Yukoner's Psychological Trading Journal

[Stocks4life]

I use to have the auto BE+1 set (fixed to engage after a few pts, NQ), use to get me out of all kind of big profit runs early, It would trigger I get stopped out (my chimp brain gets flustered, I don't re enter) and then it runs to the full target. Now I set it out of the noisy entry area and let the trade develop. If I am wrong then there is no way it is gonna reach my target, then just sit back and relax, balance on 1 foot, go make some coffee, etc...

+1 on the chimp brain, mines always getting in the way...

 

[Datum]

I have a tab in my excel sheet called "intervention"

I monitor my closed trades. Initial SL and TP VS the way I managed the trade (cutting the loss before it hits my SL or cutting my profit before it hits my TP).

Below is the graph. Obviously the red line is the initial SL and TP. The "If I let my trades alone" equity curve. And the blue line is my intervention equity curve.

if I sat on my hands, went for a walk, have a shower, etc etc, after I entered a trade, I would have been 116 ticks richer this November. How much is a tick worth to you?

My intervention, caused by my THINKING (of course), costs me money.

hope this helps!

 

[aquarian1]

I didn't realize there was a difference between having rules versus clear rules especially considering my "rules" statement was about your "clear rules" statement. I'll make sure I use exact words next time.
I'm glad that's cleared up.

Do you take the fool's pleasure in delighting in your own foolishness?

Yukoner's main weakness that I saw was he did not have clear rules for closing a profitable trade. So you think you're cute with "rules" and "clear rules."

The result he doesn't see the need to clarify what his rules for closing a profitable trade.
Here is the result:
"Day #16 - Started the day off with good entries, but then just couldn't hold them... I did two trades almost right away where I closed them with a 2 or 3 tick contribution only to see it go up to my 30 tick default take profit. I was super frustrated, and kept reminding myself that this is exactly what I didn't want to do."

So newbie1 you killed his chance to get good feedback on his need to clarify his rules for closing a profitable trade, and he has a -$-1207 day.
(In most combines that means he is out!)

From page 2
"Again, reminded myself to wait patiently for the entry. I got in again, and right away I was up 15 ticks or so... fast moving market today was. Half of me was screaming that I should be adding to the position, the other half of me was screaming to lock in 10 ticks and have a profitable day. Such a fast moving day in crude, with huge swings, without hardly thinking about it I moved my stop up to lock in 10 ticks and ended up withdrawing 10 ticks. So now I am ahead for the day, and that felt good.... but that was totally the wrong thing to do. Had I stuck to my plan and trailed my stop, it was an easy 50 tick gain."

So he killed a profitable trade +50 to lock in 10 ticks. This was his flaw in taking little profits and not sticking have a clear rule for profitable trades that he follows.
He is making the same mistake on day 16 as on day 2.


Cutsie newbie1 your delight in your own foolishness stopped him from fixing his key flaw.


Clearly Yukon is a good trader to even get past the ridiculous rules TopStep has and get as far as he did. Now he has the demoralization of getting knocked out needlessly.

Well-done oh newbie1!

 

[Yukoner]

Update for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week:

I know of a few traders who endorse setting your stop loss and take profit, and then make no adjustments to it what so ever. I believe Futures71 does this, and I heard today a comment of Bob Iacinno saying "the clearest you will think in a trade is before you put it on." and I believe he endorses this also.

So I am going to try an experiment for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, and this is in a brand new combine.

Here is the experiment:

Nothing else about my trading plan changes with two exceptions:

1) I set my stop loss risk and my take profit and then can make no trade adjustments with the exception of #2.

2) I can make one adjustment to my stop loss, but only if I am in profit the same amount of the original stop loss, and then I can only adjust stop loss to breakeven minus half of original stop loss.

Example: My default settings on T4 are risking 14 ticks and going for 30 tick gain. Therefore, if I was in profit 14 ticks then I could adjust my stop loss to breakeven -7 ticks, but then I have to leave it alone until either the stop is hit or the take profit.

What do I expect to accomplish from this? Well, it will be an exercise in discipline, and secondly it will force me to put trades on and just leave them alone and let them work. Often I see the market quite well, but I don't stick with those winners... so as hard as it will be to try this, I am going to give it a shot. It isn't my preferred method of trading, and seems wrong... but today I am going to start giving wrong a hug.

Will keep you posted...

 

[wrbtrader]

Yokoner,

You've mentioned several emotional problems you're having in your trading. None of them involved trading itself. Yet, you've gone back to believing making "a few" changes in the actual trading will resolve your emotional problems. Simply, your emotional problems will continue sabotaging your trading because you've fallen into that group of traders that believe if I tweak this in my strategy...things will finally work.

This solution will only resolve the issue of don't let a winning trade become a losing trade. It will not encourage you to let your winners go to profit target unless this new trade management rule you've designed is automated upon trade entry. Thus, you put your trade on and walk away because if you're planning on doing such manually and then continue watching your trade position...you're emotional problems will not allow you to let you winners go to profit target.

Once again, you have numerous problems you've briefly mentioned here in your thread about emotions and I suspect other issues you're not talking about. This new trade management rule only resolves just one issue...not the other issues.

Don't be mistaken, changing rules is good if you've backtested them to determine their merits. Just don't be mistaken in thinking that changing rules will make you successful while you continue trading with those unresolved emotional issues.

Fix the emotional issues first...trading can wait.

 

[wrbtrader]

Do you take the fool's pleasure in delighting in your own foolishness?

Yukoner's main weakness that I saw was he did not have clear rules for closing a profitable trade. So you think you're cute with "rules" and "clear rules."

aquarian1,

You're rebuttal to me is childish. Shame on you trying to use his struggles to aim your crap replies to me after his failure...as if you're someone to young that should know better than behave as a kid holding a grudge.

The OP (Yokoner) clearly stated he has a trading plan. I do not care if he has good rules or bad rules involving his trade strategy. Further, I do not care if he details every single step of his trading plan just for you to analyze. His journal is about his emotional problems that sabotages any rules he may be using in his trading.

You can easily discuss with him via private message about the details of his trade strategies on any given trading day without your childish rebuttals to me in public. Therefore, do not pretend that I'm giving him advice about his trade strategies (rules). In contrast, I'm interested in the emotional aspects as his journal originally begun in the psychology section of this forum. Thus, his journal is not in the "trade strategy" section of the forum but if Yokoner and you want to turn his journal into a trade strategy discussion involving you giving him specific advice about his trading rules...that's between you, him and it will not involve me. Therefore, stop trying to start crap with me about his rules with your sarcastic replies to me.

Another way to look at it, if he tells me his journal is no longer about his emotions and is about his actual trade strategy...I will stop posting in his journal and you can then try to encourage him to make any types of tweaks to his trade strategy rules without any further commentary from me.

Hopefully, you'll be mature in your replies to me going forward after I've been very clear (no sarcasm) and honest about listening to his emotional issues along with giving advice about such.

P.S. I'm not a psychologist nor is it my academic background. I just have a strong interest in the psychological aspects of trading because too many traders are unintentionally allowing it to sabotage their trading regardless if they have the best trading rules in the world or the worst trading rules in the world.

The issue here in this journal (at least for the recent combine) is not rules...its emotions and psychology. I know nothing about his rules beyond him saying he has rules for his trade strategy. Note: I am now newly aware of him talking about a tweak to his rules for a new combine.

P.S.S. If he lied when he stated he had rules when he did not...that's on him only and nobody else.

 

[Stocks4life]

Yokoner,

If you had/have ninjartader, I would say go back and do some market replay on old days, far enough back so you don't remember the day and work out these issues. No need to do a combine, you have a lot of work ahead of you.

 

[Fortissimus]

Lots of famous people hit emotional ruts and they take a leave of absence to fix things prior to trying to resume their careers.

What wrbtrader is saying here is spot on. Wrbtrader is one of the guys you want to listen to on ET because he is probably one of the most experienced traders that frequent this forum. Do not let others convince you otherwise by their opinions.

I can tell you are very passionate about trading and for this reason, don't give up. However, sometimes it is good to just step away for a little bit to reflect on what you are doing both right and wrong. This gives you an opportunity to fix issues rationally, instead of impulsively trying random fixes while trading in combines/live/sim/whatever. It really takes some time to sell your brain on an idea and to be able to accept a new way of doing business psychologically IMHO. Most of your method may be solid and sometimes you just need a week to recenter yourself away from the tick by tick action. Maybe you need longer, I don't know, that is up to you to decide.

Oh, and another thing... Watch out for these forums and everyone's advice on how to trade. If you are struggling, many others want to help out which is a good thing, but sometimes it becomes idea overload and it can really start to pull you in a million directions. For example, I would love to go into detail about the BE +1/letting winners run topic with you, but it would just be one more person telling you another way to skin a cat that I myself am PSYCHOLOGICALLY okay with. Then you have everyone chiming in and the next thing you know, you feel your trading is very flawed and your confidence begins to evaporate. Granted this is a forum and discussion is the whole idea, just watch out for idea overload. Try and keep things simple and find out what works with your head.

 

[Yukoner]

Yokoner,

You've mentioned several emotional problems you're having in your trading. None of them involved trading itself. Yet, you've gone back to believing making "a few" changes in the actual trading will resolve your emotional problems. Simply, your emotional problems will continue sabotaging your trading because you've fallen into that group of traders that believe if I tweak this in my strategy...things will finally work.

This solution will only resolve the issue of don't let a winning trade become a losing trade. It will not encourage you to let your winners go to profit target unless this new trade management rule you've designed is automated upon trade entry. Thus, you put your trade on and walk away because if you're planning on doing such manually and then continue watching your trade position...you're emotional problems will not allow you to let you winners go to profit target.

Once again, you have numerous problems you've briefly mentioned here in your thread about emotions and I suspect other issues you're not talking about. This new trade management rule only resolves just one issue...not the other issues.

Don't be mistaken, changing rules is good if you've backtested them to determine their merits. Just don't be mistaken in thinking that changing rules will make you successful while you continue trading with those unresolved emotional issues.

Fix the emotional issues first...trading can wait.

@wrbtrader , first let me say thanks for your generosity in posting a reply. I completely agree that the unresolved emotional issues have to be fixed, and that is the purpose of this journal and my coaching. To become better, and to find the blind spots that I have inherited from my family lineage.

I don't believe a "few changes" in the actual trading will resolve the emotional issues, but I will argue that it should confront them, weaken them, and somewhat protect me. I have a fair amount of discipline, and by focusing on these new rules I know I can do that and not make adjustments. My concern is that I tweak my methodology or don't take entries because of these new rules.

Lastly, the continued trading will force me to deal with these unresolved emotional issues. Such as the fear of being wrong, which I know comes from the ultra conservative fundamentalist upbringing. I don't like being wrong, I don't like admitting I am wrong, and the problem with the winning trades was that I constantly was cutting them short.... probably because I felt I needed to have an almost perfect exit.

My methodology is sound. When I am calm, I trade very well. I had three live sessions with my psych coach who watched me trade... each time he helped me breath and relax myself, and I traded live with him and made ticks. The challenge is learning to stay in that zone and just letting myself trade well.

Good Trades,
Yukoner

 

[NoDoji]

Here is the experiment:

Nothing else about my trading plan changes with two exceptions:

1) I set my stop loss risk and my take profit and then can make no trade adjustments with the exception of #2.

2) I can make one adjustment to my stop loss, but only if I am in profit the same amount of the original stop loss, and then I can only adjust stop loss to breakeven minus half of original stop loss.

Example: My default settings on T4 are risking 14 ticks and going for 30 tick gain. Therefore, if I was in profit 14 ticks then I could adjust my stop loss to breakeven -7 ticks, but then I have to leave it alone until either the stop is hit or the take profit.

Have you tested all your previous trades (the ones that were entered by the rules of your plan) to see if # 2 trade management produces a more positive result than #1?

The only reason I see to move a stop loss closer is if the stats or rules based on stats support this move.

For example, I have a particular entry method for range and counter-trend trades where it makes sense statically to move my stop to break even if a certain level is reached. In a with-trend situation, however, this move would result in less profits over time.

I've never had a positive result over time from moving a stop somewhat closer (such as a 15-tick stop moved to 10 or 7 or 5 ticks). This has taken me out of far more profitable trades than it's saved me from full losses. So I'd be reducing my stop loss risk by half in very few instances, while increasing my risk of missing out on my profit target in more than 70% of instances.

Your trading plan is probably a lot different than mine and so #2 might make sense, but I wouldn't arbitrarily apply such a rule without stats to back it up.