ES Journal - 2019/2020

[oraclewizard77]

Controlling your emotions, means each trade before you take a setup, you accept the fact that it could be a losing trade, and you have already determined how much you are willingly to risk. You don't keep adding contracts as trade goes against you or if you place a hard stop, you don't keep moving the stop away in hopes the trade will reverse. It's sometimes even better to trade in opposite direction if your stop was set where you determined the trend had changed.

Same when trade is going your way, you don't hard close the trade, you let it hit your limit if you set a hard limit. You don't move your target down because you are afraid price will reverse and then go back to BE or hit your stop. The market does not care about your single contract trade, there are not people out to get you unless you are a hedge fund moving size. However, do note that you need to give a trade room to breath, you can't use tight stops and assume they will not be tested.

If you can't bear to watch a trade after you are in it, have your targets and stops set, and go do something else for awhile then check back.

 

[SammyJ]

How can that be meaningless?

If you're consistently right on the big picture you're rich.

By meaningless i mean this . I’ve seen you come on here many times and say the day looks bullish . Your were right some of the time at day end but we had wild swings in between were any 1/2 competent risk controlled trader was stopped out many times before the final closing price . So were we ended the day meant nothing as the trader was stopped out many times and lost money . A trader must trade short term price action with tight stops and hopefully at day end he’s made money . This board is a ghost town as the intraday action has been tougher lately with Radom moves .

 

[Laissez Faire]

By meaningless i mean this . I’ve seen you come on here many times and say the day looks bullish . Your were right some of the time at day end but we had wild swings in between were any 1/2 competent risk controlled trader was stopped out many times before the final closing price . So were we ended the day meant nothing as the trader was stopped out many times and lost money . A trader must trade short term price action with tight stops and hopefully at day end he’s made money . This board is a ghost town as the intraday action has been tougher lately with Radom moves .

Actually, when I do make a call here I usually offer fairly accurate levels. On Thursday I said I was anticipating a strong counter rally on the Open, but that we might see an initial 10-20 point drop first. It turned out to be a 5,50 point drop below the Open.

I then said I had 58-60 as the first initial major pivot point on the day. It turned out to be 57.50, so I missed it by 2 ticks. That was + 26,00 points available within the 1st 30 minutes.

Regardless of all that - if you knew where the market would close or move broadly on any given day with a high degree of consistency. Why couldn't you trade that with a wide stop? If you know the metrics of the market you're trading you'd know what kind of stop to use. It does not need to be 100 points even as the average range is far less than that lately.

If you have to use tight stops it probably means you're using too much leverage.

It is of course a huge advantage to be able to execute in a way where you can use tight stops as that means your getting in at optimum entry points which means less risk and more profit potential.

Also, there's no limit to the amount of strategies you can trade. You can for example scalp intraday and swing intraday simultaneously.

 

[QTrader20]

The market definitely isn't random. But even still - it's not always easy to monetize that. Even if you have a profitable system or set-ups. I still struggle with things like entering too early (FOMO), risk management or even projecting my own views/wishes on the market.

An optimal system removes the discretionary element, i.e., interpretation. If you can't do that - at least try to remove as much discretion as possible. In my opinion of course.

Guess what? HFT machines love to play cat and mouse game with entry points to make it look like random or to freak traders out with stop loss mentality before real move starting to kick in. Even after I spent few years to build up and improving my setups, it took me another 2 more years of solid works in order to figure out four different kinds of entry point so far that they love to mess my head with. This is why trading is so difficult because of too many pieces to put together which takes more than a decade or two to figure out.

 

[themickey]

Right, agree, so price gets deliberately stuffed around but traders on ET say price is not random.
Ya, not random to the HFT player but it is random to the 99.9999% of traders. Except for one thing! Randomness is not randomness to ET.
Gawd only knows their definition.

 

[oraclewizard77]

Right, agree, so price gets deliberately stuffed around but traders on ET say price is not random.
Ya, not random to the HFT player but it is random to the 99.9999% of traders. Except for one thing! Randomness is not randomness to ET.
Gawd only knows their definition.

No, you don't get it. If price say is forming a top in real time on right side of the screen, you can see it and then trade it with a pretty tight stop. It's not random, but you need to be able to watch the screen for thousand of hours to be able to recognize what is happening and not just trade for the hell of it.

In Brook's Price Action book, he clearly illustrates a barb wire pattern, and tells you if you see it, you don't want to initiate any trades.

Are you not able to look at a chart in real time, and see this pattern? If you can't recognize something this simple, then don't trade, do something else with your life. Trading is not for everyone.

 

[themickey]

No, you don't get it. If price say is forming a top in real time on right side of the screen, you can see it and then trade it with a pretty tight stop. It's not random, but you need to be able to watch the screen for thousand of hours to be able to recognize what is happening and not just trade for the hell of it.

In Brook's Price Action book, he clearly illustrates a barb wire pattern, and tells you if you see it, you don't want to initiate any trades.

Are you not able to look at a chart in real time, and see this pattern? If you can't recognize something this simple, then don't trade, do something else with your life. Trading is not for everyone.

I don't get it? LMAO!
You and many others don't get it.
There are no 'set in stone' rules in trading.

Recognize!..... The only recognition is probabilities, it may or may not happen with a slight possibility, so it's a coin toss with a slight bias - that's randomness to a degree, not 100% random but partially random due to unknown outcomes on an individual basis.

As for Al Brooks and barbwire bs, again, it may happen, it may not happen.

Look at a chart! LMAO. Dinasours!

 

[themickey]

.....Are you not able to look at a chart in real time, and see this pattern? If you can't recognize something this simple, then don't trade, do something else with your life. Trading is not for everyone.

Mate, I was trading real money when you were most likely attending pre school.

 

[oraclewizard77]

I don't get it? LMAO!
You and many others don't get it.
There are no 'set in stone' rules in trading.

Recognize!..... The only recognition is probabilities, it may or may not happen with a slight possibility, so it's a coin toss with a slight bias - that's randomness to a degree, not 100% random but partially random due to unknown outcomes on an individual basis.

As for Al Brooks and barbwire bs, again, it may happen, it may not happen.

Look at a chart! LMAO. Dinasours!

It's not if it may or may not happen, when it DOES happen you have a PLAN.

Multiple people have given me money to trade BASED on my statistics of over 1,000 trade over years. This includes a win rate of 65% on equal risk vs reward. Having a win rate of 65% over time and thousands of trades in real money scientifically proves the market is NOT random.

You can believe in things that are not real like God, randomness, or Santa Clause, but those that do trading as a business rely on science and statistics not false beliefs. And yes, you need to have your trading rules set in stone even if you have multiple losses in row.

Markets are moved by fear and greed that are shown in a chart. If a dirty bomb goes off in NY, I will see it in PA and be shorting in real time.

In real trading you don't win every day, you can have losing months. However, over multiple months, your edge will allow you to have a profitable year. I hope anyone new reading this thread understands this. Those of us that trade every day, don't make money EVERY day. Over time your edge will allow you to succeed if you stick to your trading plan. Trading is very hard, and most people who see us posting trades here, don't have a clue how it actually works.

 

[themickey]

It's not if it may or may not happen, when it DOES happen you have a PLAN.

Multiple people have given me money to trade BASED on my statistics of over 1,000 trade over years. This includes a win rate of 65% on equal risk vs reward. Having a win rate of 65% over time and thousands of trades in real money scientifically proves the market is NOT random.

You can believe in things that are not real like God, randomness, or Santa Clause, but those that do trading as a business rely on science and statistics not false beliefs. And yes, you need to have your trading rules set in stone even if you have multiple losses in row.

Markets are moved by fear and greed that are shown in a chart. If a dirty bomb goes off in NY, I will see it in PA and be shorting in real time.

In real trading you don't win every day, you can have losing months. However, over multiple months, your edge will allow you to have a profitable year. I hope anyone new reading this thread understands this. Those of us that trade every day, don't make money EVERY day. Over time your edge will allow you to succeed if you stick to your trading plan. Trading is very hard, and most people who see us posting trades here, don't have a clue how it actually works.

Preaching to the choir master.