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How I stopped making the same mistakes in 2010 and started to make more money
- Thread starter thinkfirst
- Start date
A question - what is b/e (break-even?) and what do you mean by "move stop"(ping?) it?Quote from thinkfirst:
...I even wrote in my plan "do not move stop b/e" and I still did it and called it "I'm using a time stop".
Someone else used the phrase "I feel you, though, the HFT causes alot of back and forth PA makes entries difficult..."
What is HFT and what is PA?
Love your journal. Thank you.
btw - I LOVE this board! I have done a lot of trading, but there are so many phrases/initials used here that I'm unfamiliar with so I'm still working on my "ET" (EliteTrader) vocabulary!
Quote from HattieTheWitch:
A question - what is b/e (break-even?) and what do you mean by "move stop"(ping?) it?
Someone else used the phrase "I feel you, though, the HFT causes alot of back and forth PA makes entries difficult..."
What is HFT and what is PA?
Love your journal. Thank you.
btw - I LOVE this board! I have done a lot of trading, but there are so many phrases/initials used here that I'm unfamiliar with so I'm still working on my "ET" (EliteTrader) vocabulary!
A breakeven stop is a stop loss order that is placed at the same level as where the original trade was transacted
HFT - high frequency trades
PA - price action
Hope this helps.
Day 5
Traded well today. I had couple of errors, those I don't mind, as long as I follow my rules which I did. In hindsight I could of done better with my exits, but it's always like that, exits are never perfect.
What helps me a lot is reading my trading plan before the open and reminding myself what and why I'm trading. Also back testing so I can fully trust my system.
I realized over weekend that I already have 2nd strat, it's for swing trading, simple momentum trend trading. Closed some positions in another account for it today. Working on 3rd strat. I used to trade gaps, might have to revisit them and see what's happening there.
+2749
Traded well today. I had couple of errors, those I don't mind, as long as I follow my rules which I did. In hindsight I could of done better with my exits, but it's always like that, exits are never perfect.
What helps me a lot is reading my trading plan before the open and reminding myself what and why I'm trading. Also back testing so I can fully trust my system.
I realized over weekend that I already have 2nd strat, it's for swing trading, simple momentum trend trading. Closed some positions in another account for it today. Working on 3rd strat. I used to trade gaps, might have to revisit them and see what's happening there.
+2749
Attachments
Day 6
I'm getting so much better at detaching my feelings during trading. I still stumble sometimes here and there, but able to pint point when ( I write it down in my journal) and work on it when market is closed.
I traded a lot of setups today even after my p/l was high and when I usually "don't want to give it back". Funny I did give it all back with ARD trade but kept trading.
Still a lot of work needs to be done on improving my entries, exits, new ideas, etc. I don't think it'll ever stop. I love my job!
+394
I'm getting so much better at detaching my feelings during trading. I still stumble sometimes here and there, but able to pint point when ( I write it down in my journal) and work on it when market is closed.
I traded a lot of setups today even after my p/l was high and when I usually "don't want to give it back". Funny I did give it all back with ARD trade but kept trading.
Still a lot of work needs to be done on improving my entries, exits, new ideas, etc. I don't think it'll ever stop. I love my job!
+394
Attachments
Day 7
Slow day today after first hour of trading. I had several signals at the same time and therefore couldn't trade them all, Iâm still working on that. Also I tent to cut my targets a bit when I have 3-4 open positions because it's hard to closely watch them all at the same time. Not sure how to solve this yet, maybe smaller targets is actually my solution. In any case if I just place a limit exit order stock usually stop and reverse .01-.02 before that. I wish I could be invisible, there's gotta be a way to do that. Anybody have a suggestion?
I started to increase my position size yesterday and glad to see it's not affecting my execution. I did only about 30% increase, will stay at this level for a week or two before another increase.
+427
Slow day today after first hour of trading. I had several signals at the same time and therefore couldn't trade them all, Iâm still working on that. Also I tent to cut my targets a bit when I have 3-4 open positions because it's hard to closely watch them all at the same time. Not sure how to solve this yet, maybe smaller targets is actually my solution. In any case if I just place a limit exit order stock usually stop and reverse .01-.02 before that. I wish I could be invisible, there's gotta be a way to do that. Anybody have a suggestion?
I started to increase my position size yesterday and glad to see it's not affecting my execution. I did only about 30% increase, will stay at this level for a week or two before another increase.
+427
Attachments
Day 7
I didn't trade well today. It started with not trading ZUMZ and then other trades, that was my biggest weakness today, not taking every trade. Then I traded TIVO and I didn't let it to go to my target which made me leave about $500 in profits.
But the good news is that I'm trading much better overall and because of that I'll keep my day count this time, just will skip one day.
Also finally after all this time I'm facing the real issue: I'm self-sabotaging my own success. That's it. I believe there is always underling issue when traders can't follow rules. You have to find it, face it and fix it. For me, trading seems easy and I don't understand why everybody is not seeing what I'm seeing, I must be missing something then. Don't give me wrong, trading is hard but it's also not a rocket science. Iâm grateful for this site and traders posting big numbers over the years. I'm spending a lot of time reading older posts and already see a shift in my own thinking. One step at a time and I'll get there...
+358
I didn't trade well today. It started with not trading ZUMZ and then other trades, that was my biggest weakness today, not taking every trade. Then I traded TIVO and I didn't let it to go to my target which made me leave about $500 in profits.
But the good news is that I'm trading much better overall and because of that I'll keep my day count this time, just will skip one day.
Also finally after all this time I'm facing the real issue: I'm self-sabotaging my own success. That's it. I believe there is always underling issue when traders can't follow rules. You have to find it, face it and fix it. For me, trading seems easy and I don't understand why everybody is not seeing what I'm seeing, I must be missing something then. Don't give me wrong, trading is hard but it's also not a rocket science. Iâm grateful for this site and traders posting big numbers over the years. I'm spending a lot of time reading older posts and already see a shift in my own thinking. One step at a time and I'll get there...
+358
Attachments
Day 2
Those of you who read "Trade your way to financial freedom" by Van Tharp might remember him saying:
What's important to trading:
1 system (entries and exits) - 10%
2 money management - 30%
3 psychology - 60%
I think most of us aware that huge part in succeeding in trading is psychological and yet we keep spending most of our time working on entries and exits (or maybe it's just me). So this weekend I did just that, I worked on my self-sabotaging issues. Instead of tweaking my system I was "tweaking my brain". I spent a lot of time thinking, reading parts of Trading in the Zone and some other books. I think I've connected some dots and figured out my reasons for self-sabotaging. So I wrote myself a note, something I will read everyday before open. And it did help me a lot this morning.
When I started this journal and decided to just stop making the same mistakes, some people asked me "what are you going to do to achieve that". Me, being naïve, just thought "I'm just going to do it". Now I can see that it just doesn't work like that and I've learned my lesson.
As for actual trading today, very slow day. Had no problems following all of my rules.
+147
Those of you who read "Trade your way to financial freedom" by Van Tharp might remember him saying:
What's important to trading:
1 system (entries and exits) - 10%
2 money management - 30%
3 psychology - 60%
I think most of us aware that huge part in succeeding in trading is psychological and yet we keep spending most of our time working on entries and exits (or maybe it's just me). So this weekend I did just that, I worked on my self-sabotaging issues. Instead of tweaking my system I was "tweaking my brain". I spent a lot of time thinking, reading parts of Trading in the Zone and some other books. I think I've connected some dots and figured out my reasons for self-sabotaging. So I wrote myself a note, something I will read everyday before open. And it did help me a lot this morning.
When I started this journal and decided to just stop making the same mistakes, some people asked me "what are you going to do to achieve that". Me, being naïve, just thought "I'm just going to do it". Now I can see that it just doesn't work like that and I've learned my lesson.
As for actual trading today, very slow day. Had no problems following all of my rules.
+147
Attachments
Day 3
Traded well, still with small size.
This journal is becoming really boring (of course it wasn't that exciting to begin with either). I should probably start updates weekly and just post my p/l in the "Trader P/L 2010" thread. If anybody wants to share their journey to consistency and ability to truly trade probabilities, please feel free to do so.
+222
Traded well, still with small size.
This journal is becoming really boring (of course it wasn't that exciting to begin with either). I should probably start updates weekly and just post my p/l in the "Trader P/L 2010" thread. If anybody wants to share their journey to consistency and ability to truly trade probabilities, please feel free to do so.
+222