Daily Habits - Strategy Improvement

P

Palindrome

If Anyone Cares...

I'm curious what some of the other traders do on a daily basis as a routine. I'm trying to improve constantly and I've been reading what some top athletes do. Just curious if I can get some more ideas on how I can train and grow from other traders.

Here are my ideas:

1) After each day, review today and yesterdays trades. Record them, take notes, analyze what you did correct, what you did wrong. Was it part of the system, were all rules followed.

2) Between 6pm and 7pm, hand test system, to reinforce entries and rules. After I trade, I train.

3) Spend 10 minutes per day visualizing the mechanics of the system and the processes involved to execute the system

4) Spend 10 minutes per day reading the mistakes and examples of mistakes that I have made and am trying not to repeat (I have about 10 mistakes that are easy to make, most I have conquered but I like to review, because these mistakes are easy to make again and many I have done).

5) Reviewing my results and focusing on the trend of success. Let's face it, we get beat up alot, and self doubt influences us. Need to stay incredibly positive and optimistic and centered... we take alot of punches and "market ridicule"

6) When I wake up 5:45 am, review all 10 Futures Markets I trade. Do this every hour until Midnight, making sure I don't miss critical defining entrances that I know are statistically significant.

7) When new mistakes arise, add to an "issue log." LEARN FROM MISTAKES... That is how to grow.

*** People trade differently on this forum, I'm about 80% systematic so I'm very rule based, therefore discipline and clarity is critical for my survival. If anyone has anything to add, that would great... Thanks***
 
I just trade my strategic positioning long term system.

It is reactive and proactive. It fits me like a well fitting shoe and has removed much stress from my life. Which unlike you it is taking flow out of the market without a lot of labor. My goal is a yield after labor and costs of 25% annually (my labor is a large number as I am "oncall"). My tools are transferable to my tablets and cell phones as I am not scalping..so I have great freedom and not glued to the screen.

My drawdown would be upsetting to most traders here however. I make as many as 100 trades a month in several instruments which takes me out of the title "position trader" eventhough thats what I consider the method of trading that I use. No one would believe my winrate and I do not want to discuss it as hedging is a large part of what I do. If I were betting the ponies you would call me a handicapper.

I do not have a discipline regimen or perceived exercise as I solved all of that with trading the way I want to trade and understanding the grass may be greener on the other side in which I will never be able to mow it as it just would not fit me.

Keep in mind when I get a trade signal I am deadly focused like a chameleon basking in the sun awakened to attention with a predatory behaviour. But this is years of experience and tens of thousands of trades shining through.

On my creative days I have fun here...

When I get bored I get in trouble. I find myself fighting the effects of boredom more often lately.

ES
 
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I am a long term stock trader.



I spend less than 10 minutes in the evening reviewing my holdings and when I have capital available, I might spend another 10 minutes scanning for set-ups.



I spend maybe 10 minutes at the open executing any trades called for.



I've been at this for a while so I'm not concerned about execution or mistakes . I either follow my plan or I don't. If I follow my plan, it is a good trade regardless of the outcome.



FWIW; I have day traded stocks and futures and have found that long term stock trading gives me close to the same returns with a lot less stress.


Most important is to have a well thought out plan that allows you to exploit your edge and the discipline to follow your plan.
 
Deaddog, thanks for the feedback. Your right, your strategy is alot less stress. My goal is to annihilate the SPX though.

Everyone has different strategies and goals. My goals are 75% per year.

I guess If I was looking to do what you do, I would just put 60% of my money in the SPY's... sell some options on a small scale against it, and take the other 40% and strategically allocate it to individual stocks. Probably add about 5% alpha above the SPY return if I'm lucky.

I like to average 6% + per month though.
 
I wake up at 1am without an alarm, I back test ideas I studied day before. At this point system am working on is 95% complete and come 7:30am I am manually trading scalps/day trades ES and dozen other markets as I manually have time to do. I use tape recorder entire day and small staff types it out, they also monitor existing automation of mainly scalping systems, one multi timeframe stock system and one very very long term commodity system, anything over 29 minutes gets hedged on every trade and will also hedge expected retracements, occasionally scalps will get hedged.

As same yet different of @ElectricSavant, seems we both concentrate heavily on hedging, I have tight low overall losing trades/drawdowns, more than half are breakevens, R:R=stopped tracking as it, won't advertise it. Expanding efforts on hedging-profiting open profits to curtail intra-trade drawdowns more. Learning to scalp has it's advantages due you understanding top/bottom patterns, imo. 100% rule based systems due to programming, but I can't stand actually manual trading, never like it.

4am go to gym for an hour, then back to testing.

7:15 to 2:00pm manually trade, naps in between when needed, also eat 200 calorie breakfast & lunch, 7 miles on treadmill, trading while walking.

2pm back to gym for hour then starbucks for hour, eat again after

5pm time for study till 9pm, Then Jello time !!!

9:30 try to fall asleep, usually by 10:30 asleep.

Have 2 more months of manually trading to get it to 100% and by then programming should also be done, most of what I need to do ends. Another 3-6 months of running real time to iron out any problems that I will spend an hour next day, and 23 hours of freedom, yea right.

ET fine place when boredom hits or just plain tired of trading.
 
I used to do all that, when I traded stocks, all day watching them, all night copying data into my own tracker / alert system then reviewing all the stocks that came up with, loading into Medved with notes, good times!!

These days, I switch on check no scheduled news soon, watch for a bit, make a few scalps/really short term trades and switch off, life is easier :)

Few hours per day, is enough for me!!
 
Palindrome said:
If Anyone Cares...

I'm curious what some of the other traders do on a daily basis as a routine. I'm trying to improve constantly and I've been reading what some top athletes do. Just curious if I can get some more ideas on how I can train and grow from other traders.

Here are my ideas:

1) After each day, review today and yesterdays trades. Record them, take notes, analyze what you did correct, what you did wrong. Was it part of the system, were all rules followed.

2) Between 6pm and 7pm, hand test system, to reinforce entries and rules. After I trade, I train.

3) Spend 10 minutes per day visualizing the mechanics of the system and the processes involved to execute the system

4) Spend 10 minutes per day reading the mistakes and examples of mistakes that I have made and am trying not to repeat (I have about 10 mistakes that are easy to make, most I have conquered but I like to review, because these mistakes are easy to make again and many I have done).

5) Reviewing my results and focusing on the trend of success. Let's face it, we get beat up alot, and self doubt influences us. Need to stay incredibly positive and optimistic and centered... we take alot of punches and "market ridicule"

6) When I wake up 5:45 am, review all 10 Futures Markets I trade. Do this every hour until Midnight, making sure I don't miss critical defining entrances that I know are statistically significant.

7) When new mistakes arise, add to an "issue log." LEARN FROM MISTAKES... That is how to grow.

*** People trade differently on this forum, I'm about 80% systematic so I'm very rule based, therefore discipline and clarity is critical for my survival. If anyone has anything to add, that would great... Thanks***
More...

Each trader is different and a lot of things you cannot learn from books or DVDs alone. That is the theory part, trading as it happens is the application of what you have learned and then, some. For me, I review each position daily while, the market is open. Is my assumption when I placed the trade still valid? If the price action is telling me that I am wrong, I will exit the position and close it, win, lose or breakeven. My mistake in the past is letting losers grow bigger! That will destroy your capital base in multiple ways from multiple positions if you allow too many losers to eat you up! If my assumptions is confirmed by positive price action going my direction then, I leave it alone. No reason to do anything. When the market closes, I review the stockcharts of my positions and again check if there are changes in the price action necessitating me getting out the next morning. If there are, I mark it in my trading log where I have that trade with an asterisk to remind myself. Then, if I have to exit, I exit the very next day! If I see a nice setup, I might add 1 trade during that day. However, I limit my positions open to no more than 7 positions. The reason is to be able to carefully, watch each one. There are times you will have to close positions during the day. Do not count your open profits while, trading. Count your monies when you have closed your position. Otherwise, you will react emotionally, and make mistakes! Focus on trading accurately, and correctly. That is more important!
 
I am a little bit different, in that I am 95% a net seller to the market -- in vertical spreads on the SPX. Because of that, I don't want to know so much as *direction* as I do *range*. (Which is to say, "Gimme a window. I'll write positions on either side of that [above and below the market], and whither goes the market within that window, I don't care.") And because of that range, my need for detail, for attention, for correctness, might differ materially from traders who primarily take a long-or-short position.

That said, I have consistently scribbled thoughts into a spiral-bound notebook for 12 years. WOW to see how I've changed -- in some ways subtly, in some ways more direct. But I do go through a routine, of surmising, hypothesizing, testing, and reviewing.
I've reviewed market forecasts, entries, exits, when/whys, rolls, roll-aways, roll-outs, even roll-ins..... and if you group all of that together, I've reviewed inventory policies, and then portfolio (risk) profiles (the option seller's VaR, if-you-will).... Finally (and now we're into the 2016-2018 period), I've got a color-coded table (that's more like a chart, from across the room) that tells me 'when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em', according to a nice ratio of position delta (market risk) against position theta (time burn). "Sweet!"

What I did was always to ask three questions, every day and all-the-time, and particularly over the weekends when my head could clear out:
1) How could I have made more, from existing positions?
2) How could I have lost less, from positions I ended up taking?
3) How could I best deploy capital, from instant to instant, to increase expected profit, and decrease expected loss?

That last one -- kind-of an amalgam of 1) and 2) -- *really* got me going. I work options now closer to how I might have tick-scalped way-back-when: much more fluid, no being 'married to (any) position(s).... "Where's the payday? Who's lying idle?"

FWIW, the only person I've really heard stress this is/was Al Sherbin, who was tastytrade research head a while back. Good guy, solid advice, way recommended.
I love the thick Sha-Kah-go accent.
 
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