tampa's "short skirt" trades...
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Originally posted by daniel_m
well tampa, that good old trend is indeed only your friend until it ends, isn't it!
be prepared to for a new training-wheel stage with the technique, and for a tough mental challenge on your pysche. one day won't do this. keep that chin up.
...(sigh)
I, and I assume this applies to most traders, have a habit of suspending reality from time to time. As I mentioned earlier, it has become apparent to me that more of my scalps would be profitable were I to increase my normal 2 point stop. The problem here is that I scalp in the direction of the one-minute chart, and yesterday's trades were neither scalps, nor in the direction off the one-minute chart!
You are quite correct. The 5 point stop was absurd.
I was out of my element - no two ways about it. Clearly, I will continue to slowly bleed unless and until I stay with what I understand, and am best suited for.
If you'll recall, the entire purpose of this exercise was simply to get me to hold on for just a little bit longer. (like going for 2 points, instead of a half or so). Obviously I have strayed far afield of the original intent.
yes that's right. to hold a little longer on the short skirts strategy. did you really give an honest effort in applying this? i'm not sure that you did. and that's part of the problem.
if indeed this strategy does have a long term positive expectancy (post a link to it if you can, otherwise i'll look it up later), i don't really think you gave yourself enough of a chance to realise it. even just a few solid wins (you know, 3-5 points; the kind of stuff that would make Old Trader proud
) would have given you great confidence in the approach, enabling you to pull the trigger and then sit on a lot more trades. i might be wrong, but i don't think that sort of confidence is built by scrapping the method after only a couple of days (and you didn't even apply it properly in those couple of days!) and jumping onto something else. ultimately, the intent of every trader is to find something that works for him, so i'm not saying you should commit to the short skirts idea and then either live or die by it.
i think most people, well, some people (i won't jump to conclusions) start these ET journals as a way to get themselves to make a public commitment to their trading plans; as a way of enforcing discipline. but if you're ready and willing to lie down and call yourself a flake (pardon my frankness) then that public pressure to stay true to your word is squandered.
nevertheless, lest i've just compelled to you to jump off a bridge
D), this hasn't been an exercise in futility. you've just learnt quite a lot about what kind of behavior DOESN'T work. that's pretty valuable information, if you ask me. and the best way to capitalise on that information, would be stop repeating that behavior, and adopt a new set of actions. that part i leave up to you.Let me just say that answering this question is not really fair since it has the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Having said this, I did happen to be long, so here's the process I went through:
1) I want to get out before the weekend (sometimes I will carry positions overnight, but usually not over a weekend). Therefore, I have to pick some type of spot to sell.
2) I think the SP 500 has big resistance around the 850-860 zone....we're below that so it might run a little farther.
3) The NQ has resistance around the 900 area....it was trading around that price as we made the highs. This makes me alert to the idea of selling since it's unlikely that NQ makes a large further move on Friday at least without some jockeying around. If the NQ is jockeying around a resistance area, let alone backing off, it makes progress for the ES much more difficult, if not unlikely.
4) The Dow is up 300+ points, a huge day by any measure. Daytraders are apt to be long, and therefore will be sellers near the end of the day.
5) Trin is low and favorable, making a major reversal unlikely, but tick has had multiple moves above 1000 upticks, meaning that there could be at least some profit taking.
Those are the thoughts that I was thinking, not in any particular order. Of those thoughts, the most important to me were #3 and #4.
As it turned out I should have acted a little quicker, because I was looking at #3 right at the high of the day. A sale would have got me out right at the high. As it was, I sold the ES a little later, as it broke down through the 840 area.
Had I been Tampa I might have rang the register at 10 points, since a 10 point move sometimes engenders some retracement, particularly when the ticks are huge as they were at that time. When I look at the 1 minute chart today, a chart that I believe Tampa watches, it looks like it broke a trendline around the 840 type of area which would have been enough for me certainly.
I might add that as to my own position I was in differently than Tampa, with a different type of trade, so I was perhaps evaluating differently.
That gives you some thoughts. I've mentioned before I look at alot of different things, so that gives you some of the thought process I was going through.
OldTrader
...and most of us have gone through something fairly similar, whether in trading or elsewhere...
I don't think that trading just one simple set-up on one tradable all day, every day is easy: Successfully doing it would require a very high level of discipline - probably instilled by training and externally reinforced. As your mind and emotions wander, as self-recrimination becomes a temptation, and as self-sabotage increasingly becomes a threat, keeping a public journal may help enforce the discipline, but it obviously can have the opposite effect, too.
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