Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
A pilot has to keep a log of flight hours. A trucker has to keep a log of hours and miles. Even my Call of Duty games keep a log of my playing hours.
I'm pretty big on keeping stats and records relative to what I did and when I did it in most areas of my life. I use my Franklin Planner throughout the day, every day.
So with all of this it actually seems silly to me that I wouldn't have kept a log of how much time I've spent actually watching the markets. In other words, “screen time.”
I've been seriously involved in investing and trading (only on a personal level, never professionally) for about 15 years trying to “figure it out,” so I no doubt have a lot of hours invested.
But just recently (and thanks to participants on the futures.io (formerly BMT) forum here) I've begun to realize that most of that time has probably been spent in a very ineffectual way, flailing about from one thing to another and never focusing on the one thing that I'm beginning to believe is the most important: Price Action.
So I'm going to start from ground zero here (yes, even after many years of “experience”) and begin a log of my screen time – simulated live, market replay, and live.
This log doesn't include any time spent before or after the market entering trades in my trading log, adjusting settings, working on spreadsheets, participating in chats, writing forum posts, messing around with indicators, etc.
It is only about screen time – time spent watching, observing, studying price action.
I'm beginning this thread on a bit of a whim, so I'm not sure how long it will last, but we'll just have to see.
Note: I've started this thread in the Psychology and Money Management forum because this really seems to have more to do with “attitude,” or part of the psychology of what learning to trade is all about, rather than a trading journal or discussion topic for the Traders Hideout. Big Mike, let me know if you think it would be more appropriate in another forum.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll be starting with that last 2 days of this week's trading because I feel like it is, quite honestly, the first days (at least in a very long time) that I've actually begun to truly pay attention to what price is doing in the moment relative to what I know about it so far, as opposed to concerning myself about whether I'm taking a winning trade or not.
Thursday 07/12/2012:
7.25 hrs – Traded Live Sim for the whole RTH session including 30 minutes prior to open identifying S/R levels, prior OHLC's, Naked Closes, Naked POC's, etc.
Friday 07/13/2012:
4.75 hrs – Traded Live Sim RTH session. Left for a period in the middle of the session to run errands as price was quite stagnate.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.50 hrs - Traded Live Sim RTH session. Left a little early to run errands.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.50 hrs - Traded parts of the Live Sim RTH session.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.00 hrs - Traded parts of the Live RTH session in Sim account - had to do some other work.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.50 hrs - Traded first part of the Live RTH session in Sim account - had to leave to do other work.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.00 hrs - Traded most of the Live RTH session in Sim account - had to leave to do other work.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.25 hrs - Market Replay. Long Saturday. And the day I chose to trade (7/2/12) was a rough and choppy day. Great practice though.
"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
