Quote from foible:
Jack,
I haven't been keeping a log of the ES. Today was my first day watching it and my plan was to just keep screen caps of the annotated charts.
Do you think that keeping a detailed log is helpful in staying focused? What format would you recommend starting with?
I feel that four pages a day is appropriate.
I divide my log into several vertical parts.
In the middle I make comments and on either side there is mostly facts.
The right side is the trading stuff and on the left, I keep a more or less technical running tab.
The day rolls along in about four moving parts and Midday. A page of about 16 rows suffices for each of the four moves.
Since I trade the ES and use the YM as a leading indicator, the left portion of the log shows this parallel but slightly offset logging.
I fill the major rows of a page in in advance since there is a sequence that unfolds. Another way to say it is that there are events that follow in an order that keeps repeatng.
So the major rows that have major events are separated by interim rows that log the minor events in between.
this approach is one where price change is important because the key result of price change is making money. I stay in the markets to do this.
The logging is just done about every five minutes when I am I between annotations and executing.
By having about 7 items for the YM and 6 items for the ES, I am able to comment when I get to the middle and I can look further down the sheet for the next upcoming major event in the sequence.
I use 6 levels of making money on ES and they are stated in terms of ticks/minute. I use three full page different charts to have available for reference as to when the the various levels occur during the day. They are graphically illustrated. If I am in one range at a given time, I know what the migration will be to go to the next range. If a trending day hits at the open, then I know that the four moves will just be extensions of the trending activity. The bottom dimensio of these charts is done by bars numbers which corresponds to the row ID's on the left.
On the right I do repeat bar #' as a convenience for tabbing trades by kind, market direction and contract level. Sometimes the contract volume is limited by one of the three charts mentioned above.
i have agenerally comfortable feeling as myemotions are generated by only the consideration of gathering a successful data set on the left. I turn away from the screens to fillin the comments that are columns for analysis, decision making and action.
Conclusion are jotted in the analysis column simply as beliefs that emerge into my consciousness by upwelling from my unconscious. they fill in autoatically and set me up to think about decisions.
I only make five different decisions and because all of my data sets are comparitive (look at the row above and jot same or change effect) vectors (size and direction). the data is separated from the decsion by a stated belief (conclusion) so there is not emotion after the feeling of success in gathering data.
I decide to hold moslty. That is an H on the row in the decision column. Many H's tell me I am making money on contracts that are in the market. other letters include R where I have to go further to the right in the log to note the results of the reverse in terms of price. I do not tab profits cummulatively but I often do tab the individual prifits to check against the rate in ticks/minute.
W for wait, E for entry and X for exit are rarely used decisions. The market price volume relaionship is stated in terms of hold (continue) and change (reverse) so entry and exit trading is antithetical to how the market works. It is impractical for making money continually.
Behavioral actions are listed as the trading stuff. I have a belief system and it handles my analysis and then decision making. My beliefs came from experience and watching the markets and I was told my beliefs by the market. Loggig is an effort that is conscious but by and away mot of the work of the mind is unconscious.
the conscious to unconscious rate per second of mental data processing is 10,000 to 20,000,000 so you can see the unconscious is in charge of making money effectively and efficiently. The conclusions of analyss are automatic for me.
If you look at the log as a collection of 3x5 cards, you can visualize the conscious and unconscious. A ball point dot per card is the conscious, the rest of the card is the unconscious data collected. A whole page of a log has many conscious marks on it. the amount of unconscious data is astounding.
When I mentor, at first, it is too grueling for a peron in their 20's or 30's to be able to do it. They haven't worked mentally before so they have to take breaks and just share some of the trading. Gradually they snap into shape by gaining stamina and skills of the mind.
It turns out to feel like sports memory after you reach a high level of making money. These levels are hard to explain but this is the way the market flows capital to people who want to take it.
atdays end you add many other pages to the log. your annotations on two whol charts, the tick chartsfor the whole day on both markets. they are important because tey are annotated and set up for the next day. I do a 32 part preflight check for the next day as well. Often I am running the sweeps chart in several colors as the money velocity break points occur.
This is not stuff that a person with an untrained mind can do easily. Recently at the Vegas Expo they had some live traing, I frightened a couple of the presenters by running ahead of the markets a few minutes as the didatic unfolded with audienc participation. I wasn't logging but just enjoying a relaxed routine of monitoring, analysis, decision making and not having to punch the trades.
In one meeting the presenter asked me sort of out of the blue how many pages a day I logged. Then he asked how long I had been doing it and finally he asked if I would send him some logs. This makes for problems at the end of presentations as you might imagine.
I'll be 74 next month lol.......
