Getting my act together

This is my last post for today. I need to eat some lunch and get ready for bed. I work tonite. I'd also like to stop since it's hard for me to post about May 2005 and I need a little break before then.

Here's my monthly P/l from beginning through last month. My problem is with my head and I hope to maybe get some help from someone that's been where I'm at.

12/04 +437.50
01/05 +7,987.50
02/05 +8,137.50
03/05 +6.987.50 (end of help with pro cumm. +23,550)
04/05 +4,762.50
05/05 -1,225.00
06/05 -1,050.00
07/05 +950.00
08/05 -5,987.50
09/05 -287.50
10/05 +362.50
11/05 -1,362.50
12/05 +1,150.00
01/06 -415.00
02/06 +450.00
03/06 -2,050.00
04/06 -112.50
05/06 +175.00
06/06 0.00 (no trades)
07/06 0.00 (no trades)
08/06 +262.50

Cumm. at end of 08/06 +19,172.50
 
I see the problem, you started to develop the trader fear, in the beginning you have no fear and was amply reward. But as time go on you start having a doubt, the success could be just beginner luck and lo and behold it was true, you can't even trade a single contract if your life depend on it. Looking at your trades look like your method may call for for more than 1 contract in order to be succeeded. Any way stick to the bare minimum, only trade when the set up is at the optimal condition, keep doing it day after day, consistency result will help you in overcome your doubt and set you back on the winning track.
 
so how about some background on this pro? how long has he been trading, what type of strategy does he utilizes, more Technical analysis? candlestick charts? etc

what do you guys usually look for. i'm a beginner trader myself and would certainly appreciate some input
 
Quote from chiefraven:

so how about some background on this pro? how long has he been trading, what type of strategy does he utilizes, more Technical analysis? candlestick charts? etc

what do you guys usually look for. i'm a beginner trader myself and would certainly appreciate some input
More...

I don't have any background on the pro. He could have been a trust fund baby for all I know. I didn't ask about his prior career and I didn't ask about his educational background. All I knew was this guy was friendly and seemed to be competent at making money. He always minimized his entry screen when I was near him and if he needed to put on a trade he'd tell me to look away. I assume he was a pro because we never left the trading area in his house from 7:30am - 3:15pm. He had a bathroom off the room and a assistant that just looked at papers and moved between about 6 monitors. She brought in lunch every day and we never really talked about anything other than what the market was doing right now. There were no tv's on or other distractions during the time I was there. As for analysis, 100% of what he showed me was to understand the condition of the market. I checked 7 charts every 6 sec. to answer a couple of questions. Is the market strong, weak, or normal? Is the market weakening, strengthening, or ranging? Where are we in relation to yesterday's high and low? The goal was to figure out what institutions were doing and decide how to put trades out there before the institutions could get their fills. You'd really have to be next to me to understand what I'm doing. Right now the market looks like its weakening. In six sec. maybe it'll reverse.

He had some basic rules for staying out of trouble in trading the ES. Things like never go long if the market is trading below yesterday's low. Never go short if the market is trading above yesterday's high.

The one core idea he kept telling me was institutions provide value. Speculators provide liquidity.
 
How did HE manage his trades?
Does he use fixed stop loss/profit target? Or not at all?
How does he manage a trade:

market goes against his entry doesn't hit stop loss than recovers to his original entry?

market does nothing after entry?

market goes in his favor 3-4 or 5-7 ticks and goes back to his entry or becomes negative?

Does he use any indicators at all?

I wish I could spend a day with a PRO
:(
 
Don't want to write a long story about May, 2005 so here's the short form.

- a kid tried to murder my daughter while I was sleeping in the next room
- the police took the kid and put him in a local nut hospital
- the kid was released from the hospital and not charged
- I tried to get a order of protection for my daughter, myself, and my wife. The judge refused. I lost all faith in the judicial system.
- I talked to the kids father and asked him to keep his son away from our house. The father threatened to sue me if his son committed suicide.
- my wife became ill during the month and required a short surgery. On her second day home from the hospital she developed a pain in her back. I took her to the ER and found out she had a blood clot on a lung. If it moved, she could have died.
The dr. told me if we had waited a few hours she probably would have been dead.

I tried to trade with all this going on under the thought that I needed some normalcy. I traded on May 4 and lost over $3,700 that day. The rest of the month went better but I still lost money overall. Couldn't close out losing trades for the first time since I started trading.

Unfortunately something in me snapped that month. I started eating and couldn't stop. Within a few months I had gained 65 pounds, could barely walk up stairs, and definitely didn't have the energy to trade. When I tried to trade I skipped looking at pieces of the puzzle to save energy and rationalized my own version of trading. Predictable results...losses.

Since then my wife has had more surgery, my daughter has been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts, I've been treated for depression, and most recently my daughter was driving her car and was run into and had her car totaled. I've lost 49 of the 65 lbs I gained and presently am losing at the rate of 2 lbs per-week.
I have a better handle on my stress, although I'm not 100% just yet.

What does this have to do with my trading? Probably everything. Anyway as useless as this journal may be to others I hope it acts as some therapy to myself. The point of posting the first few months was to show I started profitably and fell apart only after my world turned upside down.

I hope the worst is over and plan to keep working on getting back on track.
 
Quote from balda:

How did HE manage his trades?
Does he use fixed stop loss/profit target? Or not at all?
How does he manage a trade:

market goes against his entry doesn't hit stop loss than recovers to his original entry?

market does nothing after entry?

market goes in his favor 3-4 or 5-7 ticks and goes back to his entry or becomes negative?

Does he use any indicators at all?

I wish I could spend a day with a PRO
:(
More...

He uses 100% market orders. No stop or limit orders. I used a limit order once when I wanted to get a price for a exit with profit. He lit into me "Who the hell do you think you are? If you want out...get out!!! Don't screw around and risk losing money bacause of a tick." That is burned into my brain.

The basic trading entry is all in at entry and then lighten up without price moving in our favor and out when proven wrong for loss or all out with a profit when a turn appears imminent. We never used stops and did the six sec. routine. Ex. If he thought the market would go up then I'd place maybe 10 contracts long. If the price didn't move but the analysis moved from market strong to market normal then I'd take off 3 contracts at whatever price. If the market went back to strong then I'd add them back in. Once the market went from strong to weakening then I'd close out the position. On trend days we'd just hang on all day long and exit around the close.

The only indicator he ever showed me was a one standard deviation Bollinger Band. He'd point to the std. dev. lines and said see these? They represent the range of the past. If you need some help on anticipating direction 65% of the time the market will turn around near one of these lines. If the market goes through the line or stays on it, .... it's trending...don't go against it.

I don't think the trading he showed me is in any book. He kept talking about VWAP (which meant nothing to me). As far as looking for direction it was pretty simple. If inside yesterday's range, look for turning points at the yesterday low and high. If outside the range only trade longs above the high and shorts below the low. So right now with the market trading above the high I'd only take long trades and only if the market looked strong. Right now it looks strong at 1333.50. But 6 sec. from now...who knows?
 
Rather than post to the P/L thread I thought I'd add my P/L here with personal commentary.

I always wait 10 min. after the market opens so most of the stocks can open before trying to analyze the market conditions. Today it opened above Friday's high so I was expecting to see strength. What I found was weak conditions. I waited until the market dropped below Friday's high and when it was still weak I went short at 1328.00. Was profitable quickly. Only negative was I exited at 1325.75. I took the 2.25 pt gain because I was very uncomfortable sitting in the position. I had no reason to exit as conditions were still very weak. Still it was the largest gain since I started trading again last month. I skipped taking any other trades so I could work on this journal. My goal for the week is to take 1 trade per-day and try to execute the trade the best I can for that day. This is the best I could do for today.

+106.46 net
 

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Quote from gutsytrader:

Right now it looks strong at 1333.50. But 6 sec. from now...who knows?
More...

GT

Seems to me that your system could generate 1 to 3 good signals per day. Why did you not take the afternoon long when we were above Fridays HOD and the market was very strong?
 
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