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Just turned "Pro" and could use a little help, or guidance
Dude, honestly you hit the nail on the head with these. And you ask great questions. Going by point.
The answer is I don't know, to be honest. You really did nail it when you said "Why wouldn't I take them?". But, over the past few weeks i've started to switch my thinking or mode of operation from MG42, to M98k using WWII references. It's not about the quantity but the quality of the trade. My problem still is discerning between which are the quality type, and which are the quantity. Where i once was literally swinging at every pitch; especially in the combine (literally i was almost trying to take every trade, or how i saw it "Opportunity" in every market, cause why not?), I've now slimmed down my market's to just three. ES, NQ, and RTY. And i have started to be more selective about the trades i do put on. It's nowhere near perfect. And i'm still dialing it in but i am in the lab trying to figure out what the best formula is.
And it's funny, as i was just literally going through all my data to see what time periods i'm most effective and it's roughly exactly as you explain it. I'm good or about the first hour or two of the cash session, and then performance wise there's a pretty drastic degradation particularly after the 11 o clock EST hour that lasts all the way into the late afternoon session. It could be the fact that outside of those time periods things slow down, become more random and algo infested, as well as the mental degradation. So long story short i'm consciously working on not trading those hours unless there's a heavy trend day or something else low risk presents itself. Otherwise i find myself trying to force trades, taking bad entries, or overall trading just for the sake of trading instead of having an objective behind it. That's obviously not a winning strategy.
Also most resonating with me is the "pushing" aspect you bring up. I think this is one of my fundamental mental conditionings to overcome. What you call pushing i call grinding. And my entire life I've been someone who's busted my ass to get what i have and i pride myself in having that as a character trait. I get things done. I may take the hardest, bloodiest, most painful route, but in the end i get there.
Trading is absolutely the opposite. The trick is always trying to come out the other side unbloodied and with as little effort and management as possible. My brain sees game plans, contingencies, and counter plays when it really just is "find the easiest route from point A to B." I've found that I sometimes unnecessarily make it hard for myself sometimes. Like, trading on a plane for instance.
Honestly journaling is something that is completely foreign to me. I wasn't even going back through my trades at the end of the day up until recently. But, even since I've been posting the past few days here I've noticed/seen the difference.
I mean, i always do a debrief technically on the markets after close, and start planning my plays for the next day. But rarely did i actually go back and journal or catalogue anything. Even over the past couple weeks I've really started to come around to the concept as invaluable and as i develop so will journaling. So i'm getting there.
This is also great advice and something I've already started working on. If you try and focus on fixing 10 large things in 10 days you're only going to get 5 large things partially done in 11.
First up for me is abiding by, and respecting my daily loss limits/stops outs. And also incorporating my own personal weekly loss limit and max trailing drawdown.
Most importantly, making a plan and sticking to it risk management wise. This is great advice.
In general, i'm pretty good at this. The only reason it's been such a hot topic in this thread was i was trying to dig myself out of a hole in the funded account. I really don't put that much stock in my P/L until like you said the end of the week or i get an EOM statement. What i generally like to track is my win rate, and now my R/R. When i was trading options i didn't even look at the P/L itself, only percentages. And in general i feel like this helps my futures trading as well.
But, on the flipside some will say the #1 job of a futures trader is capital preservation. So, for instance you do have to watch your P/L on a large up day as you don't want to give more than half of that back. Or, if you're up big on a position either booking some profit or closing entirely. So there's a balance.
Even in my funded account i just blew out i can't tell you how many times i was up on a trade $500, or $1000 and then the market reversed and I either had to stop out in profit for substantially less, or actually had the trade turn into a loser because i was trying not to touch it. If your reasoning and rational for the trade was sound. It should work out. Right? But alas.
It honestly is just a game of averages and probabilities. I don't set any arbitrary profit targets or % targets to hit in my personal accounts, i just want more W's than L's. I don't have any illusions of grandeur, or thoughts of getting rich doing this. I do it because i enjoy it and it honestly is a passion of mine. And as I step into the breach of trying to make a living off of this people like yourself help me put it into perspective. So with that being said i do appreciate the feedback. Thanks again.
Yeah you got it man, good on you. You're already data mining and doing time studies. I personally find this enjoyable. How can you know what you're doing well and what you're not?
I'll share an anecdote. I used to obsessively prepare for the week and day ahead the night before. Inevitably because I was a degenerate, sometimes I'd end up taking a trade during the Asian session. Not often, but sometimes. Now in my head I thought these worked out sometimes and sometimes they didn't. Once I had enough data and did a time study, I found my overnight trades had a shockingly low 20% win rate.
What in the actual f**k.
So yeah that's what's great about data, it doesn't lie. I've stopped doing a lot of things just because I found that they empirically did not work.
Also once you've got enough data, you can start a more strict routine and ruleset. The question I posited earlier, you'll know the answer, because now you know YOU. You know when you trade the best, you know what you trade the best, and you know what practices are in your best interest.
So that's great that you're already doing that.
Daily Loss Limit
This is a great goal. I struggled with this for a long time. I thought it was really smart of you to have Mick set a pdl. I did the same when I was with Topstep. So many of us have trouble accepting a losing day, but the math just doesn't work any other way.
JOURNALING
This is advice I was given that I ignored the first time. The second time I heard it, I did it... because I was desperate. Desperate as fck.
And it's great! Let me tell you why. You're already crunching your stats, and every day/week you do this you'll be doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. Which is great. However after you have an extremely clear understanding of what works for you, you'll mostly be left with psychological challenges.
Keeping a physical journal in my view is so important because it increases self awareness.
We're all like little robots, running our routine programs. Now granted we can change our programs and routines, BUT you can't change them if you don't know you're doing them. So my wife might comment that hey I'm being an asshole, whereas I didn't realize I was being an asshole. I can then reflect, and consider that maybe I am an asshole.
Likewise, in trading if you don't have a coach, in my view it's very important to be constantly journaling during your trading session, writing down what you're feeling/doing and why. Look for patterns. Then reflect on this. Are you upset/stressed? Why? If you take this next action will you regret it?
Hope this helps. You seem like you're on the right path though. Hopefully this doesn't come off as preachy. I'm just like you, working on my consistency, trying to get a little better each day. These are a few of the things that have helped me thus far.
Maybe I'll start a thread and open up my demons for public scrutiny!
Interesting you choose Chrome. I have consistently found that the most resource intensive when I have tried a few browser programs running the Tradovate/TSTrader platform. But different layouts might vary that.
Regarding lagging data I don't really have any issues, even during Covid I don't remember having any problems. I am though only looking at two charts (with a couple of other ones as tabs): one Market Profile chart and one basic short time frame one with chart trading enabled. From your posts though it looks like you are trading a number of different products so probably have a lot more windows open than I do.
I did notice for instance from looking at the Task Manager that DOMs were resource intensive, as was VWAP or a volume based chart indicator.
But having said that I have tried Ninjatrader before and found that the resource usage on their DOMs would skyrocket if I switched on the optional summing of the orderbook depth so lots of platforms are the same.
Jigsaw daytradr on the other hand I have always found to be very low in resource use, but regarding data dropping I could quite often see with Jigsaw and TSTrader open at the saem time that Jigsaw would drop the connection and then restart but TSTrader would still be fine. Also Jigsaw charts are really shitty. Just opening a Jigsaw chart and DOM now for instance using the default session that begins at 6pm ET. The Volume Profile on the DOM begins at 6pm and the DOM VWAP averages from that start time, but the chart VWAP resets at midnight ET so they are different. The charts were in Beta for about two years and came out of Beta a few months back but nobody has yet noticed that the chart and DOM VWAPs are in different places because the chart one is wrong? It will be years before they are any good.
I like TSTrader, especially the Market Profile which is very simple but has all the options one expects and works very well. As a broker's free platform option I think it is excellent and does a really good job.
Just my opinions as people like different things. Sounds like your issues might be either computer related or possibly how many windows you have open?
You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
First off, @josh, you were right. Both about me not being able to hold back, and secondly about the markets in general. I'll first admit that.
Today started off relatively low key since i work from home Monday's and originally had planned not to do any trading today. Overnight i was tracking the indexes as they made new highs in both ES and NQ. Going into this morning i thought there was going to be some sort of fight at or around previous ATH's given the European session was relatively muted.
Boy was i wrong.
NQ came out the gate swinging, tacking on 30 points in the first three minutes. And then it didn't stop. It took the index over 55 minutes to close a 5 min candle red.
I took my first position at 10:03 as NQ had had six 5 min candles outside the bbands and was already at new ATH's, possibly expecting a pullback or reversal given price action the prior week. I filled at 15223 and was immediately stopped out one minute later.
I then took a position in ES at 4473 @ 10:03.28 expecting the same pullback.
And then sold NQ again at 10:05.14 @ 15229.50, and then a second contract a second later at 15231.50.
All three contracts lasted 12, and 13 minutes before getting stopped out.
I proceeded to try and sell the 15250 area in NQ and the ES 4475-4480 area until i looked up to see that i was well past my daily loss limit of $450, and
had taken 8 consecutive losses. One of the contracts was legitimately an errant click in and instead of just closing the position i closed a winning ES position as both started turning against me for a small win. Below is just a small visualization of the hill i chose to die on, this is the 30 sec chart. One without drawings for context.
NQ1!_2021-08-23_21-18-25
NQ1!_2021-08-23_21-18-15
Zoomed out to the
5m
NQ1!_2021-08-23_21-18-15
NQ1!_2021-08-23_21-18-25
Overall today was frustrating. Whenever i don't have a handle on price action, don't understand the reasoning or feel flat flooted i feel like i need to adapt, and adapt quickly to the price action that's unfolding. That should have been going long, since we were breaking out to new ATH's. But without a proper thought process and more instinctively or impulsively i tried to force my way into the first possible pullback looking for sellers to show up. There were no sellers.
It's moves like today that i can't quantify that do the most damage. If i can not find rational either technically, in the macro, or news driven my instinct and impulse is to fade said move. In today's market's that's fatal.
Even now in the after hours we've refused to pull back even after retracing over 633 points in NQ and 123 in ES. I don't understand this price action therefor i loath it.
Regardless. Today was a $1502.50 loss with fees.
Things i did well: awareness and acted quickly to try and take an opportunity. Did not continue revenge trading once i realized i was so deep into the red (being kind to myself here).
Things i did wrong: Rushed into a position, tried forcing my trades without a clear understanding of what was happening market wide, picked low probability entries in NQ, and did not stick to my self imposed risk limits.
If i had to grade my trading today between 1-10 it would most likely be somewhere in the high 3's.
I have two more days of the first step left. I am still trading as i would the live account. Sticking to my max contract size of 3, and attempting to not go over my personal risk limits. Not going over my personal risk limits is priority #1 moving forward.
That's rough @Merkd1904 - both NQ and ES are freight trains on days like this. I've been sucked into so many goddamn perfect looking fades that suddenly flip into power moves the other way.....been there man.
I stopped by to tell you that our back and forth here has got me posting my stuff again more regularly in my journal thread, which I'd ignored for almost a year - so, thank you for that.
Also, everything @ghost OP was saying -- I totally relate + echo + support + all that .
The bit about keeping a physical journal is really interesting - you may want to try it out. I started doing this around 2016/17 and it's helped a bunch. It slows you down a little, creates a bit of space from the screen, pulls your eye away from the action, etc.
These days I use my own template/doc that I print out, but I started off by using an accounting book. It's almost MADE for us traders, imo...here's how I used these notebooks:
IMG_20210823_222606770_HDR
The idea of creating physical space between you and the mouse is a real thing. This happened to be my way of doing it, but I've heard other traders talk about getting up to get a glass of water, literally sit on their hands, or do other "distance" exercises. Might be helpful to experiment with your own version of this.
Brett Steenbarger has an exercise I use every day based around taking your emotional temperature - he talks about this process in a couple of his books and his blog several times. Here's one mention in his blog (it also includes a link to one of his YouTube videos)
These two exercises - physical journaling and emotional temperature taking - have really helped me over the last few years. Hope you find them relevant/helpful.
Lastly - mind if I ask how the soft stop works? Is there an option to set a custom hard stop instead? This might be worth looking into a little. I know I can set my own automated DLL's via R Trader / Rithmic / Ninjatrader - can you do the same thing without asking for it from Topstep?
First off mad props to @Merkd1904 for admitting you were wrong. I know personally swallowing my ego is one of the hardest things for me to do. So respect.
Also, I like the format. I also do a daily recap and coverWWW (what went well) and WNI (what needs improvement)
Second, Rod at Futures fanatic also uses tradingview and mean reversion and just so happens to have a video on how to avoid trending days like yesterday. Thought you might find it interesting.
So, last night i took a couple positions out of the gate trying to get positioned for some sort of retracement at futures open. I took three losses and decided to call it quits for the night and just set limits overnight, which ended up being a bad idea.
Overall, after the market putting in that stunner move yesterday i wasn't expecting more more upside, if anything a further 10 or so points in ES but set my limits conservatively.
I had a couple contracts hit shortly after i walked away and a few hit in the run up to the Europe open.
Sure enough, Europe jammed the indexes higher, adding a further 50 points to NQ and a further 5 points to ES. All contracts got hit besides one in ES that got missed by two ticks, the rest got stopped out.
I actually ended up getting up around the time of London open and setting a couple more limits that ended up getting hit, and surviving to the trade back to settlement.
(one min NQ chart) NQfills0823PM2
Getting into the cash session i was already put back a decent amount by the $400 loss the night before, but the three early wins put me back to positive on the day as we got into the cash session.
Overall i was feeling good about today, I had a handle on where we were in the markets, had a plan, and was overall confident going into the day.
But spoiler alert; once again overtrading reared its ugly head.
Plan for the day: expecting a retest of either the midpoint or the highs of each structure left overnight. Also, a trendline break shortly before the cash open in NQ offered an opportunity to sell the retest. Expecting around 25-50 point swings and a possible break down from new ATH's as sellers overpower buyers.
In general the day started off well. Taking some losses but overall getting good entries and was waiting for a further break of support. ATR at open was at 5.50 in ES and about 24 in NQ. So i was running 12 point targets in ES and a mixture of 25 and 50 point targets in NQ. At most, in general my risk is capped at $150 at time of order send.
Today i actually screenshot almost all of my entries, at least in NQ so i can get context looking back.
Unfortunately they do not show the fills. But, if you wanted to you can link them together with the trade reports.
At the open i caught a sick fill on the retest of the broken trendline, as the contract i had resting got hit and stopped in the first few mins of trade. I caught the first contract at 15347 and the second at 15331.50. I rode these for a decent extension, but not coming into my profit target by about 5-10 points.
NQU2021_2021-08-24_09-34-18
NQU2021_2021-08-24_10-01-58
And then we started to turn around. Stopping me out in profit on that position.
NQU2021_2021-08-24_10-01-58
And proceeded to keep selling this stop hunt until it was obvious it was a stop hunt, here's a shot from the moment,
NQU2021_2021-08-24_10-27-15 (1)
Fills from Tradovate:
NQFills0823AM NQFillsPM08231
This hurt, as it ate away my gains from the morning, but overall i really didn't even think about it. I was feeling good about the day. I had a high conviction in my thesis and recognized the stop hunt as such and kept selling levels i knew they'd be targeting.
Finally got my entry at the climax and put on a few couple contracts
NQU2021_2021-08-24_10-32-22
NQU2021_2021-08-24_10-36-15
NQU2021_2021-08-24_10-54-59
I was still feeling good, but was having an issue getting the extensions i needed to get my fills. So for this position i got one solid fill and the rest i had to fight for.
NQFillsPM0823
After this there was another counter trend that i trend selling at structure resistance as the overall price action was weak. But, someone/place with a shit ton more money than me. Knowing what it was i tried manipulating my stops to not take consecutive losses, they got hit anyways.
This again was me falling in the old trap of overtrading. I was confident in my thesis but as the minutes wore on i slowly knew what was coming. Another stop hunt and ultimately a test of the highs, cause NQ.
I then took another 9 losses before a small win, and then another essentially break even trade. At this point i was getting frustrated, was well past my daily loss limit, but i still thought i could get another trade out of it.
NQFills0823PM
Essentially when i recognized that this was going to be another liquidity hunt back towards the highs i should have just quit for the day. But, stubbornness reigned.
I ended the day down $850, or $1138.60 w/fees. I took 79 trades with only a 26% win rate. R/R was roughly around the 2.5:1 ratio.
I said i'd trade these combines like i would a trade my live account. And today i played that fast and loose. But overall, i fell into the same trap of over/revenge trading after seeing the bus coming and still getting hit by it, twice. But regardless, if i thought i wasn't going to be able to pull it off i legitimately would have pulled the plug, at least that's what i tell myself.
The difference between a day like today and yesterday is i felt confident and in control. The confidence part is ended up biting me. But i would much rather have confident and in control as opposed to anxious and not in control.
Definitely noted dude. I mean just this is helping already; putting thoughts to paper. I wish i was able to do it right when i stopped trading. So it's just a question of time as i still work full time, run the website, do the videos, etc. But def noted.
And as for the soft stops - At least in my personal account in Tradovate i can set the risk limits. For instance you can set a daily loss limit, weekly loss limit, trailing max drawdown, daily profit trigger, and weekly profit trigger, and if you click that little sucker at the bottom. It locks you out either for the session if it's a daily trigger, or the week if it's a weekly trigger. This is my sim account:
Personal account
You can actually write into Tradovate for specific parameters as well.
In the Topstep combine and funded accounts you can not set your own risk limits.
Plan for the day: Try and play for a break in support to fill the air pocket of a gap we have below, but if futures overnight were any indicator price action will most likely be muted and rangebound. Sell the top of range, buy the bottom of it.
So heading into the day i essentially had the same game plan as the day before. Try and play for a break of support to fill the humungous gap we have in QQQ. But, futures overnight were muted and it looked as if it was going to be a low participation day judging by the building of the book in pre market.
Getting into the cash open i had my levels selected and essentially had a vague idea of how the day was going to play out. I traded overnight and overall was up slightly. Yesterday was the fifth day in step 1.
I had caught a decent entry when futures started to turn around towards settlement early morning, got rid of one contract and sat on the other as RTH got going. Immediately price went to the previous highs, right where my position was. I wore that one but hopped back in for a decent trade. Volatility and volume dried up quickly as we tested both side of the range. Missing my exits for most of my positions by a few points.
Overall the day went well, but again i was trying to force too many trades.
I finished the day up by $1307.00 net with a total of 88 trades.
I missed the profit target by $55. I hit it at futures open last night
. 
