Blotto,
I knew you would surface in this thread, but I was expecting emg first. You say you deal with facts: one fact is that few month ago when I read your post attacking Nodoji I felt sick and was sad to read that she would stop posting.
I understand Nodoji very well, we speak the same language. I have been around this board for a long time but did not post, and followed her evolution and later on I read her journal again. And as a matter of fact most of her posts. She is very helpful along with few others giving away help without self interest. And I really understand her way of thinking even what you picked out "A range around a level of indecision in the market". I exactly understand what she means, because I traded at those places not once.
So based on how I know her and her work, your comments and attacks here in other threads are unwarranted and tells more about you than about her.
If you really want to help me or other people who are in the same situation as me, then stop bashing others and contribute. One can decide and ferret out which and whose advice to take.
I am doing this journal as a learning process to tackle my mental obstacles preventing me being consistent and on the way or in the end I might lose money. Only after a week I already see that it was worth starting it.
Quote from Blotto:
First, I've reviewed your charts and trades. Haphazard. Imprecise. Not good enough. Please do not do any more live trading until you have corrected your strategy. You can forward test in real conditions using your simulation account. This advice is to save you money and unwarranted stress. If you continue live, it may be that you have a masochistic personality or a gambling issue. If so, be honest about this with yourself and either make the choice to do something else or persist in self destructing.
I went back and checked my trades again and tried to be objective. Out of the 22 trades I still see 17 good entries, and 5 bad ones, which someone might call haphazard. How can you evaluate the hole thing as a losing strategy with such a small sample size unless you are trading the same style (short term PA scalping) sharing the same entries and having some meaningful sample size of your own? I know my trading is imprecise and not good enough yet, if I were a perfect market timer I probably never started this public journal. But according to your initial posts you were not a perfect trader either out of the gate.
About the simulator: I used it a lot. In the beginning I lost a lot on the simulator, whatever I did it was losing. I was very good at losing . I had to reset the account quite frequently. After a while (in years) this somehow changed after and the nth system and approach, and I started to make money on the simu.
Now whenever I use the simu I can make âmoneyâ most of the days. So I could simu away for a while but at some point I still have to face the difficulties of live trading.
I don't have a masochistic personality or a gambling issue. I probably have other issues preventing me to execute properly but no amount of simulating will solve that.
Your entry price has absolutely nothing to do with your trade. In terms of risk management you place a stop order on each trade in case you are wrong. This is necessary for capital preservation purposes, to avoid being caught in a trade which you fail to exit. Your break even point is irrelevant to what the market will do next. You require a robust strategy to signal your exits. Your fear of loss is not a robust way to exit. Be aware of the faulty reasoning employed by some advocates of break even stops on this thread. In terms of moving stops around - your focus should be on exiting when it is the correct time to exit. If you study and test properly, you will find that it is a sub optimal strategy to place stop losses close to the market, in pullback areas, and around recent highs / lows.
My entry price is very important so as my stop loss as a way to manage the risk. I want to place the trade at an entry price where I find out early and cheap if I am wrong. This way I can trade more without much financial an mental damage. But you are right one needs a robust exit strategy and fear of loss is not one of them.
Without a successful system no amount of discipline will make you a success. At best you'll perfectly execute a mediocre or net losing system.
You statement is correct, but the problem is that you think my problems are mostly technical, and I think my problem is mostly psychological.
Any emotions you feel when at the screens are proportional to your level of confidence in what you are doing.
It is only partially true in my view, existing beliefs and damage caused by previous haphazard trading can induce the same level of stress when trading a valid profitable method and so screwing it up in the end. Of course the level of confidence is important too, and yes may be I am not fully confident in my current methodology in live trading yet.
You are apparently trading live. If so, why?
I explained it above.
What is your objective in trading?
Making a living
Why have you chosen to specialise in this particular instrument?
My current strategy works well with CL.
If you would like my input on your trading strategy, please describe it.
Please also describe the reasoning behind each one of the trades you have taken to date (displayed in this thread).
There are not much to describe:
There are 3 types of trades: 2 along the trend 1 counter the trend. I use the 5 min chart to determine the trend. If the trend is up and I don't expect much pullback I have 1 type of entry, If I think the pullback will be deeper (there are no fast entry or it fails) I have another type of entry but still along the trend. If certain conditions are present (important level, history of the trend, recent price action, candle formation, time of the day, etc.) and I suspect a deeper pullback I might initiate counter trend trade to ride the pull back.
I know my CT trades in the journal look haphazard and they are not how I like them.
(For me the trend is a thing which makes me money let it be counter to the main trend or the main trend in itself)
I don't want to describe my exact entry points, they are variants of the ones in Al Brooks book. I see a trend, I wait for a pullback and enter with the assumption that the trend will continue.
Based on your responses to these questions I can determine how, if at all, you may be helped.
If you can contribute without personal attacks in the framework of short term intraday scalping then do so. But don't tell me that your way is the only way and there is no way one can make money this way.
