Yes, that's one rule I don't violate. Unfortunately stops are not active in after hours trading on stocks, only on futures. So my FDX stop was useless when the I returned to my desk to see a nearly $4 gap on news. Knowing that a ton of short activity had been taking place over the past week on FDX before their earnings report next week, I chose to exit the leftover position immediately in case there was a strong squeeze on the open. I did get out at a "good" price in pre-market as it turned out to be the day's low at the open and never came back to that level.
NoDoji's Day Trading Log
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Yes, that's one rule I don't violate. Unfortunately stops are not active in after hours trading on stocks, only on futures. So my FDX stop was useless when the I returned to my desk to see a nearly $4 gap on news. Knowing that a ton of short activity had been taking place over the past week on FDX before their earnings report next week, I chose to exit the leftover position immediately in case there was a strong squeeze on the open. I did get out at a "good" price in pre-market as it turned out to be the day's low at the open and never came back to that level.
a successful trader is a person who is patient, who knows who he is, and knows what he is doing, knows what he wants.
the market is contantly moving not according to your experience, not to your judgement, not to your smartness, ....... if you understand that, you know no matter whater you do: you feel frustrated, you feel ambitious, you feel angry,.... it is useless.
as I said, trading is a subjective activity. you must define the game rules by your own yourself, not the game inventors or owners. the hardest thing is you must follow your own rules to survive, the worst is you must follow your own rules on every trade and every day!
most traders fail becuase they do not know their own rules, or even they know their own rules, they frequently violated them or change them. since the rules are defined in their own minds, no one knows it, they can easily break them while noone noticed that.
take an example of your unexpected overnight loss: this loss is not pre-determined, that is why it shocked you! if you have a rule like: $100 maximum loss per trade, and in reality, overnight risk is way behond that level such buyout in short or scandal in long for a $70 stock (maybe gap up $30 or even $50, several buck gapup is your luck), definitely you will not take this trade!
so basic problem is you are not clear about what you should do, what you should not do. after you know and well understand your own rules, the next hard thing is discipline: can you follow them?
best luck
the market is contantly moving not according to your experience, not to your judgement, not to your smartness, ....... if you understand that, you know no matter whater you do: you feel frustrated, you feel ambitious, you feel angry,.... it is useless.
as I said, trading is a subjective activity. you must define the game rules by your own yourself, not the game inventors or owners. the hardest thing is you must follow your own rules to survive, the worst is you must follow your own rules on every trade and every day!
most traders fail becuase they do not know their own rules, or even they know their own rules, they frequently violated them or change them. since the rules are defined in their own minds, no one knows it, they can easily break them while noone noticed that.
take an example of your unexpected overnight loss: this loss is not pre-determined, that is why it shocked you! if you have a rule like: $100 maximum loss per trade, and in reality, overnight risk is way behond that level such buyout in short or scandal in long for a $70 stock (maybe gap up $30 or even $50, several buck gapup is your luck), definitely you will not take this trade!
so basic problem is you are not clear about what you should do, what you should not do. after you know and well understand your own rules, the next hard thing is discipline: can you follow them?
best luck
Nod
A serious suggestion for your ES sim trading. Narrow the trade ideas down and concentrate on each one at a time. Sim trade each one seperate and exclusive until you can trade said tactic automatically, develope those trader muscles for each type but do not try to learn every individual strategy all at once.
Example suggestions, not in any particular order because each is a SEPERATE tactic. You know i will always have a bias to breakout trading but thats me.
You are a musician: think back to college when you learned how to play an instrument...........each note is seperate and just a part of something but is nothing by itself. Trading has signals instead of notes so they do not necessarily need to be a part of a whole. How many times have you heard about some pros that trade only a single setup and avoid ALL THE OTHERS. If you think about that it should ping your brain to realize that even winners do not try to control the whole game, they understand that's impossible and a useless attempt to outsmart the entire trading game so they settle on defeating a PART OF THE WHOLE with less emotion and well perfected trader muscles.
Price has these ways to be played, and do not be afraid to admit trading is gambling because thats all this is. Gambling is playing the odds, play how they play.............remember the trading sardines example? AIG as example, it was a game of trading sardines, not AIG itself. Crude oil to 140 a barrel was trading the TRADING sardines NOT the eating sardines. Trading is about trading MONEY, NOT about trading the instrument itself, the instrument is just a means to the money. Who really would give a rats ass for a share of AIG?
Set your mind to a setup and milk that setup for all it is worth. Lets say you decide to be a intraday trend follower. If so, work on that and that only...........pay ZERO attention to range trades, ZERO attention to channels, ZERO fading, etc, etc. Now by paying ZERO attention to those price actions i do not mean to avoid understanding what they are doing because those are all clues to learn how to be a trend trader...............i just mean do not consider them for SIGNALS to take a trade for any other purpose except to the mission at and that mission is to follow the trend..........up or down. FOLLOW?
You need to quit playing the field and focus on seperate pieces at a time to find your way. Do not listen to blabber, LEARN A NOTE AT A TIME. You need to FIND what works and quit SEARCHING for what works. Like i always said: The greatest man can handle only a single good women because he found out that single good women made him great.
LESS IS MORE
A serious suggestion for your ES sim trading. Narrow the trade ideas down and concentrate on each one at a time. Sim trade each one seperate and exclusive until you can trade said tactic automatically, develope those trader muscles for each type but do not try to learn every individual strategy all at once.
Example suggestions, not in any particular order because each is a SEPERATE tactic. You know i will always have a bias to breakout trading but thats me.
You are a musician: think back to college when you learned how to play an instrument...........each note is seperate and just a part of something but is nothing by itself. Trading has signals instead of notes so they do not necessarily need to be a part of a whole. How many times have you heard about some pros that trade only a single setup and avoid ALL THE OTHERS. If you think about that it should ping your brain to realize that even winners do not try to control the whole game, they understand that's impossible and a useless attempt to outsmart the entire trading game so they settle on defeating a PART OF THE WHOLE with less emotion and well perfected trader muscles.
Price has these ways to be played, and do not be afraid to admit trading is gambling because thats all this is. Gambling is playing the odds, play how they play.............remember the trading sardines example? AIG as example, it was a game of trading sardines, not AIG itself. Crude oil to 140 a barrel was trading the TRADING sardines NOT the eating sardines. Trading is about trading MONEY, NOT about trading the instrument itself, the instrument is just a means to the money. Who really would give a rats ass for a share of AIG?
Set your mind to a setup and milk that setup for all it is worth. Lets say you decide to be a intraday trend follower. If so, work on that and that only...........pay ZERO attention to range trades, ZERO attention to channels, ZERO fading, etc, etc. Now by paying ZERO attention to those price actions i do not mean to avoid understanding what they are doing because those are all clues to learn how to be a trend trader...............i just mean do not consider them for SIGNALS to take a trade for any other purpose except to the mission at and that mission is to follow the trend..........up or down. FOLLOW?
You need to quit playing the field and focus on seperate pieces at a time to find your way. Do not listen to blabber, LEARN A NOTE AT A TIME. You need to FIND what works and quit SEARCHING for what works. Like i always said: The greatest man can handle only a single good women because he found out that single good women made him great.
LESS IS MORE
Nodoji,
Don't blame yourself too much. I found it very difficult to day trade in the last couple of days. For example today I traded FAS on the long side -- every time just as I thought an up trend was forming it then proceeded to break down instead, shaking me out every time. The market seemed very jumpy. Yesterday (Thursday) there were quite some opportunities on the long side, however I was still not able to catch the whole day up trend
because I happened to be in the kitchen or not paying attention when the good entry opportunites were there, but then even if I got in with early good entry I wasn't sure if I could stay all the way to the close to catch the whole move because the whole day move was quite nerveracking.
Not sure how some guys make thousands in this market. Hope they can share their stories.
Best Luck!
OC
Don't blame yourself too much. I found it very difficult to day trade in the last couple of days. For example today I traded FAS on the long side -- every time just as I thought an up trend was forming it then proceeded to break down instead, shaking me out every time. The market seemed very jumpy. Yesterday (Thursday) there were quite some opportunities on the long side, however I was still not able to catch the whole day up trend
because I happened to be in the kitchen or not paying attention when the good entry opportunites were there, but then even if I got in with early good entry I wasn't sure if I could stay all the way to the close to catch the whole move because the whole day move was quite nerveracking.
Not sure how some guys make thousands in this market. Hope they can share their stories.
Best Luck!
OC
Hi Nod,
You may have seen the book I wrote in the PnL. Magna didn't think my whole response was in the correct thread but was very cool about how it was handled.
In retrospect I think it was a wise choice as well.
This post is in response to your PnL post today.
Yes, at the pace of your progress everything WILL be ok. I know this is a PnL journal so I will give you the cliff notes version that I think many of the traders here (including myself at times) should keep in mind.
Its in our nature to see patterns that are not there and you have to fight that or at least come to terms with it. Our natural reaction when starting out after having a few days in a row of losses is that "I suck at this and don't want to lose anymore" The reality is that we do not predict the future but rather we predict the odds. If the odds are in our favor then over time with many many outcomes (trades) we should make what our edge is. Along that road we have to face the wicked witch of the northeast called standard deviation. This evil-doer NAZI bitch from hell will put your emotions on a rollarcoaster ride that makes six flags look like one of those kiddie rides in front of kmart that you put a quarter into.
If you have a true edge. A mathmatically provable edge of entry and exit combined with trades that don't forget the concept of risk-to-ruin then I do think I can say with confidence that yes "everything will be alright"
I think as a new trader you should focus on one type of trade. Just one and only one and it should be one that doesn't happen to much (maybe less than once or twice per day so you can keep your focus). work on the entry and exit and backtest the heck out of it BEFORE trying it. Have a spreadsheet type of journal that records the price action of the stock that day (not just your gain/loss but things like how far it went after you exited ) so that your learning with each trade.
Take your emotion OUT of the trade and make it mechanical. you can always add new methods of trading later but the idea is to build upon your signal until you have that one down like the back of your hand. then move on to the next one.
If you want to trade futures fine, you have a guy that has been trying to assist with that. If you want to trade equities thats fine also as you have help there as well. (I think that equities are more exploitable than index futures but thats just because there is more of them which in turn provides more of any given setups but thats just my opinion based on my own trading styles)
I have a massage in 15 minutes so I better wrap this up and Red ink Inc is gonna tell me to make posts like this somewhere else pretty quick if I keep going : o )
A new trader HAS to expect to have a period of training before they can expect to make money not unlike a lawyer / doctor / business owner. When you opened up your business before you probably didn't think you would be making money right on the first day and if like most businesses it not only took a lot more work then you thought it would but took longer to really do well than you thought it would. Your still brand spanking new in the box as a trader and give it time to reach your fullest.
Lastly, your doing GREAT !!! you really are and I would not say it if I didn't really believe it. I remember when you joined the chat and where you were at in trading and reading your journal your making the progress and have the thought process that I believe will not only allow you to stay in this business but will allow you to make ever increasing amounts of money and greater satisfaction in your choice to be a trader. Again, your results are great and better than I would guess 98% of the people that have tried to make it. so keep your chin up and keep up your progress !!!
Have a great weekend and please tell Mr. NoDoji I said hi!!
Respectfully
Robert
You may have seen the book I wrote in the PnL. Magna didn't think my whole response was in the correct thread but was very cool about how it was handled.
In retrospect I think it was a wise choice as well.
This post is in response to your PnL post today.
Yes, at the pace of your progress everything WILL be ok. I know this is a PnL journal so I will give you the cliff notes version that I think many of the traders here (including myself at times) should keep in mind.
Its in our nature to see patterns that are not there and you have to fight that or at least come to terms with it. Our natural reaction when starting out after having a few days in a row of losses is that "I suck at this and don't want to lose anymore" The reality is that we do not predict the future but rather we predict the odds. If the odds are in our favor then over time with many many outcomes (trades) we should make what our edge is. Along that road we have to face the wicked witch of the northeast called standard deviation. This evil-doer NAZI bitch from hell will put your emotions on a rollarcoaster ride that makes six flags look like one of those kiddie rides in front of kmart that you put a quarter into.
If you have a true edge. A mathmatically provable edge of entry and exit combined with trades that don't forget the concept of risk-to-ruin then I do think I can say with confidence that yes "everything will be alright"
I think as a new trader you should focus on one type of trade. Just one and only one and it should be one that doesn't happen to much (maybe less than once or twice per day so you can keep your focus). work on the entry and exit and backtest the heck out of it BEFORE trying it. Have a spreadsheet type of journal that records the price action of the stock that day (not just your gain/loss but things like how far it went after you exited ) so that your learning with each trade.
Take your emotion OUT of the trade and make it mechanical. you can always add new methods of trading later but the idea is to build upon your signal until you have that one down like the back of your hand. then move on to the next one.
If you want to trade futures fine, you have a guy that has been trying to assist with that. If you want to trade equities thats fine also as you have help there as well. (I think that equities are more exploitable than index futures but thats just because there is more of them which in turn provides more of any given setups but thats just my opinion based on my own trading styles)
I have a massage in 15 minutes so I better wrap this up and Red ink Inc is gonna tell me to make posts like this somewhere else pretty quick if I keep going : o )
A new trader HAS to expect to have a period of training before they can expect to make money not unlike a lawyer / doctor / business owner. When you opened up your business before you probably didn't think you would be making money right on the first day and if like most businesses it not only took a lot more work then you thought it would but took longer to really do well than you thought it would. Your still brand spanking new in the box as a trader and give it time to reach your fullest.
Lastly, your doing GREAT !!! you really are and I would not say it if I didn't really believe it. I remember when you joined the chat and where you were at in trading and reading your journal your making the progress and have the thought process that I believe will not only allow you to stay in this business but will allow you to make ever increasing amounts of money and greater satisfaction in your choice to be a trader. Again, your results are great and better than I would guess 98% of the people that have tried to make it. so keep your chin up and keep up your progress !!!
Have a great weekend and please tell Mr. NoDoji I said hi!!
Respectfully
Robert
Nod,
"sort yourself out"
Your problem is mental and not mechanical. Yes i understand failure to pull the trigger on your setups is mechanical but you as well as i know it is mental that does not allow your finger to hit the mouse when it should be hit.
Do "critical thinking" think about what will make a difference.
A wise person recognizes a mistake and corrects it. Those that kid themselves keep making the same mistake over and over.
Be harder on yourself. Forget about others in trading because you are there to make money not to make friends. It is a job not a hobby.
You do not need to win the war of defeating the whole mkt, no one has ever done that and hopefully no one ever will or all you that have not built up a retirement never will do it in the mkts. Like who wants to go work on the outside of our little world? The mkt is partly beatable, partly being the keyword.
But you do need to win the battle of yourself.
Even in the greatest Army ever built the training always has been in sections. A soldier might be an infantryman, an artillary person, a tank person, a scout person, Bighog was a scout,
, etc etc. No individual soldier can win the whole war. No one trader can master the whole mkt. Find your section and master it. pick out your own small battle and master it. Let the others do the rest.
Kick some selective butt. Forget what others tell you how to win such an individual battle, this is not a team sport.
Ok, off to hopefully get into trouble. Thats a downside to getting older, you avoid the battles you no longer can win and just do what you do best and that is to be mellow and reflect on the good times. I do not chase women anymore but have fond memories. ( Truth be known, more chased me that i chased, hahhaha..)
Have fun and know you can defeat a part of the mkt, just lower your sights and pick your targets and take them out one at a time.
PS: I just backed up and read Roberts post to you, ha. Bob and i both have a good idea what is bothering you. I think we both would agree you are trying to chew to much at the same time. we are trying to help you. Nerds posts like trader davids are just what you do not need.............that guy is lost as it is and how can he help you. Watch what posts you read, some are causing you more trouble than they are worth. just trying to give you some tough facts. YOU GO GIRL!!!!
"sort yourself out"
Your problem is mental and not mechanical. Yes i understand failure to pull the trigger on your setups is mechanical but you as well as i know it is mental that does not allow your finger to hit the mouse when it should be hit.
Do "critical thinking" think about what will make a difference.
A wise person recognizes a mistake and corrects it. Those that kid themselves keep making the same mistake over and over.
Be harder on yourself. Forget about others in trading because you are there to make money not to make friends. It is a job not a hobby.
You do not need to win the war of defeating the whole mkt, no one has ever done that and hopefully no one ever will or all you that have not built up a retirement never will do it in the mkts. Like who wants to go work on the outside of our little world? The mkt is partly beatable, partly being the keyword.
But you do need to win the battle of yourself.
Even in the greatest Army ever built the training always has been in sections. A soldier might be an infantryman, an artillary person, a tank person, a scout person, Bighog was a scout,
, etc etc. No individual soldier can win the whole war. No one trader can master the whole mkt. Find your section and master it. pick out your own small battle and master it. Let the others do the rest.Kick some selective butt. Forget what others tell you how to win such an individual battle, this is not a team sport.
Ok, off to hopefully get into trouble. Thats a downside to getting older, you avoid the battles you no longer can win and just do what you do best and that is to be mellow and reflect on the good times. I do not chase women anymore but have fond memories.
( Truth be known, more chased me that i chased, hahhaha..) Have fun and know you can defeat a part of the mkt, just lower your sights and pick your targets and take them out one at a time.
PS: I just backed up and read Roberts post to you, ha. Bob and i both have a good idea what is bothering you. I think we both would agree you are trying to chew to much at the same time. we are trying to help you. Nerds posts like trader davids are just what you do not need.............that guy is lost as it is and how can he help you. Watch what posts you read, some are causing you more trouble than they are worth. just trying to give you some tough facts. YOU GO GIRL!!!!
That's what I've done in sim and I've honed it down 2 low-risk strategies that appear to provide a decent edge in my favor and 1 high risk strategy that has worked every time (until it doesn't).
The first low-risk is buying/selling overshoots of support and resistance if they result in a quick pivot, leaving a long wick at the top or bottom. The second low-risk is simply my old standby of selling a lower high, buying a higher low. Yesterday my live trade was to sell a lower high, and it was a solid trade except that I lost 2 pts by hesitating, and 2 more by locking in profit too quickly because my hesitation left me feeling constrained on the trade. It's sad that I took one pt off a 5 pt move; on the other hand Al Brooks makes the point a few times in his book that scalping 1 pt each day on 100 contracts makes you a millionaire.
And this leads me to the 3rd 100% profitable strategy I tested in sim that is clearly higher risk, but its 100% success rate is very enticing. I've ONLY tested this one to the short side: When price heads toward a test of a day's high, begin shorting 1/3 position at a time, averaging in up to 2 more times, after each 3-pt move. The reason this is higher risk is you could end up fighting a trend day (which is why I've ONLY done it later in the day, never in the opening hours) and also because the max loss could potentially be much greater than my usual 3-pt max.
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