Spydertrader's Jack Hershey Futures Trading Journal
- Thread starter Spydertrader
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@bundlemaker and all the rest,
I have been on this journey from February, and I can say that I've
made good progress through these months. Sometimes I've gotten stuck –
at one point I went ahead and I was already trading (breakeven-minimum
loss). When I noticed problems or temporary blocks, I stepped back to
basic – drawing channels and annotating. And then started adding the
tools back again – slowly.
But all of my biggest aha moments came after I took – a couple of
times – time off for vacations at the seaside. Sometimes as long as
whole a month off
From what I went through, I can advise the following – be aware though
that I am a beginner, who has never traded before. I started to become
interested in trading in the middle of last year after a "black swan"
event in my life.
As I was studying I became aware that sitting behind the monitor all
day, everyday (15h+ per day – I live in Europe and have a job in the
morning). In the long run this gets me to focus on tasks at hand and
rigid (due to tiredness) to allow my brain to accept and process my
learning and to form strong concepts.
The answer lies in taking breaks to recoup and relax.
Getting ahead of myself in the process of learning. When you are
trying to learn as fast as you can you sometimes overestimate yourself
and your current ability. I found myself trading already in March and
April (with no prior trading experience and minimum starting
capital!). Looking back it was a very foolish thing to do, but
fortunately I recognized it and took a step back. I started from
scratch again, and sim-traded after a while.
I found out that I was too focused on the result (of a sim trade!) and
had to go back again. It took me a while to (quite recently – a month
or two ago) be able to sim trade as a means to assess my current set
of skills and not to focus on some number.
I assess every so often what I'm actually doing through the session.
If I don't have the right focus, I go back to basics for a couple of
days – just monitoring and annotating.
Understanding the basics – I have come to the point where it clicked
(at least I would like to believe so ). I understood the basic of
what the fractal nature (forest, trees,..) of the market is and
correlation between P/V. What helped me personally was this exercise
I did for a week after I came back from the seaside. I was unable to
really tell where the market is at and what it is doing – forest level
FTT or bugz. Don't know if it will help you, but you can give it a
try.
Exercise:
Monitoring the forest by doing something else – I was painting during
the trading session. Every so often (once every 5-10 min or even
longer periods) I would come to the monitor and check – forest up –
and draw a channel. If I saw an FTT, it didn't matter it was still
forest up until proven otherwise (B2B or R2R over several bars!). The
point was to recognize what was going on in the market at the forest
level and to do it in the near past as to avoid prediction as much as
possible. This allowed me to understand forest/trees/.. (through
monitoring only) much better. Then it's just a matter of moving from
immediate past to now (which involves " analysis" of current events).
But do try and find some hobby you like that relaxes you so that the
mind is not preoccupied with the market.
Take it easy, I notice that if I am uneasy and restless (not knowing
what is happening in the market for example) I tend to second-guess my
actions and analyses, turn direction many times and too soon in my
analysis. I'm still learning and it is better to see if I did an error
and to understand why, then to focus on being right all the time.
Take all I have said with a grain of salt, this is just what I
experienced and not necessarily correct in all regards. But I feel
good at my current progress and comfortable to continue and see that
the path I have chosen is for me. Though I do not yet trade! I am
still struggling with some concepts and tools, but I do feel the
wheels in my brains are starting to turn.
----------
I practice aikido, and this practice teaches that if you are tense and
rigid – mind or (and) body – you can't perceive and act well. It will
not do you good if you try and go head-on through the wall – you might
end up hurting yourself. Water splashes off the wall, to return,
finding cracks and paths around it.
I have been on this journey from February, and I can say that I've
made good progress through these months. Sometimes I've gotten stuck –
at one point I went ahead and I was already trading (breakeven-minimum
loss). When I noticed problems or temporary blocks, I stepped back to
basic – drawing channels and annotating. And then started adding the
tools back again – slowly.
But all of my biggest aha moments came after I took – a couple of
times – time off for vacations at the seaside. Sometimes as long as
whole a month off
From what I went through, I can advise the following – be aware though
that I am a beginner, who has never traded before. I started to become
interested in trading in the middle of last year after a "black swan"
event in my life.
As I was studying I became aware that sitting behind the monitor all
day, everyday (15h+ per day – I live in Europe and have a job in the
morning). In the long run this gets me to focus on tasks at hand and
rigid (due to tiredness) to allow my brain to accept and process my
learning and to form strong concepts.
The answer lies in taking breaks to recoup and relax.
Getting ahead of myself in the process of learning. When you are
trying to learn as fast as you can you sometimes overestimate yourself
and your current ability. I found myself trading already in March and
April (with no prior trading experience and minimum starting
capital!). Looking back it was a very foolish thing to do, but
fortunately I recognized it and took a step back. I started from
scratch again, and sim-traded after a while.
I found out that I was too focused on the result (of a sim trade!) and
had to go back again. It took me a while to (quite recently – a month
or two ago) be able to sim trade as a means to assess my current set
of skills and not to focus on some number.
I assess every so often what I'm actually doing through the session.
If I don't have the right focus, I go back to basics for a couple of
days – just monitoring and annotating.
Understanding the basics – I have come to the point where it clicked
(at least I would like to believe so
). I understood the basic ofwhat the fractal nature (forest, trees,..) of the market is and
correlation between P/V. What helped me personally was this exercise
I did for a week after I came back from the seaside. I was unable to
really tell where the market is at and what it is doing – forest level
FTT or bugz. Don't know if it will help you, but you can give it a
try.
Exercise:
Monitoring the forest by doing something else – I was painting during
the trading session. Every so often (once every 5-10 min or even
longer periods) I would come to the monitor and check – forest up –
and draw a channel. If I saw an FTT, it didn't matter it was still
forest up until proven otherwise (B2B or R2R over several bars!). The
point was to recognize what was going on in the market at the forest
level and to do it in the near past as to avoid prediction as much as
possible. This allowed me to understand forest/trees/.. (through
monitoring only) much better. Then it's just a matter of moving from
immediate past to now (which involves " analysis" of current events).
But do try and find some hobby you like that relaxes you so that the
mind is not preoccupied with the market.
Take it easy, I notice that if I am uneasy and restless (not knowing
what is happening in the market for example) I tend to second-guess my
actions and analyses, turn direction many times and too soon in my
analysis. I'm still learning and it is better to see if I did an error
and to understand why, then to focus on being right all the time.
Take all I have said with a grain of salt, this is just what I
experienced and not necessarily correct in all regards. But I feel
good at my current progress and comfortable to continue and see that
the path I have chosen is for me. Though I do not yet trade! I am
still struggling with some concepts and tools, but I do feel the
wheels in my brains are starting to turn.
----------
I practice aikido, and this practice teaches that if you are tense and
rigid – mind or (and) body – you can't perceive and act well. It will
not do you good if you try and go head-on through the wall – you might
end up hurting yourself. Water splashes off the wall, to return,
finding cracks and paths around it.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I agree that doing something else you enjoy while forest trading helps to keep you 1) in the forest and 2) relaxed. In my case, a couple of my best forest days were actually when I was in bed, with my laptop on my chest, hitting the snooze alarm every 5 minutes to check the action, check my position, and get another 4:30 of sleep.
Folks in the chat room started calling me "snooz_trader." Laugh all you want, but my sim score was absolutely sick 
12:45 bar killed my up channel by BO on inc vol and the next bar also closes below my up channel. I now looked for pt 3 for my down channel and I got price moving back on on dec vol. I do not draw channels unless I have 3 seperaate points (for me this is how I can match up things better) so I used 12:35 as my Ftt (instead of the 12:15 bar) . I watched the DOM very carefully but anticipated a pt 3 so when I could "feel" the momentum about to break down I shorted. The moment I sold I was .50 in the money and price just sat there. I was feeling a bit uneasy as the vol was dead but I knew the situation was a good one so just because it wasnt tanking right away I kept in mind that I had correctly read everything in this situation.
Also, since I didnt have a down channel yet in place, I did not see the 13:00 bar as a flaw.
Also, since I didnt have a down channel yet in place, I did not see the 13:00 bar as a flaw.
Steve,
Thanks for the additional feedback on the pt 3, much appreciated. It helps to read the thought process of someone else to view things from a different view point.
Although I wasn't glued at 13:00, I'm pretty sure I would have had the short channel in place along with the tape retrace (B part of R2B). I would have viewed the 13:00 bar as a flaw in the retrace. But I'm prolly going to far down the rabbit hold, lol. Hopefully, I would have seen the 13:06:20 increasing red, the continuation of another R2B.
Thanks,
spooz
Sure, no problem
We had the exact same trade this morning as we did at 1pm yesterday. This stuff repeats everyday!!
Frustratingly, I 'saw' the two FTT's happening but didn't pull the trigger, which turned 10 points of profit into 5 of loss chasing it. Thankfully made it up on the range expansion (exited at the last bar on this chart)
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/576/es08sep07vd1.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us"/></a><br/>
Ignore the times, they are Australian local time. Haven't gotten around to changing my database config.
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/576/es08sep07vd1.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us"/></a><br/>
Ignore the times, they are Australian local time. Haven't gotten around to changing my database config.
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