I'd like to become a better trader

[PO]

I specially need to slow down and relax in the afternoon trading, I have a tendency to make money in the morning and lose in the afternoon, like on Apr. 25.

 

[PO]

Quote from trader198:

good point.

people lose is because they donot want to learn and they donot want to work, they are lazy. they always have many reasons to say: they are small retail trader, so they can not beat ; they are not lucky enough, so they lose; they are not smarte nough, so they lose; they donot have good computers or news wire pipelines, so they lag......

losers have millions of reasons to lose, that is why they lose.
winners only have one way to win:learn how to trade seriously, practice it,perfect it, improve it, execute it, love it, feel it, sleep on it,work on it. that is the secret formalu.

totally agree!

thanks for your comments, I'm going to "learn how to trade seriously, practice it,perfect it, improve it, execute it, love it, feel it, sleep on it,work on it"

 

[PO]

today's pnl +1 point, 1 trade only.

 

[PO]

I didn't overtrade today, I figured the day was so slow and the range was so tiny that there was no reason to get chopped up.

But I should have taken one more trade today:
3:30 reversal bar off day's 50%, ORH and vwap.

The reason that I didn't take this trade is that I was looking for short entries. I don't know why I still do that, I think I have this subconscious expectation the the price has to reverse down for more then 3 points. But it keeps drifting up with very shallow retracements.

I shouldn't get my expectations influence my trading. I don't even know why I have these expectations. I should be buying these retracements, because we are in an uptrend. I don't understand why it is so difficult. Why am I making it so difficult

 

[PO]

I realize that we are in an uptrend and that I need to buy pullbacks, but when the set up comes, I just ignore it

May be because I think that the market is in the bubble and the economy sucks, but the bubble can last a long time so why not participate in it? My long term outlook has nothing to do with shirt term trading, I realize that.

I am going to start buying pullbacks on Monday. And of course on Monday we would have a huge down day and I will be trying to catch the falling knife

 

[ElecEquity]

Quote from PO:

I don't understand why it is so difficult. Why am I making it so difficult

Many before you have said these exact same words. You're not alone. I think everyone eventually realizes this at the beginning of their career. It's funny because everyone thinks the total opposite before they begin. When people tell you it's going to take you 6 months+ before you ever earn a penny, everyone thinks they'll be different...until a few weeks/months pass. You just have to dig deeper and figure out what you're thinking when you pass on these good trades. The hardest thing to do at these times is what you MUST do in order to grow. Good luck.

Quote from PO:

I am going to start buying pullbacks on Monday. And of course on Monday we would have a huge down day and I will be trying to catch the falling knife

At least you're positive! You can't feel sorry for yourself dude. The market will NEVER EVER console you. Be positive and expect good things. If you expect negative outcomes, psychologically you will find things in each trade to confirm your negative thoughts...I guess it works both ways. But if you manage your risk, it won't hurt you at all to expect positive outcomes on each trade....in so many ways you almost have to expect positive outcomes or otherwise why the hell would you take the trade in the first place?

Btw...I do understand that your statement was meant to be somewhat self-deprecating. But I also think on some level you actually believe it.

 

[PO]

Laissez Faire had a great post on impulsive trading in his journal. I'm going to repost it here for me to think about:

What is the underlying cause of your impulsive trades? Think hard about it and let me know what you think. It could be several reasons for it.

I believe the biggest reason people enter impulsive trades is because they don`t have a clue about where price is going and get easily excited when they see some action on the chart.

In the ES market there are fake breakouts (tails on the bars) all day long trapping early traders. Fuel for the fire.

Another reason is that the desire for profits interrupts your clarity of observation. You may be tired of not making money or maybe you are making money, but not at the pace you`d like. Thus, you jump aboard without a clear target, "hoping" that the market will somehow give you a profit.

Another obvious cause is revenge trading which is completely irrational. It was a defining moment for me when I lost 50% of my daily profits near the close on a normal trade and was able to walk away, not entering a frenzy of over trading and losing it all and then some. This has happened too many times, but I was tired of it. I knew I would get a second chance tomorrow and a much higher probability one at that.

The short answer to how I stopped my impulsive trades is that I simply did not have a choice. My equity was at such critical levels that I knew it was my last chance.

Another thing that may help you is a rule about not entering any trades until 30 minutes after you`ve seated.

In advance, you should have calculated levels, 50%, highs and lows, PPs, anticipated several scenarios (where is price likely to go, what are the fulcrum points, etc) and have a road map for the trading day.

When you have this and wait for a set-up to materialize, it will be much easier to avoid impulsive trades.

When we tested the 58 area for the last time today, I knew that a lot of shorts potentially were getting trapped. Re-read my entry in the ES-journal. I wrote about it as it happened. I knew early shorts were entering, because I would have done it myself in the past.

It looked pretty bearish at a point, right? Very easy to get emotional and EXCITED.

Having done my homework, I also knew that the 58 area was significant support and a confluence point of yesterday`s high, today`s 50%, opening range high and the neckline of Volente`s IHS.

Knowing this, I wanted to see what price did first, pretty much anticipating that it would be a fake breakout. Waiting paid off well as I entered a long @ 58 instead, when I saw that price were finding support there.

Obviously, greed is also a big reason for being impulsive. That`s the reason you enter trades, right? To make money? Well, the secret is that you really need to forget about the money and trade the market.

Making money is about trading well. When you trade well, you make money. If the money is your concern, you will lose focus on what matters. The market.

Use weekly modest profit targets, not daily profit targets. Too much pressure.

Did that give you some ideas?

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from PO:

I realize that we are in an uptrend and that I need to buy pullbacks, but when the set up comes, I just ignore it

Trading pullbacks in a trend is very difficult because it's counter-intuitive. Price is falling and you're supposed to buy?? Price is rising and you're supposed to sell??

Review as many days as possible, bar by bar, in your time frame and learn to identify a trending move, and how best to buy/sell pullbacks in the trend in your time frame.

Some ideas:

> Limit orders at trend line touches or rising/ falling 20 EMA touches

> Buy/sell stops a tick or two above/below a series of pullback bars

> Study a smaller time frame for patterns that indicate turning points in relation to your trading time frame at key previous S/R levels in the trend.

Take copious notes about the highest probability environments for these pullback entries (for example, they're usually strongest in the opening two hours and closing hour) and create a set of written rules for entry and trade management.

Then every time you see valid setup trade it according to your rules no matter how ugly it looks at the hard right edge. (This is the hardest part of the equation.)

The net result over time should be positive if you've done your due diligence through varying market conditions.

 

[NoDoji]

CornixForex also posted a very nice piece that echoes this:

"Making money is about trading well. When you trade well, you make money. If the money is your concern, you will lose focus on what matters. The market."

Here is his post:

With regard to the psychological training of professional athletes, particularly professional shooters: To limit stress (which is fatal factor for any serious competition), professional shooters give themselves the right to make mistakes.

More exactly, they set their goal to make a correct shot technically, not to hit the target. They even inspire themselves that outcome is not that important at all, but correct technique is what only matters.

And that little trick leads to great results. Shooter stands, focuses on the pleasure of the technically perfect shot and does it literally without stress, being focused on the process, not the outcome. Ironically, the chance of target being perfectly hit increases dramatically in such a case.

If pro shooter's mental focus was to hit the target, he would get overstressed and likely have the opposite result vs. desired.

This is a proven technique used by pro shooters, power lifters and in most other kinds of sport to limit stress during the competition.

 

[PO]

Today's p&L +3.3 points

A very good day for me, 2 trades only, but it's because I was away from the screen till 2 pm. I need to be able to learn how to take only the correct signals even when I'm staring at the screen.

Also, I've missed a short signal on failed OR breakout because I wasn't expecting it, I was expecting continuation to the upside and was ignoring what the market was telling me.