Complacency in trading.

[volpri]

Pay attention to details. In winning trades AND losing trades. WHY did they turn out that way? Search for an answer. You may not find out exactly “the WHY” every time but you can learn many things that can be useful for future trades. Especially for intraday day traders. Print out the entire session with all your trades and ask WHY did it work or why did it not work this time? Try to find an answer. Also look at good trades you missed taking and ask WHY?

Do the same thing in the midst of trading as it is happening. Why am I winning? Why am I losing? What just happened on the last two or three bars? Where are the pressures? Bullish? Bearish? Or both i.e. back and forth? Then adapt to what the market is doing not what you want it to do. The market is dynamic. We intraday traders have to have a measure of dynamism in our live trading. We must learn to change and flow with the market pressures. I may have a set PT of X amount but if the dynamics of the market (as seen live and unfolding) do not appear that my target will be reached anytime soon but I have a profit then I grab it. I take what the market gives me. Otherwise, I may find myself locked into a trade for an hour or two waiting for a PT that may never come. And find myself missing several opportunities to grab a decent profit although less than my original PT. I do not concern myself with what happens afterwards after I exit my trade. I can always get back in if after taking my profit the market suddenly goes in what would of been my favor on my original position. Or I simply look for another good opportunity. On a 5m chart there will usually be 20 to 40 decent trades in the session of the ES.

PAYING ATTENTION TO DETAILS.

There are times it is best to take a loss before on SL would be hit. The market dynamics have changed. Why wait around for a bigger loss? Take it and get back in the market flow.

 

[deaddog]

Pay attention to details. In winning trades AND losing trades. WHY did they turn out that way? Search for an answer. You may not find out exactly “the WHY” every time but you can learn many things that can be useful for future trades. Especially for intraday day traders. Print out the entire session with all your trades and ask WHY did it work or why did it not work this time? Try to find an answer. Also look at good trades you missed taking and ask WHY?

More important than why did they turn out that way is why did I do what I did. There are all sorts of reasons why trades worked out the way they did and you can always find someone or something else to blame. The only control you have is over what decisions you make.

 

[volpri]

Arrogant or humble? The market has no sense of who you are or what you are, nor your psychological state. It knows not whether you are humble or arrogant. The market is not out to “get you”. You can be humble and get rich. You can be humble and get broke. You can be arrogant and get rich or you can be arrogant and get poor. Those things are issues that may, or may not, cloud YOUR judgement but they are not things the market takes advantage of to teach you a lesson. It is not out to reward you if you are humble or to destroy you if you are arrogant. It knows nothing about you nor the rest of the retail traders. In fact it doesn’t care about us. It is simply the bullish and bearish pressures playing in the session. It creates it’s own dance (chart drawing) irrespective of you or I. IT IS NOT OUT TO GET US AND DESTROY US even though it may seem that way sometimes. If we cannot be successful it is because we are not yet good enough at reading the pressures and making entries and exits that will make us consistently profitable.

 

[volpri]

More important than why did they turn out that way is why did I do what I did. There are all sorts of reasons why trades worked out the way they did and you can always find someone or something else to blame. The only control you have is over what decisions you make.

Yes that is a part of the “why”. And one of the reasons for asking “why”. However, many times we do nothing but the market still “does”. It will always “do” whether we do or not. We must try to understand why it did what it did regardless of what we do or don’t do. It is part of learning to “read” the market. We don't move the market.

 

[Bad_Badness]

The market is like the weather. You get what you get, but the immediate rain or the clouds or wind are just the effects. Those things are caused by humidity, barometric pressure gradients and jet streams, which are in turn caused by ocean currents thermodynamics, solar activity etc.
I.e. what you get is the effect from the interaction of multiple meta factors and multiple levels of those meta factors.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

Discipline is doing WHAT needs to be done, WHEN it needs to be done, HOW it needs to be done, through paying attention to DETAIL, and doing whether you “FEEL” like it or not.

Hello Volpri,

Thank you for stating this.

I am really in my trading I need to pay attention the chart in front of me day to day, and pay attention to details and trade for however long it takes to understand and act on the details.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

So, I funded a new small account that I started trading the 13th of March and I nearly tripled it since then over 21 trading days with a few bumps along the way. This is day trading e-mini futures. No swing trades.

I think I may have solved the issue of complaceny by simply arriving fresh for every new day or week.

In the past, I would erroneously think that if I were ahead I had a cushion of profits to lean on and as such could allow for larger drawdowns or larger unrealized losses playing with profits.

Now, my focus is on daily profitability and what I earned yesterday or last week is history. I'm also very cautious and know very well how easy it is to lose money in this game and do my best to not get too confident in my analysis knowing it's all probabilities and maybe even luck. At the same time, I do press my winners and have taken home some big winners while limiting the downside.

Maybe, I have a paper thin edge. We'll see.

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Hello Laissez Faire,

I am proud of your accomplishment and staying active in your approach. GREAT WORK!!

 

[Laissez Faire]

Hello Laissez Faire,

I am proud of your accomplishment and staying active in your approach. GREAT WORK!!

Thank you, SML.

I try to stay humble, though. Next week is a new week and maybe I just had a lucky run. After all, there's some very smart and experienced guys here who says that TA does not work and that it's impossible to day trade index futures profitably.

The market does not appear to be random to me, though. And that's what I'm trying to exploit.

Let's see how it goes...

 

[deaddog]

However, many times we do nothing but the market still “does”. It will always “do” whether we do or not. We must try to understand why it did what it did regardless of what we do or don’t do.

Respectfully I'd say that would be impossible. How could we possibly know why the market does anything without knowing the reason all the market participants acted as they did.

 

[Illini Trader]

Congrats on a good month. Going forward from March 13th, it looks like your bad day was April 3rd if you traded every day. the 3rd actually looked like a better day to trade than the 4th which was a very good day for you. What do you attribute that bad losing day to?