Journal from a lurker who just made his first post on ET
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The first rehearsal for the upcoming tour was late Sunday morning after chili and bloody marys. Went surprisingly well considering we haven't performed some of the songs in the current setlist in a few years. For this run we are playing stuff off of all of our records since it's a co-headlining tour with 60-minute sets. Designing a setlist is an artform in itself. Transitions and feel changes song to song are important but so is the overall architecture/theme/narrative of the set list as a whole. For this one my idea was to basically have 3 phases. Start out dynamic/energetic, move into a slower, epic mid section, then kick up the energy again leading into the finale/hit everyone has been waiting for, then a throwback encore. After debate and consideration, we actually ended up with something that starts out mean and slow, transitions into a melodic/powerful middle section, then speeds up considerably for 3 tunes going into the finale/encore.
Everything is imagined with the reaction/feel of the crowd in mind. The goal is to take someone on a journey and get them to the point that they are "lost" in the music/presentation. Energy has to be built, manipulated, released in waves over the course of multiple songs. It's like a story or a movie except that the audience is just there to resonate with the music as it is being played, and the feelings that arise, change, fade from that resonation are what form the content of the experience.
It's always fun to get different reactions from people on any given night. Sometimes people are just there to party and that's cool. Sometimes people tell you the show was so good it made them cry. In certain cultures, people have no issue critiquing you to your face if you fuck up a part of a song they like. That is actually really painful even if I laugh it off because all I really want to do is express myself and also give people a night away from their normal lives. Its just part of my style to sacrifice a certain amount of precision in order to gain more power.
Everything is imagined with the reaction/feel of the crowd in mind. The goal is to take someone on a journey and get them to the point that they are "lost" in the music/presentation. Energy has to be built, manipulated, released in waves over the course of multiple songs. It's like a story or a movie except that the audience is just there to resonate with the music as it is being played, and the feelings that arise, change, fade from that resonation are what form the content of the experience.
It's always fun to get different reactions from people on any given night. Sometimes people are just there to party and that's cool. Sometimes people tell you the show was so good it made them cry. In certain cultures, people have no issue critiquing you to your face if you fuck up a part of a song they like. That is actually really painful even if I laugh it off because all I really want to do is express myself and also give people a night away from their normal lives. Its just part of my style to sacrifice a certain amount of precision in order to gain more power.
2 losses 1 win. Last trade was live on MES under an ES chart, so there aren't markers. First trade was fomo, I mean to only take the first LH/HL when fading ranges, but since the actual lower high there was an outsized engulfing bar, I decided not to take it, then fomo'd into the next lower high. Also, I didn't have that upward channel drawn, was choosing to ignore the possibility of a break and retest of the high of that channel, in favor of the larger pattern at hand which to me was the range. Aggressive but not a terrible entry. Just not under the purvue of what I wanted to do. Second trade was another attempt to fade what I thought were the highs of the session range. After that I just watched until prices were clearly dropping and going into a possible spike and channel. That last trade was good for 2 points, I dropped a limit order back to try and give myself more space before the lows, as that was what I didn't like about that trade. But I figured after such a sharp drop there would be at least some follow through for a while.
Not that anyone is asking, but just wanted to give a quick update:
The tour got postponed until April due to some visa issues with the co-headliner, so had to kind of reset my countdown for that, but still looking forward too it, perhaps even more since it will be better, spring weather for touring. Started writing for the next record as well.
On the trading front, been taking it easy, tested a trade management idea for a month involving trailing range bars, and after a months worth of sim trades (and a few lucky MES trades that I immediately withdrew to my bank), found that it lowered my win rate a little too much, even though it did provide for some outsized, effortless wins every once in a while. My biggest issue is still scalping out of good moves too fast and not trusting my analysis, so perhaps I was looking for a mechanical (lazy) way around that issue. Luckily I am not a system hopper and if I am going to experiment I do it in a regimented, risk free way and give myself time to actually acquire a legit data set.
December is historically my worst month of the year for trading futures, so I have been working 12 hour shifts at my job to give myself a break from the market, figuring I'll make more in OT than I would trading most likely. But I will be picking things back up more aggressively in January.
I would say the biggest improvement I've made lately is that I feel less and less pressure to "be green every day". Since on average I have around a 50-60% win rate and take 1-4 trades a day, its ridiculous to assume I can control how a random sample of 4 coin flips turns out on any given day. I know I am not the only one who has struggled with this fantasy of controlling outcomes.
Just wanted to thank everyone again for their input, it truly was helpful and I look forward to posting more frequently again.
The tour got postponed until April due to some visa issues with the co-headliner, so had to kind of reset my countdown for that, but still looking forward too it, perhaps even more since it will be better, spring weather for touring. Started writing for the next record as well.
On the trading front, been taking it easy, tested a trade management idea for a month involving trailing range bars, and after a months worth of sim trades (and a few lucky MES trades that I immediately withdrew to my bank), found that it lowered my win rate a little too much, even though it did provide for some outsized, effortless wins every once in a while. My biggest issue is still scalping out of good moves too fast and not trusting my analysis, so perhaps I was looking for a mechanical (lazy) way around that issue. Luckily I am not a system hopper and if I am going to experiment I do it in a regimented, risk free way and give myself time to actually acquire a legit data set.
December is historically my worst month of the year for trading futures, so I have been working 12 hour shifts at my job to give myself a break from the market, figuring I'll make more in OT than I would trading most likely. But I will be picking things back up more aggressively in January.
I would say the biggest improvement I've made lately is that I feel less and less pressure to "be green every day". Since on average I have around a 50-60% win rate and take 1-4 trades a day, its ridiculous to assume I can control how a random sample of 4 coin flips turns out on any given day. I know I am not the only one who has struggled with this fantasy of controlling outcomes.
Just wanted to thank everyone again for their input, it truly was helpful and I look forward to posting more frequently again.
Here's a rundown of the trading I did today. Would be easier to explain in a video but I'll try to break it down into a couple sections.
8:30 - 10:00
1. I went short thinking the overnight low may be targeted, so I was fine taking the loss on that one. I could have scalped out with 2 points but I was thinking a 2R trade was easily possible if it was going to go my way.
2. This sequence was my low point of the day, I entered short there simply due to my ego. "It probably won't go higher. I'll make this loss back quick." I at least had enough self-awareness to only enter with 1 lot. I immediately lost, then decided to just reverse myself and buy in order to make it back. This was also a gamble although it worked.
3. This sequence began with blindly buying the trendline with a tight stop. This is also sloppy trading since I was left having to anchor my stop behind a previous swing. Got promptly stopped out, then re-entered with a 2 lot once the actual setup I was looking for took place. Took off one lot into the highs, then rode the next one, trailing bar-by-bar once it had surpassed a measured move of the first leg up that I entered on.
10:00 - 12:00
4. Second entry long off the EMA. Price wasn't quite back to the trendline but the setup looked clean enough to take. I decided to scalp out quickly because price was in the middle of the session range, so I was concerned about chop that often occurs in the center of a wider range.
5. At this point I was anticipating a retest of the high of the previous uptrend, and the way that area looked like a nice lower high to short, I figured a push above that lower high would force shorts out and push my trade higher. So I bought 2 on the break of the bullish bar, and then bought 1 more at the break of that lower high. Unfortunately, there wasn't an initial reaction, but I decided to leave the trade alone instead of panicking because I didn't instantly get the reaction I wanted. The trap ended up working out, and I took profits too fast. At that point my mental capital was starting to diminish obviously, since a few consecutive wins starts to make me avoidant towards the next loss.
I feel like today showcases a mix of quality. I had a well calculated loss, a dumb loss, a dumb win, a poorly executed but well managed win, a well executed and well managed win, and a well executed but poorly managed win. There are of course many details I didn't go into here. I welcome any feedback or questions. Thanks
8:30 - 10:00
1. I went short thinking the overnight low may be targeted, so I was fine taking the loss on that one. I could have scalped out with 2 points but I was thinking a 2R trade was easily possible if it was going to go my way.
2. This sequence was my low point of the day, I entered short there simply due to my ego. "It probably won't go higher. I'll make this loss back quick." I at least had enough self-awareness to only enter with 1 lot. I immediately lost, then decided to just reverse myself and buy in order to make it back. This was also a gamble although it worked.
3. This sequence began with blindly buying the trendline with a tight stop. This is also sloppy trading since I was left having to anchor my stop behind a previous swing. Got promptly stopped out, then re-entered with a 2 lot once the actual setup I was looking for took place. Took off one lot into the highs, then rode the next one, trailing bar-by-bar once it had surpassed a measured move of the first leg up that I entered on.
10:00 - 12:00
4. Second entry long off the EMA. Price wasn't quite back to the trendline but the setup looked clean enough to take. I decided to scalp out quickly because price was in the middle of the session range, so I was concerned about chop that often occurs in the center of a wider range.
5. At this point I was anticipating a retest of the high of the previous uptrend, and the way that area looked like a nice lower high to short, I figured a push above that lower high would force shorts out and push my trade higher. So I bought 2 on the break of the bullish bar, and then bought 1 more at the break of that lower high. Unfortunately, there wasn't an initial reaction, but I decided to leave the trade alone instead of panicking because I didn't instantly get the reaction I wanted. The trap ended up working out, and I took profits too fast. At that point my mental capital was starting to diminish obviously, since a few consecutive wins starts to make me avoidant towards the next loss.
I feel like today showcases a mix of quality. I had a well calculated loss, a dumb loss, a dumb win, a poorly executed but well managed win, a well executed and well managed win, and a well executed but poorly managed win. There are of course many details I didn't go into here. I welcome any feedback or questions. Thanks
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