The definition of pain...

I

indahook

Is not taking a loss nor is it a drawdown. It is not even a position gapping against you.

The true definition of pain is having a system that shoots out 2-5 signals a year and not taking each and every one of them. My SPX system shot out an extreme BUY on Monday on the close when it was at 1407. While sitting in some mildy profitable positions I decided to not sell anything to take this one and buy ES after the close. My cold hard reality is that a marginal year could have been turned into an outstanding year with one trade. If I only traded this system I would make about 200 points a year. And now I have missed half that. Complacency is my enemy...

So lesson shared here is take every f`n signal you get...

Mondays close 1407

Todays last tick 1484



Good trading to you all!
 
Not at all. You would have bought at 1408 and sold out at 1409 and felt even worse than you do now. In reality, it's a good thing that you didn't make the trade.
 
I trade systems myself and I must admit it takes brass balls to remain disciplined and take each and every trade like clockwork. I just force myself and (try to) switch off any emotions. Often enough, many awful feeling entries turn out to be great winners.
 
Quote from nazzdack:

Not at all. You would have bought at 1408 and sold out at 1409 and felt even worse than you do now. In reality, it's a good thing that you didn't make the trade.
More...

I dont trade ticks. You have me mixed up with someone else.

For this system my stop is about 15-20 handles..depending on a fixed % of the rolling avg of winning signals.
 
Quote from makloda:

I trade systems myself and I must admit it takes brass balls to remain disciplined and take each and every trade like clockwork. I just force myself and (try to) switch off any emotions. Often enough, many awful feeling entries turn out to be great winners.
More...

No kidding. It wasnt even like I had a feeling about the trade. I just ignored the signal...as if I could afford that. Lesson learned.
 
Maybe I'm alone on this one, but, I trade both systemically and discretionarily and I find that trading my system to be so much harder with respect to keeping good discipline. Much harder than trading purely discretionarily by a long shot...

It's because my system automatically puts me into the difficult *highly uncomfortable* trades. These trades often show the largest gains... however, the problem for me is in holding these system trades to their full potential, I just get anxious and take partial profits so as to relieve some of the anxiety of my profits being eaten away. Sometimes I'm right and the profits do go away, sometimes I'm wrong and the trade runs hard in my direction after I get out - those days make me wonder if I'm really cut out for this buisness.... I always come back though, each time with a bit more discipline.

Everyone has their faults and this is mine. It will be a lifelong battle to overcome this I suspect, I'm getting better with time, but, its been a while and the progress is slow and intense. I'm open to any thoughts on how some deal with this... my goal is to just practice day-in/day-out and recognize those thoughts that cause anxiety from the onset and not act on them.... much easier said than done.

Regards,

Mike
 
yes that is exactly why i struggled so hard to automate my trading strategy. to remove the damn human from the trading. so basically i just babysit my autotrader now, and i dont touch it ever unless theres a obvious problem.
 
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