My Goal for 2008: Trading to Trade Well

I appreciate that dejatrader. This last loss wasn't the largest, but it was the most painful for me and I now know what it feels like to be broken. I wanted to run and hide and change everything - but I've never wanted to give up. I re-evaluated everything in the hopes of finding something I could directly attribute to the losses - maybe my software, maybe the timeframe I used. The only thing I found wrong was myself.

I seriously considered hiring someone (friends and family would not have the right attitude), but I decided that in the end it all comes down to me - I am the one that pulls the trigger and shoots myself in the foot. So instead of getting someone else involved, I'm essentially paper trading with tiny position sizes trying to rebuild my mental foundation.

Only time will tell - good trading to you dejatrader.
 
It's up to you but don't feel like you have to do it all, no one is truly successful by themselves, everyone has help somewhere along the line.

Your method of selecting entry and exit points clearly works, all you have to do is look back at your impressive win/loss ratio to see that.

Maybe all that's missing is a little nudge from the outside to slow down when you fight the market to make back a loss.

Either way, I'm sure I speak for many readers of your threads that I've learned a lot from you and appreciate your honesty in laying your successes and mistakes bare here in this public forum.

In the next few days I'm going to start up my forex paper trading again, hope you'll have the time to comment on my trades and psychology.
 
Quote from dejatrader:

Either way, I'm sure I speak for many readers of your threads that I've learned a lot from you and appreciate your honesty in laying your successes and mistakes bare here in this public forum.

In the next few days I'm going to start up my forex paper trading again, hope you'll have the time to comment on my trades and psychology.
More...
It's nice to have a summary journal here at ET - there are many respectful traders here with excellent insight. At the same time others can learn from my mistakes and see the struggles (and $$$) a person goes through to learn such an "easy" profession. :)

Looking forward to you starting up the journal again.
 
Update for week ended 4/11/2008.

Increased the position size up to 5K this week. Since moving the account over to Oanda, I'm not able to customize the charts the way I had and prefered with IB+SC, so my setups aren't always as clearly defined. To compensate, I am watching 4-5 pairs instead of 2 and am tending to me a bit more aggressive with the positions. So far it seems to be working OK.
Code: 
Date	                        P/L	Pips	Range	Size	W	L	S
Sunday, April 06, 2008	        $13.24	26.9	50.0	5,000	1	0	0
Monday, April 07, 2008	        $19.05	38.0	120.0	5,000	15	5	1
Tuesday, April 08, 2008	        $36.88	73.9	390.0	5,000	12	5	0
Wednesday, April 09, 2008	$3.73	7.6	30.0	5,000	1	1	0
Thursday, April 10, 2008	$27.57	56.0	112.0	5,000	10	4	0
Friday, April 11, 2008	        -	-	-	-	-	-	-
---------------------------
Total for the week:             $100.47	202.4	702.0	-	39	15	1
 
I just use 2-17" Samsung LCDs, so 4 charts at the same time is the most I am comfortable with. One screen is for charts, the other is for order entry and monitoring.

Charting is the thing I like least about Oanda. There is really no flexibility... times are rigid (1, 5, 15, 30 min) and I can't find a way to overlay time frames. Before I used the 9 min EMA as the trend overlayed on the 3 min chart - this gave me a clear indication of when I could go long/short. Now I don't have that, so I am putting on trades more for the feel and flow than any particular indicator. I try to use 5 min as the main and 15 min as the trend.

Also I don't focus as intensely on the EMA or Bollinger Bands as before and don't treat them as a brick wall - before, these two indicators were my paved road on the trading highway. Now they are almost like background scenery - this may or may not be a good thing, but so far I am doing OK.
 
It's funny that you mention that about the indicators being more like scenery. That's exactly how I feel this time around. Last time I tried Forex I was looking for a combination of indicators that could be followed mechanically. It took about a month for me to figure out that strictly following indicators with no regard to the mood of the market will yield precisely 50%--no edge.

Now I look at the indicators as just bringing a measure of structure to the charts. They're guidelines within which you make your own discretionary judgements.

I'll give you an example of the change I'm talking about. Let's say you're looking for a break of the middle BB/MA to enter a trade. Last year I would have mechanically entered ONLY if a bar CLOSED above the line, and I would enter regardless of how far passed the line it closed.

Now I might enter before the bar closes, and if it moves too far passed I won't enter, because more often than not I see a sharp movement on one bar is immediately followed by a retracement on the next bar.

Those kinds of things just can't be programmed into a mechanical system. I'm really becoming a believer in discretionary trading.
 
Quote from dejatrader:

Now I look at the indicators as just bringing a measure of structure to the charts. They're guidelines within which you make your own discretionary judgements.
...
Now I might enter before the bar closes, and if it moves too far passed I won't enter, because more often than not I see a sharp movement on one bar is immediately followed by a retracement on the next bar.
More...
Right - along those same lines, I used the indicators as my structure while trading, something to give me a sense of security (albeit false) in an random place. Because of the rigidity, I would not get a lot of setups, which is OK, but I would open too many revenge trades when those few setups didn't make money.

Another thing I forgot to mention (and seems to help a lot), I am not trying to put too much weight into any single trade or day. I stopped writing down each trade on a log sheet while in the heat of battle. Instead, I only find out the exact results of a given day at the end of the week when I enter everything into my Excel spreadsheet. As strange as this sounds, it has taken off a lot of pressure and now I don't think about yesterday's P/L during the morning trading session.
 
I think it makes sense to use indicators that are popular with a large number of traders. Not to follow the crowd, but for you to know what the crowd is doing. I'm starting to believe that trading has nothing to do with predicting price movement and everything to do with understanding the psychology of the masses.

Focusing on the trade set ups for the today instead of yesterday's P/L makes a lot of sense. It's hard not to think about a loss from the previous day and want to try to "make it back". I can definitely see how that could lead to revenge trading.
 
Update for week ended 4/18/2008.

Wasn't able to get a full week in, but most everything felt good. Nothing exciting to report other than a small earthquake this morning about 250 miles from my home (first time I ever experienced one).
Code: 
Date	                        P/L	Pips	Range	Size	W	L	S
Monday, April 14, 2008	        $21.89	42.3	485.0	5,000	12	5	0
Tuesday, April 15, 2008	        -$10.78	-21.2	290.0	5,000	1	1	0
Wednesday, April 16, 2008	$64.00	127.4	367.0	5,000	11	4	0
Thursday, April 17, 2008	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Friday, April 18, 2008	        $33.59	68.5	650.0	5,000	9	1	0
---------------------------
Total for the week:             $108.70	217.0	1,792.0	-	33	11	0
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top