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Right off the bat, I'd like to say that I'm not currently a profitable trader. Also, absolutely NONE of what I write should be considered as financial advice! I'm just sharing my thoughts! Wasn't sure if I needed to include a statement like that, or if I stated it correctly, or if it would even actually be helpful in the off chance of litigation. To be extra cautious, if I upload any chart examples, I probably won't include the instrument's information. Price action looks pretty much the same on candlestick charts regardless of what company/future/bond/etc. you're looking at anyway, so it shouldn't matter to use unnamed charts, in my unqualified opinion.
Anyway, I'm also not a vendor. I've been trying to day trade futures for almost two years now, and while I've seen some gains, the majority of my trades have resulted in losses. Sometimes I exit too early (classic), and sometimes I don't exit even though I can tell something's off in my gut (another classic), or if I notice that the current market behavior has changed (got to love trading on hope). I try to work on those bad habits regularly as well as many others, and there's been some progress. I try to continually self-improve, which while not always super fun, has made my life better in a number of ways. I've learned that your perspective has a lot of influence on your experience, and I would have learned that faster if I'd listened to others instead of thinking I knew better.
I'm not sure what I'll talk about yet here. I might use this journal to flesh out some ideas that I feel comfortable sharing with other people, or I might try to dissect some trades from professional traders (if that's allowed) or talk about individual chart patterns, or personal growth stuff, or all of the above, or none of that. I think I'm just going to feel it out as I go.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
You can, of course, post whatever you like, so long as you stay within the rules (See https://nexusfi.com/disclaimer/ if you want to dive deeply into them).
But
a) No one is going to sue you for anything. Why would they? It's just someone posting in an online forum.
b) If you show charts, but don't tell anyone what instrument the chart is for, why bother to post it at all? The people who will be reading will, frankly, want to know, since everyone here is involved with the markets. If you read other trading journals on the forum, no one posts mystery charts -- they show their actual trades: what they traded, at what price, with what outcome. That's part of what makes them valuable and gives a connection with trading reality.
c) You are by no means alone in not being profitable. It is likely that this is the majority condition of forum members, simply because trading is not as easy as it first appears. It's a good thing that you want to journal your trading, and it can be a good way to become objective about your mistakes, and learn from them, and learn from other traders.
So, welcome to trade journaling. It can be valuable, depending on what you put into it.
Good luck with it.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
I guess I'll start at THE BEGINNING. One day while helping a relative clear out some crap in their house, I found a box of books. They didn't want them, and there wasn't a nearby place to drop them off for donation or to sell, so I took them home. Later that day when I was looking through the books, I found one that essentially set the course for pursuing a career in trading. "Trade Options Online" by George Fontanills. In retrospect, I think the book was ultimately an ad for his own financial services, with some basic options info, and strategies. Maybe I'll give it a reread sometime and see what's up, or maybe I won't. Not sure!
From there I got wrapped up in the GameStop and weed stock frenzies, and that was unfortunately before I understood anything about charts, short squeezes, or pump-and-dumps. I made many other mistakes in the early days, a couple involving credit cards I'll admit. Mistake! I at least had the good sense to close out my positions after realizing that I literally had no idea what I was doing. I took what was left, and paid off the credit cards. I've gone back and looked at the companies I "invested" in every now and then, and their prices have always been substantially lower than what I exited at a loss for. So, that feels nice.
The next stop was Indicator Land. Most people probably know how that went, haha. I experimented with the MACD, RSI, Donchian Channels, ADX, DMI, OBV, and many more! I could not figure out how to get them to work on an intraday basis. Congratulations to anyone who has managed to do that though. You rock!
I wasn't sure if I should include moving averages in the part about indicators, because there seems to be some debate about whether or not they're the same as the others I listed above. I tried those bad boys out too, and no dice. That's not to say that they don't work, I just couldn't come up with a method that produced profitability.
I started trading live before I was ready, and after having a few consecutive gain days due ENTIRELY to LUCK, I took single day account loss of -37.80%. However, I successfully beat that personal record with a total monthly loss of -58.17%. Beat that, Hot Wheels. In short, it was emotionally devastating, BUT, I'm glad it happened. There are things that you learn from failure that you can't learn from success, or that's how it's been for me at least.
After those debacles I took a decent break from trading. After several moons had passed, and I no longer felt like a certified goober, I decided to give it another try. Just without the reckless overleveraging that got me in the hot seat last time. I slowly started looking into price action, and that's what I've stuck with since. I tried reading one of Al Brooks' books, and no disrespect intended to him, but I just didn't personally like how condescending some of the writing seemed, so I didn't get very far. I've basically just watched the market, each day if I can, and sketched out and wrote about different things that I've noticed.
Who knows, maybe I should have read Brooks after all, lol. Might be further along if I had. A problem that I have is that I like to figure things out for myself, which ends up wasting a lot of time. It's helpful sometimes though. I'd definitely call it a double-edged sword.
Anyway, that about sums up the journey so far. I also want to give a shout-out to my wife, who has been incredibly supportive since day one. She's great. So yeah, I try to focus on price action and have recently been looking at volume again due to reading some old Wyckoff stuff. The journey continues.
Yeah, but it's not complete, or I should say that this one isn't complete. It's only a few pages long at this point. It's kind of a work in progress as I learn. I've written up plans in the past that didn't pan out, both due to faulty strategies and learning new things that either changed or expanded my understanding of things at the time. Not sure if that's the right way to go about it though.
I have what I think is a good idea of what I'm looking for as far as the price action goes, but it's taking some time to get the where/when down, or what I think people are talking about when they mention market context.
A decent plan is like an operating manual. I should answer the question "What do I do now?"
It consists of If/Then scenarios. If this happens /Then I will do this.
Once you have a plan in place, trade it with small size to determine if it's viable.
You have to have the discipline to follow your plan other wise you won't know if the problem is the plan or the trader.
Your focus should be on following the plan. A trade that loses money can be considered a good trade with a bad outcome.
FWIW I don't trade futures. I don't day trade. I'm a long only stock trader. Mostly in cash in todays markets.
"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
Thank you for taking the time to write that out, I appreciate the feedback! I do have If/Then rules for each individual pattern I look for, although I haven't written all of them out yet, which is something I need to get done. I have the rules floating around in my brain, but it would make things easier to have a physical sheet(s) to look at throughout the day if I get confused about something or forget something I shouldn't forget. I think I'll work on that over the next few days.
I definitely need to work on discipline, because exiting early is something I've struggled with. It would also be great to have more discipline in everyday life as well, haha.
Long only is interesting. I don't think I'd personally short stocks either, although I might buy puts (if the stocks were optionable) if I thought the stock was going down. It does seem riskier to be short stocks in general though, through options or otherwise, given that the market has (so far) gone up over time. What lead to the decision to trade long only, if it's okay to ask?
