Taking 410K to 4million by Year End 2010

[dst888]

NoD:

You sum up your success very nicely here.
You have developed a solid and reliable system with very high probability and you also execute your trades carefully and this combination ensure your excellent performance.
Question here is:
Do you think which part is more critical? Development of a reliable system or the execution? A lot of people in general think that the trading execution is more critical because it involves discipline, psychology and money management and others,
However, in a lot of situations when people were hesitated, forced and rushed to trade, entered or exited too early or too late were because their systems gave ambiguous signals so they got confused or misled or second guessed the market when they tried to make a decision. But on the other hand, once you have established a system that would work 90% of the time with minimal DD for the other 10%, the execution part should be essentially easier and not too stressful. Of course keeping alert to the market dynamics, it is important, but then again, if your system is accurate and robust enough, it would tell you what to do in time.
I think many people beating themselves hard on their discipline and psychological errors, it is probably the system they rely on is in need of improvement, and the system is the foundation that would offer CONSISTENT performance. Look at you, you work hard and smart to finally established a high probability and reliable system, now every day you profit handsomely no matter what, good day or bad day, feeling good and wonderful or feeling tired and lousy, you always end the day with GREEN.
Thank you for your reply in advance.

Quote from NoDoji:

I've laid out on this site exactly how I trade in painstaking detail. I posted my ugly messy journey in getting to where I am now. I've often posted my trading blotters and my charts with entries and exits and reasons so anyone can look at a chart and compare what I did to all the detail I've posted here about how I trade. I've described my thought processes behind the trade and also the crowd psychology behind the T/A. Not much more I can add at this point.

I spent months trading ES and CL in my sim account, month after month after month, because when I first started trading ES live I sucked. I'd either stop out for a scratch only to watch the trade move nicely without me, or I'd place a wider stop and that would get hit. I decided it just wasn't for me until I figured it out in sim.

Every night I moved my charts off the screen to the hard right edge and worked on choosing "A" setups, with entry, stop, and target (still do this, by the way). "A" setups have a lot of confluence, reinforced by a variety of factors that I've outlined in many previous posts. So I got to the point where I was having 90% win rate backtesting on paper and duplicating it in real-time in sim AS LONG AS I only took the best setups. It came down to trading with the trend or waiting for confirmed reversal, using momentum in my favor so I could quickly move stops to break even, and also curing myself of "miss the boat" disease where I'd get in too soon because I was afraid I'd miss a move. So what, you miss the first move, but the second move is confirmed and those trades are SO DAMN EASY!

I PM'd a friend on ET back in January after achieving this incredible record of backtesting on paper and sim trading and said, "I always feel like there should be NO reason to have a losing day, but that's crazy, or is it??? In the past when I was all confidence and no fear (and no risk mgmt as well) I seemed to have very long strings of winning days."

And he replied to me: "I know of no reason not to have many consecutive winning days."

I was plagued by this irrational fear (planted in my psyche by all the naysayers on ET) that as soon as I started trading futures live everything I achieved in paper/sim would vanish and I'd started losing everything, because I was told again and again that futures traders all blow up.

Well, I finally got over that, and guess what? Everything I was accomplishing in sim actually worked in my live account. Wow, imagine that!

I also have an incredible visual memory for patterns and numbers. I know the phone number of every store I've ever called, every friend I've ever called. I know my credit card numbers by heart, my VIN numbers at least 3 cars back. I keep thinking I'll run out of brain space someday but so far so good. So something as visual as trading is easy for me now that I mastered patterns that signal the easy trades.

I posted my trading blotter on ES Journal today. Look at those trades and tell me they weren't low risk/high reward setups.

I will have losing trades because even the best setups can fail, but I venture to guess that my losing days will remain very much in the minority. If I'm one day killed by a black swan event like yesterday's crash, well that's the nature of this business, anything can happen.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from jones247:

Hello NoDoji,

Would you mind mentioning the name of the thread where you laid out the details of how you trade the ES, as referenced below?

thanks,

Walt

Hi Walt,

It's not about how I trade the ES; it's about how I trade anything. I've told the story here a few times of how I'd never traded anything but stocks and my son was about to demo trade forex with a friend. He saw price had made a huge run up and wanted to sell short because "now it has to come down". I looked at the chart and told him, "No, that's a bull flag, it's going to break out." His reaction was to immediately sell short. And it broke out a couple minutes later, a full measured move up in just minutes.

Technical trading is about the same across the board, from what I can tell.

What held me back so long from trading CL & ES was the larger stop loss I had to deal with. It was a mental block and nothing more.

If you read my posts this year on CL Redux and ES Journal after I posted my trade blotter I think I've offered some of the most detailed reasons for my trades. That pretty much sums up in a nutshell what I look for in setups, why I place my stop where I do, what price I target and why. My journal "NoDoji's Day Trading Log" details my journey from dangerous counter-trend trading to consistent profitability.

I'm currently putting together a PDF of all my rules and setups which I intend to post here when done, to give back to this trading community some of the priceless information many have given me.

Quote from Math_Wiz:

Do you use memory tricks to remember your VIN numbers?

+-*/ Math_Wiz

No, I don't even WANT to remember them, but I see the number reflected in my windshield and it sticks in my brain. My brain is the Venus fly trap of numbers :eek:

 

[MsFutures]

Quote from NoDoji:

I've laid out on this site exactly how I trade in painstaking detail. I posted my ugly messy journey in getting to where I am now. I've often posted my trading blotters and my charts with entries and exits and reasons so anyone can look at a chart and compare what I did to all the detail I've posted here about how I trade. I've described my thought processes behind the trade and also the crowd psychology behind the T/A. Not much more I can add at this point.
/B]

Nodoji, "painstaking detail" indeed you have given free to the rest of us! Your methodology you have made no secret of it -- it is simple and clear. The Higher Highs, Lower Lows and cheapskate stops are your trademarks. If anybody doesn't realize you are an incredible gift to ET he is a biggest fool and needs some good spanking

Sorry Neke to chime off topic in your thread, but perhaps we all can learn from Nodoji's amazing disciplines. Good trading to you!

 

[jones247]

Thanks NoDoji,

Your insights are appreciated...

Walt

Quote from NoDoji:

Hi Walt,

It's not about how I trade the ES; it's about how I trade anything. I've told the story here a few times of how I'd never traded anything but stocks and my son was about to demo trade forex with a friend. He saw price had made a huge run up and wanted to sell short because "now it has to come down". I looked at the chart and told him, "No, that's a bull flag, it's going to break out." His reaction was to immediately sell short. And it broke out a couple minutes later, a full measured move up in just minutes.

Technical trading is about the same across the board, from what I can tell.

What held me back so long from trading CL & ES was the larger stop loss I had to deal with. It was a mental block and nothing more.

If you read my posts this year on CL Redux and ES Journal after I posted my trade blotter I think I've offered some of the most detailed reasons for my trades. That pretty much sums up in a nutshell what I look for in setups, why I place my stop where I do, what price I target and why. My journal "NoDoji's Day Trading Log" details my journey from dangerous counter-trend trading to consistent profitability.

I'm currently putting together a PDF of all my rules and setups which I intend to post here when done, to give back to this trading community some of the priceless information many have given me.



No, I don't even WANT to remember them, but I see the number reflected in my windshield and it sticks in my brain. My brain is the Venus fly trap of numbers :eek:

 

[MsFutures]

Quote from OptionsCharm:

Your methodology you have made no secret of it -- it is simple and clear. The Higher Highs, Lower Lows and cheapskate stops are your trademarks.

Though your methodology is "simple and clear", your excution of trades is mastery that it could be hard to learn for some (Ah, the dame elusive entries I always miss!). Also, I meant to say Higher Lows, and Lower Highs, LOL!

 

[pookie]

Quote from NoDoji:

Hi Walt,

It's not about how I trade the ES; it's about how I trade anything. I've told the story here a few times of how I'd never traded anything but stocks and my son was about to demo trade forex with a friend. He saw price had made a huge run up and wanted to sell short because "now it has to come down". I looked at the chart and told him, "No, that's a bull flag, it's going to break out." His reaction was to immediately sell short. And it broke out a couple minutes later, a full measured move up in just minutes.

Technical trading is about the same across the board, from what I can tell.

What held me back so long from trading CL & ES was the larger stop loss I had to deal with. It was a mental block and nothing more.

If you read my posts this year on CL Redux and ES Journal after I posted my trade blotter I think I've offered some of the most detailed reasons for my trades. That pretty much sums up in a nutshell what I look for in setups, why I place my stop where I do, what price I target and why. My journal "NoDoji's Day Trading Log" details my journey from dangerous counter-trend trading to consistent profitability.

I'm currently putting together a PDF of all my rules and setups which I intend to post here when done, to give back to this trading community some of the priceless information many have given me.



No, I don't even WANT to remember them, but I see the number reflected in my windshield and it sticks in my brain. My brain is the Venus fly trap of numbers :eek:

NoDoji, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all of your wonderful posts. I only "discovered" you a few weeks ago, and I have to say your journal and other posts have been a true inspiration to me and have helped me out tremendously. Thank you!

 

[No.Heat]

Neke,

Stop trading cash, it's overly clear that something it's amiss. It's so obvious you should stop whatever you are doing immediately and make sure you secure whatever balance you have left, which should be plentiful to get back on your feet whenever you tight the loose ends.

You need to collect your thoughts and do some serious studying because at the present time your risk management is horrible.

Here's how a trader should think:

Risk management above all. If you can lose X amount of dollars and you are not ok with that, no matter how much the reward is or how high the probability of obtaining such reward, the mere fact that the possibility exits and you are not ok with it, should be enough for you to say, "such trade should never be taken".

I've been around, I got the scars, this is my wisdom to you, hope you take it.

 

[JJacksET4]

Quote from No.Heat:

Neke,

Stop trading cash, it's overly clear that something it's amiss. It's so obvious you should stop whatever you are doing immediately and make sure you secure whatever balance you have left, which should be plentiful to get back on your feet whenever you tight the loose ends.

You need to collect your thoughts and do some serious studying because at the present time your risk management is horrible.

Here's how a trader should think:

Risk management above all. If you can lose X amount of dollars and you are not ok with that, no matter how much the reward is or how high the probability of obtaining such reward, the mere fact that the possibility exits and you are not ok with it, should be enough for you to say, "such trade should never be taken".

I've been around, I got the scars, this is my wisdom to you, hope you take it.

No Heat,

Personally I think that is very good advice - for example, I never do a credit spread where the max risk would be say $10,000 (unless I was willing to take that loss), but it would be very, very unlikely to ever happen - if there is any chance and I can't accept that loss - I won't do it (I would either reduce the # of spreads or increase protection, or whatever).

If a trader buys 500 shares of XYZ @$40 with no protection, their risk is $20K - not $10K because it's a good stock or something, not $5K because they know how to handle it, not 19K because of dividends coming - but 20K.

Neke has fallen from what I have seen from over $650K to not too much over $200K (yes, I think he withdrew some as well) - this is not a good sign - I understand Neke is going for the good gains, but like you said, it seems something is not working. What's funny is all the people who said what a good trader he was when he went from $100someK to $600K still seem to think he's a good trader??

I don't really know what else to say - I guess Neke will do whatever he does and whatever happens will happen, and if he is OK with that, then no big deal.

JJacksET4

 

[~~~]

Quote from JJacksET4:


I don't really know what else to say - I guess Neke will do whatever he does and whatever happens will happen, and if he is OK with that, then no big deal.

JJacksET4

There are many good & caring traders here that're really concern/worry for neke. All of us want to see neke to the path of success in trading.

However, my guess is same as JJacks - (neke will do what ever he does & whatever happens will happen , and if he is OK with that, then no big deal.)

After all ... it's his money & his decision.

i wish the very best for him...who knows, maybe he really able to hit his target of 4 million by year-end.
bonne chance et tout le meilleur.

 

[GrasshopperFX]

hey neke, so sorry about what has happened.
Clearly you need to stop as others have suggested.
Hope things work out and best of luck.