indicators, rules and methods may help, but it's mostly up to the trader, fortunately or unfortunately. One important thing to understand is that you don't need to be right all the time. Being right fairly often, and keeping the losses low when you are not, will get you pretty far in the end. You also don't necessarily need to do well in both types of markets, just not get clobbered in either.

I'm enjoying your journal. You are definitely working on the interesting stuff.

Bob.

Thanks Bob!

As a relatively new trader I find it so interesting that all who wish to interact with the markets do so with the same exact goal- to make money, but all will go about it in their own unique way, in markets that have no regard for an individual's perception of it. What to do indeed! My firsts attempts at trading failed, mostly because I was drunk, but also because I didn't understand what the market was doing, but Today I am one step closer to a better understanding of the ES mini. This week taught me that while the trend may be your friend, context is king. I'm still wrestling existential trading questions, like that of I don't need to be right all the time. Intellectually and statistically I know this to be true, but part of me equates it to driving- I don't have to be a prefect driver, but I do need to be good enough not to get into a head on collision.

So yeah... I still have a LOT to work on. To @kevinkdog 's points, I could easily get lost in the minutiae. I think that this pitfall snares many a trader. The next couple of weeks will be spent taking all that I have learned about the ES, trading and myself and trying to construct a simple but robust strategy that proves to get it done. To your point, what I have so far isn't reliant on on any particular indicator or method, but rather a combination that I am now trying to formalize in such a way that it becomes useable.

I'm super excited about it. Its funny, one day recently I learned that I could make all the money I ever wanted or needed in the markets, and I told my others about it, and they were like- it'll never happen, or its really only just gambling, or day trading is a myth and worse, that only 3% of those who try make it. It's funny how people seem hard wired NOT to succeed. I think that profitability is not only a possibility, but actually likely if I choose to know the market for what it actually is, and not what I perceive it be. Much of trading seems to be mental Kung-Fu, against myself.

It's good to interact with others that also like trading. Thanks again.

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  #40 (permalink)
 
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 michaelroth 
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Weekly Recap

These 2 chart best represent the strategy that I have been working on. The text you see on the top chart I put on there before I started trading on Friday. I call it trading dialogue. It may evolve over time, but I think that it will become a common feature of my charts from now on. @kevinkdog brought up a really good point in this journal, the fallacy of flavor of the day. To combat this I am now choosing to stick to these 2 charts as a whole, the way they are constructed and traded until such a time that I am profitable or not.

This week was really good. Strategy is tricky when your a schizophrenic luddite. I joke, but really, strategy isn't really my bag. I'm more of what you would call a lover and dreamer, big idea's kind of guy. People smarter than me probably think understanding the kind of market your in before trading is a no brainer, but for me it's a small revolution. From near the beginning of my trading journey I have felt strongly that there are fundamental rules to trading in general, and that if I person understands these, they will be successful. What kind of market for me is one of those things, so much so, that in the near future it will top my trading dialogue to do list.



So yeah, from now on I'll be posting these chart recap's in the old journal as a way to track the good, the bad and the ugly. I get a lot of good intel from this. I can see what I was thinking and when, and the trades straight from the platform. In addition to this I will be journaling trade and account performance snap shots for a full picture on well this is running. All this for me should answer Does it work? I really think it will!

I think the strategy still needs some work, mostly just using it and testing it to see if its good enough, and that's the thing. It just has to be good enough. It just has to be good enough to make a VERY consistent 10 points a week, because like a bow and arrow, this strategy is really just the arrowhead. It's no more important than the system as a whole. How I plan to trade is is a system too. The key concept of the strategy has to be taking those 10 points weekly for the system to work.

I'll get into all this later. I'm back to work this week, night shifts. That means dividing and using my time productively. To every day turn, turn. There is a season, turn , turn. Its true. This trade effort is Guerilla warfare Fo' sure. Even if I don't make enough money to buy a white tiger, what I will have gained in understanding myself is certainly more valuable than money, which is both true and something I'm sure that losers say to console themselves. But here's something I love about trading, I won't really have lost unless I stop trying. Remember kids, Colonial Sander's didn't come up with KFC until he was in his 50's. Everything he tried 'til then sucked.

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