NoDoji's Day Trading Log

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I hate to say it, but I agree with bighobama...I mean bighog. :)

You know how to trade! You've proven that. You made lots of money trading "The Weinstein Method". And I sure you could make a mint trading futures like bighog. Don't be a sissy like me!

Has something changed? Has money gotten tight and you're trading scared money? Damn, I miss the old nodoji! :)
 
I just found this journal last night, but I read about 60 pages of it so far.

I must say that I am very happy that I did. I just started trading in January (had no clue what I was doing and lost almost $30K), then I decided to stop trading and learn. I read about 20 books on TA over the last 7 months, and studied the market 7 days a week.
Now I am battling the problem of confidence. I get signals for my system I developed but I've been chickening out from pulling the trigger for fear of losing money and being wrong. I know risk is part of the game, but I think I keep thinking that another counter signal will come. It almost never does, and I end up being upset with myself for missing out on a profitable trade.

Thanks BigHog for posting such great posts ! They really put things in perspective for me.

Thanks also to NoDoji for creating this journal. It gave me confidence to know others have been where I'm at (somewhat) and worked past it.

:-)
 
First and foremost you need to work on discipline.

You need to take my challenge to trade max 3 trades per day all ES, no stocks. For this and next week (9 trading days in a row).

When you want 5 cookies have only 2. When you want a coke have a glass of water. When you want to watch your favorite show read a book. These few examples may not relate to you but you get my point and creating discipline within your normal daily routine will also help your trading. Set some challenges for yourself to work on being better disciplined. It's actually kinda fun.

Agree totally w Mr. Bighog.

P.S. It can only help you.

Edit: P.S.S. Like RN always says "Do what you must, not what you like".
 
Quote from TheAngryHermit:

I hate to say it, but I agree with bighobama...I mean bighog. :)

You know how to trade! You've proven that. You made lots of money trading "The Weinstein Method". And I sure you could make a mint trading futures like bighog. Don't be a sissy like me!

Has something changed? Has money gotten tight and you're trading scared money? Damn, I miss the old nodoji! :)
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bighog never showed his tax returns as far as i know. Nodoji is most likely realizing the ES does not have the trending (smoothness) properties nor the volatility that stocks generally show, making it extremely difficult. These are the 2 main reasons the es sucks. It takes you out of your trade often and does not reward you enough when you are right.
 
ES is hard to trade, too many competitors. I once tried to just focus on sweet crude, but I found sweet crude's intra-day behaviors are in millions of ways, I am right, but I may lose, even though I can make big bucks from tiny money (high leverage), the ending results are not so good. so I change to focus on one phenomana: those which are ready to explode or breakdown, even though I deal with diffeent symbol, but I am good at selecting those markets, and timing entry. after a while, I think no one can beat me in this particular area. my confidence comes from here. another reason is I do not want to lose money, after I built an enough big account, I may move on to learn other things (you now learning need learning fee!before you start to make money and your account is empty, eevne though you got the skills, but you found there is no job for you)

I think a beginner should pick market since their market knowledge and skills are very limited. they should focus on what they know or are good at, enhance it, improve it untill they firmly grasped it, in one way, they can build account, then they can move on to the next stage. of course, a very experienced trader will trade what they see or whatever the market presented to them, since they know how to deal with different kind of market behaviors.

blindly agressive is equal to sucide, you must have the right knowldege and skills to be agressive.
 
well said. trading really is a job. as a retail trader, the disadvantage is: limited resources or scared money.

as many know, learning trading needs learning fee, the fee is higher than most thought, particularly retail traders. I once felt very frustrated about my own progress, thought that is a psychological problem, I read <<disciplined trader for a living>>many times, after I read it, I felt I should jump into the water without being drowned if I have a stop loss under the books' author's encouragement "bare feet walk on hot burning coal no harm", the truth is blind confidence empted trading account, the more trading the less confidence I got. I found I trade my confidence, while not my knowledge/skills. just like a solider, rush to the battle field without an advanced weapon, just a firm belief: I can defeat my enemy, if the enemy has the weapon, this solider is an easy prey.

it is a good book. but some statement is poinsious. read more, you feel more confident since you think you can beat the market with your strong psychology, but you are wrong. to trade well, you need good psychology, also need good skills, missing one piece, you are easy target or prey of sharks.

admit you are a retail trader, you have disadvantages over those big gun generals. find your strength (avoid the disadvantage), that big gun guys are not good at, build up there that is a good strategy to become a big gun guy

do not blindly be agressive. agressive at your strength, avoid your weakness


Quote from bighog:



Trading is a job, it is what we do. Tom Baldwin a big time bond pit trader in his day said it best: "My job was to accept risk, so that is what i did"

You need to give yourself time and sit down and figure out what you want to trade. Is it going to be stocks or futures? You are not yet prepared to flip flop between one and then the other and then look back at the other. That can come later, right now you need to focus on what you NEED to do, not what you want to do.

Trading is a lot of nothing most of the day, it is part and parcel of what we do. If you focus on a single item and it gets boring,,,,,,,,,,then you just sit tight and still focus on what possible could come next, you prepare, you anticipate.

Your discipline is lacking where it is needed now more than ever. To defeat not pulling the trigger is by getting in the fight and get more aggressive. Think of it like this as an exercise: At least get in there and set a loss figure to start the day, if you hit that figure, quit for the day and review the trades you made.

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- $95

My plan was not to trade until the consumer sentiment number was released. But a fellow trader promised to make me take my signals and so I took the ES opening short trigger @ 1027.00 despite stating that ES would stay in a range until the number were released and this short signal was at the bottom of the range. I thought that practicing taking a trade based on a signal without thinking would be beneficial. Stopped out for -$105.

I appreciate a lot of good input I’ve received from everyone, but no one can make my decisions for me. Mechanically putting on a trade because a specific price was reached when additional information was available to me and I’ve had enough screen time to recognize many patterns wasn’t helpful. On a non-news day or a day when the news is on the table pre-market, the opening range strategy is very solid, but in this case I really should’ve followed my original plan of no trades till after the news.

As usual on news, price blasted through my long signal, so I missed that. Had company right after that and missed a chunk of trading time.

I’ve come to believe that these economic numbers are leaked in advance because today retail stocks were hitting the hi ticker like crazy and ES was creeping up in advance of the news release.

I returned later and then hesitated on several setups, and these were good ones, unlike my opening trade.

Then as a result of being frustrated by not taking these nice trades, I chased a TGT short (lower high) at a less-than-ideal place and scalped $10, which was all it had to give after my late entry and a useless time of day.

I then decided to take the week and possibly the month off (going on mini vacation next week anyhow). I need to spend a decent amount of time determining what and how I want to trade. I believe that trading a very few things is to my benefit

I look forward to returning fresh for the fall, and hopefully with enough together to be consistently profitable, as I know I am capable of being.
 

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Trading has its up and downs like no other. I follow this thread and at this point I think you need to just do what you want and know other then listening to others. They bring good advice but eveyone has to find what works for them and what they are comfortable in. Today was an down then up day for me. I started out -$250 and fought back to be +110.

Good luck!
 
Quote from trader_david:

ES is hard to trade, too many competitors.
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I find ES leaves chart footprints exactly like any stock does. I believe I read it well. The trades I didn't take today were all fine and went in my favor, and the opening trade I did take was against my better judgment.

I have a live witness who heard me say "I don't think I'm gonna trade until the news is out today." "Why not?" he asked, making feel very guilty. Followed a little while later by me saying, "OK I'm taking the short signal even though I'm sure it's gonna trade in a range and it's at the bottom of the channel."

Now I know I need to be aggressive, BUT I think "Trade your plan" comes above all. :D
 
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