EUR/JPY Evening Trader

Status
Not open for further replies.
Quote from Gringinho:

I just read you last page of posts in this thread.
Just some comments...

It's good to continuously question oneself - but you also need to have some confidence, and grow this confidence in what you are doing.

It also seem you are somewhat emotional while, and that can be a bit tricky to deal with. You should try to find out a way to get less emotional... What you want of course are the good emotions, and there's nothing wrong with feeling the success and confidence - but you need to be able to turn that into something positive that works FOR you by enabling you to apply the right risk, and NOT something that clouds your trading by making you euphoric or upset.

Re-evaluating yourself is useful - after successes and after drawdowns - but you always need to put yourself in the setting of what the situation was, and how you were interacting with the information - what your decisions were; how you weighed the risks, considerations and came to a conclusion. You don't need to have it committed to paper - during the decision making, or afterwards - because you shouldn't let the analysis itself be the focus, when it's trading which you are aiming to excel at. However, you need to be aware of what you do - the "meta-information" of your own decision making.

Hard to not chime in here, being an old martial arts instructor... hehe.
More...

Thank you for your reply, Gringinho. I do have a lot of confidence in myself and my trading (many people call me cocky), but I tend to focus critically on my mistakes and things I need to learn. I do this for two reasons: emphasis (slow learner) and I am always trying to improve myself. I have to be good at what I do, so I have to be hard on myself.

As for trading emotionally, I partially agree with you. For example, as I studied a few moves today, I decided to study the move based on a sensible exit I would notice while I was trading, even though it only corrected about 15 pips before continuing another 50. The analysis was that the move was extremely volatile and sudden, but it would be almost impossible and maybe foolish to sit through it based on my strategy.

However, I have been very surprised by the level of emotion I show in trading at times. I am generally not an extremely emotional person, but my profound desire for success begins to override my mindset as things go bad. I believe this is also due to the fact that my trading time is rather small. I spend ten hours trading over three days, and probably 2.5 hours of that is just calculating pivots, drawing trendlines, and deciding direction. Of the rest, only 2-3.5 hours of it is actual trading.

When I have my dream resting on 2-3.5 hours per week, and I place unmatched pressure on my success, my inner emotions sometimes show. It's just part of my journey. My goal is to earn enough knowledge and experience between my mistakes and my study and watching sessions to A. become profitable when I have more time, so I don't need to work and B. be able to support myself during college (based on what I pay now, about 50 pips would do it -- I also plan to pick up another trading session when I go live, and perhaps condense my study and watching session if necessary)

My goal is to eventually know everything and be able to filter out the junk and make quality decisions.

Good input, and feel free to reply.
 
Quote from Gringinho:

Yes,
I remember "23"...
Also - if you are really into quantitative analysis like that...
I think you should look more into the nature and the philosophy of mathematics - to understand what you are really looking at.
Even math philosophy and metaphilosophy are very useful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphilosophy

E.g take a look at "Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice" (ZFC) and cardinality, large cardinal property, self-similarity etc. Fibonacci is just a itsy-bitsy tiny piece of reality ... I don't think it's worth getting hung up in Fibs alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFC

If you have the mathematical background for it - stuff like "model theory" is also very useful, interesting - but it gets pretty nitty gritty and heavy with all the "mechanics" of it all.
More...

I love philosophy. I'm not sure of the time I will have to read these soon (1 of my ten hours is what I call "maintenance" and this week it is changing what charts my pivots are on and learning the other fibs such as spirals, etc.)

It's on my to do list, I will get there though. I appreciate the suggestion!
 
Unfortunately, I did not accomplish as much as I would have liked with my studies today. I spent about 2.5 hours on market stuff today, but only in-depth studied two moves of 25+ pips since 5:00 (figured it was a good time since it is the time the day starts over in TOS, new pivots, etc., even though I usually don’t trade until 6:30). This was partly due to the calculations of new pivots, a lot of time analyzing each move (drawing a lot of fibs, etc.), and I was also a bit distracted due to next semester course request and a very long day. I also spent a decent amount of time (about 30 mins, maybe) formulating my ET posts here. I am starting to fear the slipping of the amount of time I am spending trading and the amount of work I get done, but I did just finish one of my classes today (online class, took the final), so that does free up an extra three hours a week to help get my productivity back up. I should be back tomorrow for watching the market, although I may also do a few studies as well to make up for my sluggishness today.
 
When you spend 65-80% of your time "investing" in a mindset and - frankly - "biasing yourself," before you start trading, it is understandable that you get emotional. From a completely objective standpoint - you are building up expectations, and then you have little/no guarantee that these constructs will be useful or working for you within the remainder of the time you dedicate to your trading activities. You are creating beliefs, expectations that will get shattered by the markets - because you can't predict to such detailed levels, without massive real time processing capabilities and complete understanding of a market situation. This letdown naturally creates emotions, because you expend energy on something risky/futile - and don't like to see that crushed (being stubborn etc).

Now, there are many ways to find success - some fast, some slower, some more risky etc. Consistency and timing is what matters in the end for success to "compound" and "amount" to something.

Just from my experience in prediction modelling, there are a lot of issues with predicting - and perhaps you are not properly balancing your strategy, by biasing your study on past situations and historical events, when you might get better at analysing "current situations" and "emerging signals" - especially since your time allocation is so restricted. Of course you can learn from history, but when push comes to shove - you are not going to be "trading in the past" with perfect historical information (unless you are travelling through time), instead you will be interacting in a live setting. Therefore - algorithmically - it would be more efficient and serving your goals better to employ strategies on live situations and then study the history/outcome of these - with a special focus on what you observed, caught on to - and how you ultimately did. That beats studying the hell out of "dead historical data" where you didn't even participate...

Just to get the focus of your data studies efforts focused on what is actually going to help you develop skills - because what you are doing studying historical data, is trying to create some system out of past situations - which is always possible - re statistics where you can "prove relations to anything."

Well, if you understand what I tried to explain -- dead data is not that useful to you - although it can tell you some general things - don't overemphasize this, as it won't be helpful in your actual trading skills - just more information and bias that you introduce to the "trading situational complex."
:)
 
I believe your main point is that studying past situations results in a different analysis and point of view, leading to an unreal bias and little or no help from personal lack of participation.

I have noticed this effect, but I also believe blind trading creates an unreal analysis, especially as an undeveloped trader when my entries and exits aren't second nature to me (so I cannot really divert my focus toward experimenting and "the market as a whole" point of view as much as I could).

Allow me to explain my rationale. I recognize both that studying past data does not precisely enough simulate real market participation, but also that my participation limits my thinking and therefore potential opportunities.

As a result, I attempt to solve this with my three trading sessions (sometimes four if I have a maintenance session, which is just catching up on things I've put off).

The first is studying: I write about 200+ words on each major market move I think can be caught. I explain them with PA, trendlines, pivots, market conditions such as volatility, fibs, etc. My goal is to repeat the process, and since I naturally only process macro level data, the predominant patterns will become ingrained in my mind. I understand that it does not simulate real conditions, but I believe that the only way to profit off the markets consistently with low risk is to have a feel for the patterns and try not to get caught up in the junk, hence the need for experience.

My second session (will be tonight this week) is the observing session. I will be taking positions in my head on market direction and such based on the patterns I am developing, yet I also am not invested in the market and have a free mind in order to hone my thinking and analysis process as need be.

Most likely tomorrow will be my trading session, in which I attempt to apply what I know and be invested in the market in order to test my knowledge of markets and skills in a more measurable way in a real market situation.

Based on your criticism, I believe the 65-80% of time I spend on developing bias is necessary for a beginner trader to develop the sense of profitable patterns in the market.

I also notice how I can "prove correlations to anything" as I said with drawing fibs can make a person go insane. Unfortunately I only really discovered the use of fibs last week, so I am in the experimental stage with the purpose of searching for repeated patterns.

Very interesting, I appreciate your criticism. I never really put it into in-depth writing why I do things in this manner, but it makes sense for my skills and needs at this point I believe in reflection. What was your strategy early in your trading, and what might you suggest that I change in my own?
 
I spent a total of about 3.5 hours watching the market, although I didn't get all that much out of it. Trading was pretty dead today from the time I was watching (maybe 7-10:30), except for a few big spurts that just continued the trend and then did nothing for 45 mins before again continuing the trend.


I learned a bit, however, and all screen time is good. My time was also peppered with learning how to draw fib fans, helping my friend with his homework, a few quick school things, and some dinner, so a little low on the productivity scale for the second day in a row.

For compensation, I think I will spend an extra hour or two on maintenance and stuff over the weekend, and keep up to date on my to do list. I should be back to trade tomorrow. I have four hours left to get my ten for the week, and six if I decide to add two. Good trading.
 
A very, very mixed day for me.

Weaknesses: Entered a trade before I read the trading rules. At times was extremely unconfident in my entries and exits, resulting in bad hesitation that cost me about five takeoff pips on at least three different occasions. This was partially rooted to a few moves that began to move immediately after I closed, and began to lose a bit of discipline in my strategy. Also, I noticed a bit of emotion once the market started casually strolling up and down a few pips. I saw the short, knew the short, but over-analyzed and took two bad longs in this area. I also ended up with three failed shorts, which were greatly due to my impatience and over-tight stops. At this time, I was not taking the best of entries and emotionally exiting early, even when I knew from watching the five minute that the move would take time to develop (I was watching the 30 second for most of this period after all the excitement, however).

Strengths: Knew the trade I entered before I read the rules was extremely high probability, and got paid for it. Dominated the markets as they tossed to and fro early in the session, with extremely precise entries and exits, great market analysis, and the returns to show it. I showed glimpses, found a great use for fibs and exercised them deftly.

As a result, I very much need to still work on my patience and the discipline and refinement of my entries and exits. My main focus was on my weaknesses because they occurred in the more expected, choppy part of this evening’s session. Besides that, however, I came out very well today (don’t want to use the excited words I’m thinking, as I still have much to work on). 102.6 pips in profit, 13 trades over 4.5 hours. This is an estimated 135 gross pips, and 32-33 in commissions. Not half bad. This is the longest session I’ve traded since I’ve started my journal. Trades for the day: +18.5, +13.6, +33, +54.8, +18.1, +4.5, -9.8, -19.5, -13.4, -5, -5.2 + 24.5, -11.5.

The last trade in particular was one when I exited my trade at the profit target precisely, then took a continuation when there was no profit target, PA was telling me otherwise, AND I held on after my mental stop was hit with the hope of the pipettes starting to squeeze my way (even squinted).

Anyway, had a great day and learned much. I will likely do a few more maintenance tasks this week, but the next real sessions will not be until next week.
 
Little bit of maintenance things today. Had 10.5 hours already for week, but wanted to do a bit more due to my lack of productivity early in the week. I got a few key things done such as moving the monthly pivots onto my 15 min chart and yearly onto my hourly chart (1440 bars on 1 min for daily pivots, 2112 rather than 528 for monthly with 15 mins rather than hourly, it is much easier to see reactions). Took care of a few readings, including a bit of some other ET threads. Pretty much entirely caught up with everything, except for only one article I'd like to read. Should be back Monday, though I wiped out an online class that was taking up about 4 hours a week (reg time and getting ahead), so may do something as early as Sunday.
 
Although I am well past my ten hours for the week, I am actually doing several things today including reading more ET threads, looking at other price levels that may hold value, and investigating some of the patterns and indicators suggested by other expert traders.

Interestingly, I am finding that I am coming to many of the same conclusions of these advanced traders on my own. For two particular examples: the 1-2-3 reversal and what are called emotion lines (lines drawn through as many open/high/low/closes as possible). If anyone is reading my post, you may recall that I mentioned how the breaking of trendlines is not a reversal, and in fact the trend is too strong and suggests a pull back, weaker continuation, or a consolidation before the reversal. My idea is not exactly parallel with the 1-2-3 reversal, but I was getting the idea.

As for the emotion lines, although I’m not sure if I mentioned it anywhere in these posts (I know I talked about it in another forum), I have a tool I use call the LOBF (Line of Best Fit), where I drew my lines through the meat of the movement. I draw it basically in the same manner as a regular TL, but very aggressively (ignoring the spikes and only supporting the data that is represented by both price/rate AND time). I had this idea down perfectly, although the trader who talked about it referred to it more as a powerful indicator, and I had not yet determined a strategy around it (used it mainly as a guideline and possible pre-indicator for exits, though not as much for entries – the other trader mentioned using them on the hourly charts when even the initial failed breakouts are enough to make big profits, a conclusion I missed).
 
I would like to add to any readers that, although I am using this thread primarily for my own reflection benefits, feel free to provide any questions/comments, discussions about trading philosophy or indicators, etc., really whatever is on your mind. Either way, I plan on continuing my thread in the same general manner it is now for a long time.

Good trading,

Greg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top