It is true that I am in a different world than you describe you are in. This is what markets work so well. Results are what count and neither of us is putting that on the table.
For two of my screens I only do 20 to 40 trades a day and they are in one market, the ES. The two other screens are for equities where I may be tracking about 100 stocks using a combination of lists and charts (showing or stored as icons immediately available. The remaining screen is on another service method of feed and it is just a backup vis a vis internet connecting. I have phones as well.
Just as an opinion, I'm guessing that you have never seen the markets as yet by your choices.
For the ES I do occasionally exit when the capacity of the market lessens. Ordinarily, I only exit once a day to go flat. I do only five decisions (in order of frequncy): Hold, Reverse, Wait, Enter, and Exit. I'm not an angst person; I deal with comfort, support and confidence.
My screens have many areas that have specific uses. Thus I sweep from place to place and only glance where needed in a routine. 1/4 of my routine involves looking at the screen and 3/4 of the routine the screen is not involved. For the 1/4 of my routine dealing with screens, I deal mostly in 100 millisecond units and for each sweep 10 to 20 units could be involved; most of the time using 10 units would be slightly redundant. The remaining 3/4 of the routine is roughly instantaneous; about no time passes.
Between cycles of the routine, I spend time deciding considerations about my rep rate of the routine. For example, in two locations, one leading the ES that I trade, I see 4 panels in pairs of two where an end effect sequence is comprised of a sequence of five pattern elements. Two panels depict OTR (One Tick Range bars) price; each has an associated volume display and all is color coded and referenced by vertical dashed segments that correspond to standard bar times in each location and where each bar time is incompatible on a first order of measure. To sense this might take as long as three units for all four panels. My conscious sensory system processes, as does yours, 10,000 sensory units per second and 20,000,000 sensory units unconsciously.
Most of what I do is unconscious.
I make 20 to 40 execution actions per day during RTH.
Signals for impending trades come to me anywheres from 20 to 30 seconds and up to 2 minutes before an excution platform action.
Your 10 seconds is 100 units to me, roughly an eternity for my mind.
If the capacity of the market is low, then I have to punch partial fills; I just space them on the T&S so I am not disturbing price as I handle each person opposite me who is trading for opposite reasons that I am trading.
I do not do management for all practical purposes since I disregard anything except the present and the data that is being displayed for the near term future trades that are announced as being in line to trade, if possible, and are coming up. I am all in up to a low multiple (say 5) of the contemporary capacity of the market.
Since I do not do exits and I do look at moments for action as only reversals, my comments on the subject of angst may be missing what you are speaking of from your observations of angst in some space somewhere that you know about.
For me a reversal is an action that is required of me to keep my capital in the market. I MUST always reverse to stay on the right side of the market and ONLY during those times of the day whern the market is telling me CHANGE and not Continue. This is all binary 1's and 0's sort of stuff. Reverse is a combo of an exit and an entry. Maybe it is a double angst if exit and entry angets are the same. maybe it is a net zero angst if exit and entry angsts are opposite.
The feelings I have are like carving moguls on a black diamond trail in the moonlight. This may be angsty for some but I woul peg each setting of the edges as elation following elation.
I am usually, if in a group, smiling and laughing (and not at others). grooving is what I call it and I feel it comes from seeing the markets in such a way that I am at one with the markets and I do little thinking if any at all that I know about.
If I changed task to narrate the market, I would have to chat three times faster than a person is able to speak. You may have heard about how people can choose to read my saying the words silently. No one can read the market by saying the words silently.
Seeing the landscape of the market is not a common experience of traders I have noticed while watching them. In public, I always like to watch John Netto trade and if he is, I notice he is communicating with me and vice versa. I think what we both like is trading for the joy of it. He orients to one shot one kill as an ex marine sniper. I orient to individual high performance sports with and without equipment. We both trade with the equivalent of sports memory.
It is not likely that mostly anyone can understand my comments; it has nothing to do with making comparisons one person to another. What is probably more the cause of lack of understandings is that being able to see the markets has to do with both the display and the essential knowledge of markets as they work and are working.
If a person gets a proper display, then he can see what is seeable down to the level where software then does the seeing. If the person also has knowledge, then he can make use of the proper display. It is a long wy to getting a proper display. It is much longer to getting the knowledge. and it is a very great distance to getting the display and knowledge working as one to make what the market offers. I find that those I meet and read find this to be unbelievable and astonishing.
On the otherhand there was the Expo; spyder did meet with people there for hours and hours; people did volunteer that they had never seen a person who was so rapid in what he did and explained. I believe it was angst free as well.
Angst goes with CW stuff as part of the early exit tradition of edge trading and betting on the future both of which are not part of my experience.
Quote from austinp:
<i>"My screens (5) are my trading world in terms of my senses..."</i>
The better your skills become, the fewer screens you'll need.
I trade from two charts per symbol, monitor a bigger one and focus on a smaller one. Could get by with only one chart, but the dual view certainly helps.
It's possible that some of your angst to exit trades earlier than you desire comes from information overload. Too many charts, too many lines, too many points of reference = excess congestion.
If it takes more than ten seconds (at most) to make any intraday trade / management decision based on what you look at, the view is too cluttered. Most decisions can be made in five seconds or less.
