The BS sim journal...Add your own BS!

[Overnight]

(BS here means bilateral stoicism, to appease the children who might read this thread).

Sure, why not! Let's post our fake sim BS results here, so we can learn how stupid sim can be, but also how smart it can make us! (Or can it?)

Here's this past week for me...The summary first and the trades. Sim is so awful. Snoopy bleh.

Isn't that terrible? How sim lulls you into a false sense of security and lets you believe you can actually achieve that performance? Because it CANNOT. This performance is NOT POSSIBLE IN LIVE. And I am not talking about the difference between sim and live fills. This goes much deeper. Maybe this should be in the psychology section? I dunno'.

The above performance assumes that I have a bit of scratch in about 7 different live accounts. So it would have taken, oh, 25K in each account to achieve it, so that is $150K in total (the extra i$25K s to account for cost overruns.)

 

[wrbtrader]

Overnight,

Thanks for sharing your past week of simulator results.

A few questions...

1) The amount of capital you're trading in sim...does it correlate with the amount of capital you would be trading with real money as in you have that amount of real money in your trading account (not in the bank) ?

2) The trades in your sim account...did they correlate to your actual trading plan ?

3) Your trading plan has a positive expectancy when backtested ?

4) I notice your position size changed in many trades...did you do the same in your backtesting and do you do the same type of position size management in your real money trading ?

5) You traded the past week in CL, HO, YM, NQ, GC and ZS. Not sure what is ZS...soybeans ?

That's crude oil futures, heating oil futures, index futures, gold futures and soybeans futures...all in the same week. Do you freak out when trying to do the same when you switch to your live account for real money trading ?

That's a ton of navigation to do between trading instruments so very different. My head would be spinning in real money trading but not in simulator if I attempted to do the same.

6) Is your simulator trade execution platform the exact same as your live account trade execution platform ?

Yeah, this is deep psychology stuff....medicine man or soul healer. You may need to find someone your trust that watches you in person as you trade on the simulator for one week and then watch you again when you try navigating into real money trading.

That other person may see things that you're unable to notice on your own as you navigate back n forth between the two...simulator and real money trading. If successful trading is your goal, shouldn't take you long to find someone from your neighborhood. Preferrably someone that will take very good notes of what they see...maybe do short videos for you to review later to see the differences yourself.

Don't blame the simulator...it may be just you or how you're using that simulator versus how your trading on the same trade execution platform when you trade with real money.

wrbtrader

 

[Overnight]

Overnight,

Thanks for sharing your past week of simulator results.

A few questions...

1) The amount of capital you're trading in sim...does it correlate with the amount of capital you would be trading with real money as in you have that amount of real money in your trading account (not in the bank) ?

Yes, if I had 25K in each of those accounts live, that is what I could try, as they are all day trades.

2) The trades in your sim account...did they correlate to your actual trading plan ?

Please do not say that word "plan" to me. I had a "plan", but my plan went away when the volatility first struck in February-April of this year, and came back at beginning of October. (There's a live journal of mine here with my "plan" with the real trades, which came to a halt in February. It is a fun journal, I liked it there. I'm still working on bringing it back. But I will not post a new trade entry there until I make back the 20K I lost in Feb.)

3) Your trading plan has a positive expectancy when backtested ?

I do not backtest, I forward test. By trading.

4) I notice your position size changed in many trades...did you do the same in your backtesting and do you do the same type of position size management in your real money trading ?

I do not backtest. Position size? Hell no, I would never trade 10-lots with my real accounts. This is why sim is poison.

5) You traded the past week in CL, HO, YM, NQ, GC and ZS. Not sure what is ZS...soybeans ?

That's crude oil futures, heating oil futures, index futures, gold futures and soybeans futures...all in the same week. Do you freak out when trying to do the same when you switch to your live account for real money trading ?

That's a ton of navigation to do between trading instruments so very different. My head would be spinning in real money trading but not in simulator if I attempted to do the same.

No. I can easily switch between my charts and instruments and accounts with a simple flick of the hotkey I have. But I can tell you, having only one monitor to look through all this shit is very draining on the head. I sometimes wonder if having a huge multi-monitor set-up would have helped me over these past 5 years. (I am inclined to think yes, it would have helped me a great deal.)

6) Is your simulator trade execution platform the exact same as your live account trade execution platform ?

Yes, I use NT7 for both sim and live. I have MT5 as a backup execution platform, but have not needed it yet for emergency trading. After all, there is always the phone call to the broker for fast-trading needs.

Yeah, this is deep psychology stuff....medicine man or soul healer. You may need to find someone your trust that watches you in person as you trade on the simulator for one week and then watch you again when you try navigating into real money trading.

That other person may see things that you're unable to notice on your own as you navigate back n forth between the two...simulator and real money trading. If successful trading is your goal, shouldn't take you long to find someone from your neighborhood. Preferrably someone that will take very good notes of what they see...maybe do short videos for you to review later to see the differences yourself.

Don't blame the simulator...it may be just you or how you're using that simulator versus how your trading on the same trade execution platform when you trade with real money.

 

[Overnight]

I wish to expound upon this question...

3) Your trading plan has a positive expectancy when backtested ?

You can "backtest" all the live long day and have it work. And my "backtest" by forward testing did work. For a couple of years. Then the whole trading world blew up in February of this year, and now we have multiple percentage moves day after day. My backtesting in the past anticipated a large move once per year (1-2%) and could deal with it. But 1-2% moves on a daily/weekly basis? Nope, sorry, my backtesting did not incorporate it, so all the backtesting in the world back then means shit now. So there is zero reason to backtest now, or ever. Backtesting is pointless in this age.

 

[qlai]

I'm not following ... You make money on sim but not live? And you have stats for both. So you are saying you know why but can't help it?

 

[qlai]

These stats look "too good" to me. 80% win rate is market making kind of stuff. Avg win == avg loss == MFE == MAE. Maybe the risk profile of your strategy is the problem, not psychology? Just thinking out loud, not a criticism.

 

[wrbtrader]

I wish to expound upon this question...

3) Your trading plan has a positive expectancy when backtested ?

You can "backtest" all the live long day and have it work. And my "backtest" by forward testing did work. For a couple of years. Then the whole trading world blew up in February of this year, and now we have multiple percentage moves day after day. My backtesting in the past anticipated a large move once per year (1-2%) and could deal with it. But 1-2% moves on a daily/weekly basis? Nope, sorry, my backtesting did not incorporate it, so all the backtesting in the world back then means shit now. So there is zero reason to backtest now, or ever. Backtesting is pointless in this age.

In reference to the index futures YM & NQ...

How did your real trading perform in July, August and September of 2018 in comparison to your simulator trading for the same months ?

I'm curious about the same thing for the entire year of 2017 ?

wrbtrader

 

[Overnight]

In reference to the index futures YM & NQ...

How did your real trading perform in July, August and September of 2018 in comparison to your simulator trading for the same months ?

I'm curious about the same thing for the entire year of 2017 ?

wrbtrader

My problem is that I haven't done any real trading in 2018 aside from Jan-March (Net loss $800 day/swing), and end of Sept into middleish of October (Net loss $9000 swing). My trading style would have fared well in between April and October 3rd, but I sat out, getting back in at the worst possible time for my method.

All of 2017 was a triumph, made $30K. Not bad for 1 contract trades I like to think.

 

[Overnight]

Looking through the journal, note trades 74-77, the NQ short. That was an attempt to do a bit of scaling-in and it worked beautifully. Entered with one CT, then saw it could be going well so added another one on top. Except when I went to exit, I accidentally sold 2 instead of buying 2. Ooops! After 10-15 seconds I decided that nope, I made a mistake, stop sitting there and see if it would work. You made a mistake, Overnight, GTFO of the trade. So I did.

That is really the only value sim trading has to me, which is you can evaluate your own actions and look for mistakes without them costing you money.

 

[Overnight]

Hmm, why is nobody else posting their fake trades here? Are people really afraid of sim journals also? Geez guys, it is all BS anyway, so post the unreal! Go down the rabbit hole!

This past week, continuing on...

As you can see, performance was way worse this week than last week. Made almost just as many trades, but only 6K profit, not 30K. But the percent of profitable trades is basically unchanged. What the hell can I learn from that? Ack!