Maintaining Self Discipline

[Overnight]

Thanks.

I trade only NQ using a 10 tick SL and 10 tick TP...

That may work on something like the ZB, but it will not work on the NQ. You will get caught up in the noise. The NQ ranged 90 points today from midnight high to RTH low. That's 360 ticks. Not to mention all the "flutter" today in that range.

You have to consider the market you trade, the volatility/PA of it, and adjust from there.

10 tick PT/SL has not been valid for NQ for a couple of years.

And your calculations on the commies for MNQ are way out of whack. Your numbers are beyond the pale. Maybe just post them from your broker and we can calculate them for you.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

That may work on something like the ZB, but it will not work on the NQ. You will get caught up in the noise.

And your calculations on the commies for MNQ are way out of whack. Your numbers are beyond the pale. Maybe just post them from your broker and we can calculate them for you.

I understand the 10 sl and 10 tp are trading noise. I'm just trying for now, to practice with it, so I can read charts better, but I'll adjust that when I feel like I've come to understand the price action on the smaller moves first. I have a bigger plan for catching the large moves of the Nasdaq at some time in the future. Thanks for pointing that out....it does make me feel better about the losses.

RE: the commissions.....when I trade the micro contract with Ninjatrader, the fees/commissions are around $1.25 per round trip. So, I figured, a full contract is 10 x the size of a micro, so I can use 10 x the fee/commissions to get an equivalent amount. The reason I'm doing that is that I like the candle structures better on the full contract size, but want to get used to using the micro contract fees/commissions because I'll probably start off trading them when I do go live. Hope that all made some sense.

 

[Overnight]

...
RE: the commissions.....when I trade the micro contract with Ninjatrader, the fees/commissions are around $1.25 per round trip. So, I figured, a full contract is 10 x the size of a micro, so I can use 10 x the fee/commissions to get an equivalent amount. The reason I'm doing that is that I like the candle structures better on the full contract size, but want to get used to using the micro contract fees/commissions because I'll probably start off trading them when I do go live. Hope that all made some sense.

Yeah, your calculations are off.

10 MNQ contracts will not be the same as 1 NQ in commies.

General baseline on a NQ mini, in my head, has always been about $4 RT on average, across all brokers.

A single NQ mini will be less in commies than 10 NQ micros. Rework your math.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

Ok, I change the fees/comm calculator to $5 per round trip for fees/commissions, because I like to round up, but you're right, I think it's probably more like $4 something....been a while since I traded live.

 

[Overnight]

Ok, I change the fees/comm calculator to $5 per round trip for fees/commissions, because I like to round up, but you're right, I think it's probably more like $4 something....been a while since I traded live.

That software you are trading with is asstastic. No breakdowns. Seems unwieldy.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

Today was a good trading day.

4 wins. 2 losses. 66% win rate.

Re my goals:

1. Although I did re-enter quickly after both losing trades, the next trades were winners.
2. Although I did enter a fast moving market once, it had just made a retracement, so I'm OK with that.
3. Didn't change any rules.
4. Followed my rules.
5. Took less than 10 trades.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

Only took 1 trade today, and got the 10 ticks.

Followed all my rules.

I came across a post somewhere else by a trader that lost a lot of money yesterday by going against his rules. He kept averaging into a loser. It reminded me of other stories I've come across where traders have lost their accounts or large portions of their accounts in a short amount of time. I've also had my own experiences with blowing up my live accounts, often in less than 10 minutes. This really terrifies me. I know that even if I get to a place of profitability, I can undo all of it in a momentary lapse of self control. In the last 10 months, since the last time I traded with real money, I've tried to think of ways I can overcome this risk. One idea is to use the global daily loss shut down feature in Sierra Chart. Another idea is to withdraw any profits in my trading account. I noticed I traded riskier when I had a profit in my account. I'll come up with a more detailed plan as I get closer to trying to trade live again.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

Stopped after 1 trade. Got 10 ticks. Followed all my rules.

Here's the dilemma with stopping after 1 winning trade. If I always stop after a winning trade, but not after a losing trade, then I run the risk of having larger drawdown days compared to very small winning days with 1 winner with 10 ticks (I know going for more ticks would solve the problem, but that's not in my current plan). If I reverse it and quit after a losing trade but continue to trade after a winning trade, this would keep the losing days as small or smaller than the winning days. However, I find it's much easier emotionally to stop trading when ahead and very difficult to stop when losing.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

3 winners and no losers today. Followed all my rules.

My last 7 trades, beginning with the last 2 taken on Tuesday have all been winners. I don't know if I'm trading better or if this is just a winning streak and I'm just as likely to have 7 losers in a row at some point in time.

This week I took 22 winning trades and 20 losing trade, a win rate of 52%.

Tuesday was the day I began taking less trades. From Tuesday through today (Friday) I've taken a total of 9 winning trades and 2 losing trades. That's an 81% win rate.

I came up with an idea today that everyday I will stop after taking 1 loss. However, I can take as many winning trades as want, as long as I quit for the day after 1 loss. This will be emotionally really hard to follow through on, and I may give up. However, it will definitely solve the problem of getting too many losing trades in a day, it will keep my losses to a maximum of 10 ticks a day and it will give each day an opportunity to have a winning streak. This is similar to the concept of cutting losing trades early and letting profitable trades run, only I'm applying it to the daily loss/profit.

Another benefit to this new plan is that I will be much more careful with each trade that I take, which helps with my problem of taking both high risk and low risk trades.

When I'm done with trading for the day I will likely continue to watch the market and stay engaged by marking areas of interest on the charts and seeing how they develop as well as study chart patterns.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

Made 1 trade today. It was a winner. Although I followed all my rules, the trade actually was not a good one. I like to get in at a retracement to a trend or beginning of a trend and there were signs that price wasn't trending that I ignored when I took the trade.