jasinhbca's quest for discipline, knowledge & profits

[Redneck]

jas_in_hbca said:

I did a good job of not thinking about PnL,

good job of letting trades play out without exiting too soon.

Another new day J

We remain the same..., we follow our routine... we do our job

We are not smart enough to second guess / out think the mkt

We don't second guess signals..., or each plan

We observer / monitor ourself

We follow each plan to fruition - We do not inject randomness



Trade well - and to hell with the results


RN

 

[jas_in_hbca]

Negative day. Mixed performance on my part following the plan. Had lapses that cost me. Still need to review the trades.

Just glanced at trades. Of the 15 maybe 2 I should not have taken. At this point I can live with that. The mistake that bugs me is the manual exit before stop which of course was the high on the PB before trend resumed. I had been in this trade 25 minutes which is long for me. Maybe I got worn out. But I should have just let it play out.

Had a couple trades move >15 ticks then come to stop out BE +/-1. That's the plan right now so good I followed but will look into possibly another exit rule. But with the rats in mind not going to look for the "perfect" exit but will test some things.

Lots of trades just not working today. Kind of frustrating.

 

[Redneck]

Yesterday - the windshield

Today - the bug

Some days..., it better to set them aside..., and chalk em up to - (pick your descriptor)

Mixed performance on my part following the plan.

Had lapses that cost me.

The mistake that bugs me is the manual exit before stop which of course was the high on the PB before trend resumed.

I had been in this trade 25 minutes which is long for me.

Maybe I got worn out.

But I should have just let it play out.

Lots of trades just not working today.

Kind of frustrating.

Gotta get a handle on the inconsistent trading behavior

===========================

Had a couple trades move >15 ticks then come to stop out BE +/-1.

That's the plan right now so good I followed but will look into possibly another exit rule. But with the rats in mind not going to look for the "perfect" exit but will test some things.

Why is BE +/-1 the stop

Is this where the trade breaks down / becomes invalidated

Or is this trading PnL and not willing to allow each trade it's breathing room to work or breakdown

Be insightful to find out what price did after exiting BE +/- 1



Aside;

Easy to not wait on a proper setups when one knows the stop will be - where ever I enter (BE) +/-1

All good set ups come with a natural - and easily identifiable price - where the trade is invalidated / breaks down

Not waiting on those is pissing money away

===========================

Still need to review the trades.

Include reviewing your emotional state / actions - while trading

If you don't already - write down whatever emotions you experience while in a trade..., and/ or every time emotions well up - along with the circumstances surrounding the well up


May ultimately lead to helping ease / mitigate the influence your emotions are imparting on your trading decisions & actions

=======================

Initially I said days like this - may be better to set them aside

To be clear - much can be learned from today

But..., we also must be prepared for tomorrow

This week has been a roller coaster up and down for you - with respect to consistent action / following the routine / allowing each plan to work out - wise

If you can honestly say to yourself - you're ready - then trade tomorrow

If you can't - take the day off to regroup/ reset

Just a thought J - emotional capital is out most precious capital - and wild swings in one's trading behavior burns through it quickly..., stress then ensues - and we do really dumb shit (experience speaking)

RN

 

[Redneck]

Another new day

We remain the same..., we follow our routine... we do our job

We are not smart enough to second guess / out think the mkt

We don't second guess signals..., or each plan

We observer / monitor ourself

We follow each plan to fruition - We do not inject randomness



Trade well - and to hell with the results


RN

 

[jas_in_hbca]

Hey RN,

Saw your comments last night. Haven't had time to reply. Yeah, crazy week I've created for myself. But learned some good things about my method and me.

Had the same thought re: stop to BE. I was doing that cause it seemed to work reasonably well and it was objective and easy to test and do consistently. But yesterday I thought I need to revise that to based on PA/structure. Yesterday especially proved that when market was moving , deep PB, then continuing. The good thing was I was trading the plan with discipline and I learned that the plan should be adjusted. Well, discipline with that aspect.


===
Today slightly negative. No time for details, got an appointment soon.
Discipline issues today which were triggered by getting in late (usual Thursday) and seeing some missed moves. Same ol sht. Not enough patience, trying too hard (maybe cause this is probably my last trading week for awhile). I've stumbled a little but I know I can right myself.

Yesterday I was frustrated thinking the trading plan wasn't working. It might need a tweak but the bigger issues are me. And the 'me' work I understand better and better. I'm not overly concerned but appropriately concerned .

gotta run

 

[Redneck]

Another new day

We remain the same..., we follow our routine... we do our job

We are not smart enough to second guess / out think the mkt

We don't second guess signals..., or each plan

We observer / monitor ourself

We follow each plan to fruition - We do not inject randomness



Trade well - and to hell with the results

Make it a good one J

RN

 

[NoDoji]

Jas, my break even stop strategies are based on statistical analyses of price movement. I have many spreadsheets tracking trade results with and without B/E stop management for every strategy I trade. I found that overall the results are better without the B/E management but only by a small amount. I decided to implement the B/E strategy in counter-trend scalps, but not in trend-following strategies. My decisions were based on analysis because I found that how things "seem" are often very different from how things really are.

 

[Handle123]

Jas, my break even stop strategies are based on statistical analyses of price movement. I have many spreadsheets tracking trade results with and without B/E stop management for every strategy I trade. I found that overall the results are better without the B/E management but only by a small amount. I decided to implement the B/E strategy in counter-trend scalps, but not in trend-following strategies. My decisions were based on analysis because I found that how things "seem" are often very different from how things really are.

NoDoji, is your B/E stop true breakeven? I always use mental lock in plus one tick stop with a volume attacked to it, some platforms allows you put when volume on that price levels gets down to so much, it becomes market order. For me getting that one tick ups up in any Index, there been some days I make sixteen trades of one tick and actually ends up being winning day whereas if I got out where I got in, fees make it a huge losing day as the fees really add up.

 

[jas_in_hbca]

Thanks ND. Appreciate the info ! I'll be adjusting moving stop loss and keep stats on it.
======

(PnL for week at end)

======
What an exhausting day trading. Unfortunately only caught a small chunk of the blow up near EOD.

Still need to sort everything out in my mind and will probably post again later.

Came in to the week with the thought to ignore PnL and just trade. My method shows an edge. Some set ups work 60-65 % of the time and others > 50%.All with average win > average loss. (That's based on following the plan. My actual results are averaging approx.
55 % wins) So great I say - just trade. Well, the market quickly reminded me that just clicking the mouse is not trading. My patience was very poor evidenced by a win rate of 32% this week.

It wasn't all bad though. As I said the other day I was letting trades come all the way back to stop me out BE after being +20 ticks. That's the plan and I had the discipline to stick with it. And I learned I need to adjust my plan in that regard.

I'm good at pulling the trigger. Never mind all the trades I shouldn't have taken. Many valid trades I took that I'm pretty sure in the past I would have hesitated on and missed.

My emotions were controlled. Not watching the PnL was probably a good thing. Even after getting chopped up due to my impatience I was able to re-focus. I was usually calm while in the trades.

I'm holding trades longer. Today 1 trade took 40 minutes to finally work it's way to +26. This is good for me to have patience in trades.

Targets. I did increase some this week. Sometimes I got them and sometimes I should have had bigger targets. I probably should stick with a fixed target most of the time and just go for base hits. This will be an area of future and always review.

That's the quick recap. It was a week of pushing myself and I'm happy to have survived it.


=============

The PnL.

Monday -41 ticks max deficit 81 ticks
Tues +33 max deficit 33
Wed -50 m.d. 50
Thurs -3 m.d. 68
Fri +58 m.d 19

Total -3 ticks plus approx. $ 330 in commish.

 

[NoDoji]

NoDoji, is your B/E stop true breakeven? I always use mental lock in plus one tick stop with a volume attacked to it, some platforms allows you put when volume on that price levels gets down to so much, it becomes market order. For me getting that one tick ups up in any Index, there been some days I make sixteen trades of one tick and actually ends up being winning day whereas if I got out where I got in, fees make it a huge losing day as the fees really add up.

It's usually true break even, occasionally a tick or two loss, occasionally a tick or two gain. I prefer to get out with a limit order at B/E when a trade thesis is invalidated. So for example I enter with-trend on a pullback and price breaks down prior to testing the previous high or low. That's a sign of either a deeper pullback, possible range/chop, or even a reversal. So the breakdown signal tells me to move my profit target limit order to B/E and most of time I can get out that way before my stop loss is hit. With CT trades, though, which tend to have smaller profit targets, I'll actually move my stop loss to B/E after a favorable excursion clears a certain level. I'll also do this if price breaks out because a failed breakout can deteriorate rapidly.

All these decisions are based on statistics. I found quite some time ago that I can't trust thoughts like "that always happens" or "this feels weak" because once I applied statistical analyses to every occurrence of a particular setup (pattern + context + signal/entry method), I found that sometimes things I thought "always" happened only happened, say, 45% of the time!