The Evolution of an E-mini Trader

Originally posted by Magna
H,

Are your missed entries things you saw realtime but for one reason or another decided not to take. Or are they things you catch at the end of the day when you review the total chart and can see the big picture. Or some combination?
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All my arrows for the ME's are drawn during the day, as they happen. I see them real time, and "for some reason or another" I am not taking them. I see the setup, have my trigger bar, know what price I am supposed to enter, and then when that price hits, I hesitate, then she goes beyond my price, then it is a chase trade (and immediately my head starts with "Don't chase, don't chase") Actually, today I was wondering about getting in if she retraces back up to my entry price. ie, T1 entry price was 942.50 on the 10:06 bar. The 10:09 bar rose back up to that price, and I almost took the trade. Then the 10:15 bar came up to the price also, and I almost took it again.

I believe my underlying problem to the "not pulling the trigger", is that I am not embracing the risk of the trade, and the possibility of losing.

I'm scared of blowing this account, because if I do, it is back to the daily grind till I save up enough to do this again, and I don't have a liscence to practice (Chiropractic) in NC, only PA, so I can't even go back to that.

I serve a God that owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and my faith is so little in the financial area, that I want to hang on to my measly 10K.

I say this with all humility. God has used me for miraculous healings, deliverance of demonic posessed, reconciliation of relationships, and other things to numerous to mention, and I give Him all the glory for all those things, yet, when it comes to finances, I have the faith of an ameoba (smallest thing I can think of). Has He provided for me before, when it comes to money, countless times, yet, that fear is still indwelling. God forgive me.

This is why He led me to this profession. To get me to deal with this. And I am doing a miserable job. The bottom line, is do I trust God and take the trades, or I take it into my own hands, and screw it up. The choice is mine, and mine alone.
 
This is getting too weird for me. sorry.
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maybe enter on stops and let the market get you in.
Trueth is that you probably have to burn through that 10k or maybe a couple 10k stakes to make it. At least for me thats the experience.

I hope you make it through. Maybe you can try one of those trailing stop programs out there for Interactive Brokers. I have one if you want to use it.
 
The guy I cleared with on the floor said the key in trading was learning how to move in and out of the market smoothly without getting burned too bad.

Trading one trade a day is probably reinforcing the wrong reactions in you.

You also need to look at a tick chart to see what the market is really doing.

You recognized that the market was rising although you entered at the 3 min high, but you needed to cover right away. The .75 point profit would have been just fine instead you hung on for a 2 point loss which is WAY too much. Your profit targets are also too high. You are looking for the triple when you just need to get on base.

Try trading this way for a while until you get used to having a position open. Put on a position at a good entry point then try to exit right away with a limit order for a .25 point profit.

Just learn not to lose. Then you can work on making money later.
 
i've followed the thread a little off and on, and that post hit me like a ton of bricks! so God gets the credit for the good things and you get the blame for the bad things? whoa! hey man, if you are going to let God control your trading, then put on a blindfold, punch keys and let your faith do the rest. otherwise, be a man and take responsibility for your actions!
maybe you should paper trade until you have more confidence in your system.. i hope you dont need trading income off that 5k or 10k to pay the bills!!
 
must be one of Dark's favorite subject but here is my very brief 2c, God love you no matter what you do, my God might be different from yours (I'm Buddhist) but there is some basic concept that we can agree on. I am responsible for my own action, my action in the name of God may or may not please my God, there is no way for me to 'check in' with him to see how I am doing, my action have no affect on His being for I'm a mere speck of dust in His eye.
 
I was looking at your chart from 8-22. Your ME2 and ME3 identified some super entry points perfectly except you didn't trade them.

In many of your trades, you bought at the high of the bar. Of course the market is going to go against you almost immediately when you do that. Then you get stopped out. All those little .50 point hits add up. You need to enter at the bottom of the range.

There is nothing wrong with your ME entry points other than that you dont trade them.

Do this even though it will make you sick. Buy at the bottom of a range only (in a rising market of course). Dont jump on a market right after it pops thinking its going to break out right then and there. You'll get stopped out every time.

I can see what triggers you to trade, you like to jump on market when it zooms up. Maybe that worked for stocks at one time, but futures is a trading vehicle. They dont move like that. Futures run up a little quickly, then back off, then run up some more. If you buy right at the peak of the run up, you'll lose money.

Look at a tick chart to see how futures markets really move. Sometimes they don't match up against the bars that well. You have eSignal so you can get tick charts.
 
Originally posted by PuffyGums
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Buy at the bottom of a range only (in a rising market of course). Dont jump on a market right after it pops thinking its going to break out right then and there. You'll get stopped out every time.
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with ranges - you also mean bull flags for example - right? but if you buy at the lower end of a flag (or at what looks like a flag at this point) - while it's still "under construction" - your entry point might not be better (or even worse) than an entry at the ultimate breakout of the flag (trend continuation). you never know how long it takes - how low/high the consolidation goes - until a trend picks up again.

what do you think?
 
Originally posted by Huios

I serve a God that owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and my faith is so little in the financial area, that I want to hang on to my measly 10K.

I say this with all humility. God has used me for miraculous healings, deliverance of demonic posessed, reconciliation of relationships, and other things to numerous to mention, and I give Him all the glory for all those things, yet, when it comes to finances, I have the faith of an ameoba (smallest thing I can think of). Has He provided for me before, when it comes to money, countless times, yet, that fear is still indwelling. God forgive me.

This is why He led me to this profession. To get me to deal with this. And I am doing a miserable job. The bottom line, is do I trust God and take the trades, or I take it into my own hands, and screw it up. The choice is mine, and mine alone.
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huios..

"if you have faith as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain.." :).. im sure you know the rest.. but i think the most telling scripture is the one that says "he who fears has not been made perfect in love".. before i started trading i didnt have any "issues".. at least i didnt think i did :).. but its amazing how this profession can help you find them.. and once i recognized what they were and how i came to acquire them, i still didnt know how to fix them.. but i attended a week long school a few weeks back that really opened my eyes.. and, for the first time i can see a way out of this mess.. if you want more info, pm me and ill send you some links.. its Christian based, and from what ive read i think it would fit in with your theology.. good trading :)

-qwik
 
gee whiz, i turned my attention for just a minute to write that last post and lost 7pts on the nq.. good thing the simulator isnt real money :).. now if i could only remember if that triangle on 7/15 broke to the down or up.. :)

-qwik
 
Originally posted by Huios
This is why He led me to this profession. To get me to deal with this. And I am doing a miserable job. The bottom line, is do I trust God and take the trades, or I take it into my own hands, and screw it up. The choice is mine, and mine alone.
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Huios,

I have been reading your journal and I want to say that I have the utmost respect for you.

When you say, "I am doing a miserable job", please don't be too hard on yourself. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of traders - have at one point in time or another have said and felt the same thing. I know that I have.

The bottom line is - do I trust my method or do I hesitate to enter - get out early - etc. based on my fear of losing my money.
Well the bottom line is - I must let my winners run beyond my stop outs in order to see net positive to my account. I still struggle with letting winners run.

Many times I have seen a trade turning green and told myself, "I need that 50 dollars and 'click' I'm out of a position that went on to pay much more, with me sitting there feeling like a moron for not staying with the position. The bottom line is that I can go broke cutting my winners too short - taking profits far too early. My method is a decent simple method - the majority of the time that I am not net positive is purely because of my own lack of discipline - fear, it's all between my ears.

On one of these recent threads (don't remember which one), AllenZ made a post where he was talking about "Us = traders" having a good method/ edge/ plan and that we can have a tendency to "out-think" our method. I do it frequently and my method is making $ whilst I'm brooding over not entering the trade.

Well I have a lot of work to do in this area, let me tell you. I suppose it is good to trust the god of our understanding whatever/whoever we perceive god to be, however we can trust god all we want to, but if we don't tie up our horses they are probably going to be in the neighbors garden.

So maybe we are going to have to fake it, until we make it and trust our methods and make those entries with or without a sign from god. Huios, if I was sitting in front of my mission control and was considering whether or not to make an entry( market always asks me "do you REALLY wanta do this".....lol..) and I started looking for a sign from god. Even if god sent me a lightning bolt saying make that trade, what are you waiting for. I'm liable to not quite like the color of the lightning bolt and still not be satisfied.

My point is simply this, I belive that in order to be consistently profitable, I have to stop "Out-Thinking" my trading method! and that's my bottom line!

Keep the losses short Huios and let's work on playing the winners and making our entries - through the fear! I am striving to reach the day that I trust myself (discipline), and my method and know in my very inner being that it's all a probabilities game that I am playing correctly and that I am always consistently profitable overtime and I no longer feel any fear in my trading. I'm not there yet. So I gotta feel the fear and do it anyway! :)

Best regards and keep up the good work, you are going to become a master trader. The game is a process.

Plumlazy
 
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