A Novice Trader's Quest

Week 7 Summary

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Failures:
- Discipline in risk management.
- Patience in waiting for good trades.

Successes:
- Winners were big, losers were small. When I'm on the ball, I'm ON THE BALL.

Summary:
The theme of this week was DISCIPLINE. While the week was great in terms of return, I did below par in managing my risk. I believe the root of this issue is not being comfortable with taking a certain level of losses- If I take a full loss on 1 car, I'm fine. If I take a full loss on 4 cars, I find myself more likely to revenge trade. Because of this, next week my goal is to only hold a maximum of 2 cars at any given time. I am comfortable with the risk of a 2 car trade at present, so I should focus on building my tolerance to losses at that lower risk level.

Overall, a good week. Best trade by far was today:

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To the TICK! Yeehaw. :cool: Have a good weekend.
 
Week 8 Summary

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Failures:
- Sloppy trading. One day in particular I was taking trades without solid reasoning. I need to be able to sit on my hands longer if I don't feel like I know what's going on.
- On Friday- overconfidence. I was up by a very large amount and noticed myself more willing to take unnecessary risks. This is not a common occurrence but certainly something I need to be self-aware about.

Successes:
- I'm noticeably more disciplined in closing losing positions and managing risk. Still not perfect, but decent.
- I was able to walk away from the computer when I realized that I wasn't in the mentality to make good trades. This is a first- I still hate to have losing days. But, being able to step back and see that my equity curve is steadily rising allows me to accept that I can't always have winning days.
- I met my one-month performance target a week early. That's a good sign. ($10,000 net profit)

Summary:
The week had its ups and downs, but overall it was fairly solid. Friday's trading made up for a handful of losses and then some. I now know with some confidence that I will have losing days that are relatively small and winning days that are pretty big. So long as I continue to manage my losses efficiently, my equity curve should continue rising.

This coming week, once completed, will mark one month of futures trading. After I've wrapped up for the week, I'll shift gears and focus purely on accuracy for a month, using 1 car. The reason for this is simple- once I trade live money, I won't have the luxury of trading large lots, averaging up/down, scaling in/out, etc. I need to be able to rely on my accuracy if I wish to make progress. While my current 64% is definitely workable, my mentor is sitting at 85%. If I can close the gap by another 5-10%, I'll be able to rely on my decisions with less hesitation and avoid unnecessary losses.


Trade of the week (not my chart, but I made the same trade more or less):
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Futures Month 1 Summary

I'm calling the week early as I was way out of line in regards to discipline today, as indicated by my gross profit/loss. This isn't the first time I've acted poorly this month, but I expect much better of myself this late in my progress. I'll be taking the rest of the week off and will continue next Monday with the 1-car-accuracy plan.

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Failures:
- Sloppy trading (poor entries, late exits)
- Impatience. There were several days this month that I would've done well to just sit on my hands or go for a jog. I NEED to wait for the setups I identify as high-probability rather than trying to scalp every move or chasing.
- Obscene lack of risk control when emotional. This is why I'm calling the week early. I need to get my head back on straight and stop lying to myself. In the end, everything falls back on my shoulders. If I pretend that my decent performance is all that matters, I'm going to lose all of my money sooner rather than later from my hubris.

Successes:
- Profitability for a month! Cool.
- Decent accuracy.
- Much better mentality overall.

Summary:
All said, I'm doing better than I ever have this year. I'm able to get up each morning with energy and readiness to see what opportunities are available to me. I don't get as emotional over losses or wins. I can sleep at night. It's easier than it used to be. I made and sustained profitability for a month. That's a first. My previous excursions into the market were short-lived emotional trainwrecks. It's completely different now. I just need more work. If I can nip my poor risk control and beef up my accuracy, I'll be ready for live trading again in a number of months.

Until next week. 8)
 
Briefly checking in here, last week/weekend was quite busy. Very productive, though! I'll be updating my progress this Friday.

Happy humpday.
 
Futures Week 5/6 Summary

(note: data shown is from this week's trading only)
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Failures:
- What would've been a pretty solid week was fouled by not being disciplined in taking a loss on Friday. Bad, bad, bad.
- Not holding to targets. I would've made twice or more if I wasn't such a wuss in waiting for TP to hit.

Successes:
- Located the source of my ridiculously sub-par performance last week and fixed it.
- Overall adapted well to the change in risk, stayed profitable once I got my bearings.

Summary:
Last week was a blood bath. The previous month I had been used to scaling in, scaling out, and generally being somewhat sloppy with my entries. Trading 1 contract is completely different- you have to be very diligent in taking the GOOD trades almost exactly to the tick, trailing your stop, and sitting on your hands no matter how bad you want to take profit. Initially, I had all the good trades mapped out- but I missed most of them by a few ticks(!), tried to chase, didn't trail... it was a sloppy mess. This week, I changed my entry/exit method and the results instantly improved. Instead of waiting for top-tick on my entry, I entered within a "zone" around my desired entry level. After entering, I trail, and it works out well.

This coming week I'm going to continue to refine my methodology for entry/exit. The goal is to bring my accuracy into the 70% range while maintaining a 1.0+ profit ratio. Before Friday I was sitting at 1.32... but Friday was a mess that brought down most my stats.

Nonetheless, I see progress being made and I'm well on my way to consistent profitability at a level I'm pleased with. Have a good weekend.
 
I haven't updated this in a couple weeks! I've been quite busy preparing for a large career shift. I'll pick this up in some form or another within the next month.
 
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