CL Redux
- Thread starter schizo
- Start date
And it did bounce out of there just after you posted that. I overtraded today big time--but I did hold a long at 91.33, and considered setting the stop below the low at .20, and the target at 92.19 (apex of the prior breakdown pennant), and just walking away. Turns out it would have been a profitable day had I just done that. The signal was clear to me, and it looked like a good candidate for the LOD. Unfortunately I had short-sighted thinking and took it off way too early.
There's an internal struggle with me right now between the more patient, wise trader who knows I should wait for entries and targets, and not move my stop so soon, and the impatient trader who wants to trade, catch 10 here and there, move the stop really quickly but miss the big move, take every single thing that looks like it could be a valid trade even if it's not that clear, and so on. Unfortunately the second trader won the battle today, and has won it every day recently, even on the profitable days.
Any advice on how to bring out the best in the first trader mentioned above, and send the second one packing?
I hear you. As is evidenced by my posts I have been in a contrarian mode lately. I guess I'd rather not make it too easy.Quote from JoshDance:
I overtraded today big time--but I did hold a long at 91.33, and considered setting the stop below the low at .20, and the target at 92.19 (apex of the prior breakdown pennant), and just walking away. Turns out it would have been a profitable day had I just done that. The signal was clear to me, and it looked like a good candidate for the LOD. Unfortunately I had short-sighted thinking and took it off way too early.
There's an internal struggle with me right now between the more patient, wise trader who knows I should wait for entries and targets, and not move my stop so soon, and the impatient trader who wants to trade, catch 10 here and there, move the stop really quickly but miss the big move, take every single thing that looks like it could be a valid trade even if it's not that clear, and so on. Unfortunately the second trader won the battle today, and has won it every day recently, even on the profitable days.
Any advice on how to bring out the best in the first trader mentioned above, and send the second one packing?
I've been looking for bottoms, but the market has been under so much pressure I keep getting stopped out by going long while it's selling off. But the losses are small so it's okay. But I've not been shorting enough. Today a vast majority of my trades were long again. And I did well with that too though. I caught 2 nice trades by going long @91.31 and long @91.27 and closed them @91.52, so those were good. But I missed that easy money down. And I also missed the follow through on the rebound. I've been doing a good job of coming close to buying lows, which I guess if you try enough entries you'll get there , but I don't reenter on the follow through of the rebound. Usually after a low is in we'll get a point or so rebound eventually.ADD: One point of clarification. I've been getting here late to trade. So lately once I get here the market has already sold off quite a bit. That's why I've been more reluctant to short it. But there's so much pressure it's sold off even more as I'm trying to catch a rebound of what could be the LOD, but hasn't been during my first trades. So maybe I'm being a little harsh on myself for not shorting more under these circumstances. Previously I've made much more money and it's been easier shorting than going long. But of course the experienced and successful trader trades both ways and waits for the highest probability setups and avoids just chasing every move and reacting to every twitch in the market.
ADD2: As far as you "catching the big move", as NoDoji has said, and I did too but evidently forgot
, levels can be important in determining support and resistance and finding good entries for longer term trades and also profit targets. This is one of the reasons why she does so well. But the market has been so choppy lately you need to cut yourself a break in not "'catching the big move". I haven't been either. And also different time frame charts are important. I many times focus too much on 1 min charts.
What time frame is your primary one?
It's funny, the trades I take that I feel really good about, when I take them I am 90% certain they are going to work and almost always work. But today I took about 5x as many trades as I should have, and only a few felt good, but the ones that did worked beautifully. I was just doing too much pointing and clicking. If I can get two or three of those good trades, that's all I need in a day. I get caught up in "missing out" mode though and try to predict where the market will go at every single point and overtrade, instead of being patient and waiting for a more high probability opportunity.
I could've written those exact words. That's exactly what I do. I'm so afraid of missing a move I take trades, where looking back, there was no reason in the world to take them.
Then I think I'm Nostradamus & try to anticipate entry triggers forming before they actually form. It really pays off though............................1 out of every 10 times.
I can make "sim" money most days now, but when the day is over I feel like my trading was extremely sloppy & I overtrade like crazy. I can't make heads or tails of my entries & exits on the chart sometimes when I review them at the end of the day.
I really need to be way more disciplined & professional. I probably wouldn't feel so worn out every day if I didn't trade in such a sloppy, undisciplined manner.
All I can say is at least I use stop orders.
Quote from macattack:
Then I think I'm Nostradamus & try to anticipate entry triggers forming before they actually form. It really pays off though............................1 out of every 10 times.
This is what I also need to convince myself of--that my P/L is usually inversely proportional to the number of trades that I take. I am going to limit my number of trades tomorrow.
I feel the same way. Even when I make money, much of the time it feels "dirty" ... and not a good dirty, a bad dirty. And not a good "bad dirty", actually bad. Okay, you get the point.