Yukoner's Psychological Trading Journal

Yukoner,

Thanks for answering the prior questions. Here's more questions...

1) Please explain why you're trading in your personal account while trying to achieve specific professional goals (as in a career in OPM) via T4 combine ? I've seen this before with others prior to you and they eventually admitted that they were using their success in their personal account as a way to cover the professional failure in the combine.

2) Do you trade your personal account on days you have a profitable day in your T4 combine ? I'm trying to determine if you're intentionally using secondary success elsewhere to smooth over the failure in your primary goal.

3) Do you realize that you oddly have enough discipline to know when the shut down T4 but prior to that you didn't have enough discipline to stick to your rules ?

4) You mentioned you were not focused in your T4 combine trading due to outside factors. Is that hindsight observation after the fact or was that an observation in real-time as it was occurring...as it was impacting your trading ? This is a critical distinction.

5) Why didn't those same outside factors impact your trading in your personal account ?
 
Day #27 - Slept like a baby, and woke up ready for the day. Went through my standard morning ritual and made sure I was ready to sit down and trade. The first part of trading was tough, it was choppy... you would be up, and then suddenly the market would move against you.

For my daily goal, I wrote that I wanted to check every 30 minutes if I was trading with a bias. Yesterday that affected my trading, and so today I wanted to be aware of it. I also tried to stay in the same DGAF attitude. The interesting thing was that I saw the correct setup to get short, but my brain just didn't want to believe the market could fall much further. Even though I was telling myself I was biased, I couldn't seem to enter and that cost me a real nice trade. So much for not caring...

Then I just seemed to get on the wrong side of a volatile market, or at least get stopped out before the moves and suddenly I am down over $700 for the day... and I think, great here is a repeat of yesterday. Then I saw a setup take place, and I got in... went my way, and I added and pulled off a great trade.

Of interest, is I started to feel the success... Hard to explain, but I just got back into it and started trading well. (Felt positive, like I can do this) Before I knew it I was barely ahead for the day, and then ahead. I really shouldn't have gotten that deep into the hole, but some days the volatility gets you.
In hindsight, I could have been a bit more selective in the amount of trades I was taking. (I took a lot of trades). At the end of the day, the same bias I had felt earlier crept in... and I never took a short signal, because it was pit close and I thought "No way is it going to fall much further". 70 ticks later I am shown wrong...

Learning, learning, learning. Making progress... even though for Christmas, ya'll probably want to get me a lobotomy. ;)

+147
 
wrbtrader said:
Yukoner,

Thanks for answering the prior questions. Here's more questions...

1) Please explain why you're trading in your personal account while trying to achieve specific professional goals (as in a career in OPM) via T4 combine ? I've seen this before with others prior to you and they eventually admitted that they were using their success in their personal account as a way to cover the professional failure in the combine.

2) Do you trade your personal account on days you have a profitable day in your T4 combine ? I'm trying to determine if you're intentionally using secondary success elsewhere to smooth over the failure in your primary goal.

3) Do you realize that you oddly have enough discipline to know when the shut down T4 but prior to that you didn't have enough discipline to stick to your rules ?

4) You mentioned you were not focused in your T4 combine trading due to outside factors. Is that hindsight observation after the fact or was that an observation in real-time as it was occurring...as it was impacting your trading ? This is a critical distinction.

5) Why didn't those same outside factors impact your trading in your personal account ?
More...

@wrbtrader sigh, are you my conscience? lol Yes, very good questions... and sincerely, thanks for bringing this up.

1) I should not be trading my own account. I went into this back in November, saying I wouldn't trade my own account as I was focused on this next step. Just so much opportunity though. However, your point is well taken and I will pause trading my own account while in this combine.

2) My personal account I first traded when OPEC made the announcement, and combine trading was closed for Thursday Thanksgiving. I had stalked that trade scenario for two weeks, and I wanted to capitalize on it, even though I couldn't combine trade it. My personal account I don't mind swing trading, so I am looking for the risk of a day trade and the reward of a swing trade. I will need to mull over the answer to your question though.

3) You raise a good point about discipline. I tend to think of myself as being disciplined, but then when I look back I realize I am not nearly as disciplined as I thought. Especially when it comes to simple things like letting your profits run. Quickly thinking, this may stem from having a focus on discipline like setting stops, pre market prep, etc... but not thinking about discipline in areas like holding winners, waiting for profit targets, etc.

4) The outside factors I thought about while I was actually trading. I realized I was distracted and not focused like I should have been. Next time I feel that, I need to just stop... and not trade.

5) The outside factors don't affect my personal account the same, because I don't have the daily time limit that the combine has. I can put on a trade, and just leave it and let it work. Whereas the combine, you have to be completely flat by end of the day or it is an automatic fail.

Now a question from me, as I am curious... have you ever tried a combine?

Good Trades,
Yukoner
 
Yukoner,

Again, thanks for the answers and I understand more now.

To answer your question, I have not done a combine. I'm well funded, I trade what I want to trade and their restrictions would be very problematic for me. Yet, I do believe the combine can open the doorway for some traders in need of assistance to achieve certain goals (e.g. funded account).
 
Being flat at the end of each day is a bit daft, why don't your trade your own account?

why do you use stop losses? They just loose you money, the markets are to volitile for stops. your going about this the wrong way that's why your always cra@pping yourself when you make trades, I have loads of floating losses on the books, I Don't really care about losses I concentrate on closing profits as opportunities arise
 
Oh and also trade forex with leverage its much better and there are bags of currencies to choose from, if you trade the ones that are trending and and leave the choppy ones, no idea why your battling away with oil!o_O
 
wwatson1 said:
Oh and also trade forex with leverage its much better and there are bags of currencies to choose from, if you trade the ones that are trending and and leave the choppy ones, no idea why your battling away with oil!o_O
More...

Everyone that I know that has done the combine...

ALL of them were trading Crude Oil CL futures. Thus, I always assumed its one of the restrictions for the combine. In fact, the traders that were profitable before the combine...they were trading a different trading instrument in comparison to what they were trading in the combine and struggling.

Maybe Yukoner can verify if Oil is a required restriction and if he was trading something different prior to the combine.
 
Yes it seems strange to me, I would trade oil if it was trending very clean, I have done before, but there is a world of opportunity when you can trade anything that is moving well on the day, stocks, currencies, commodities, there is always something trending and that is what you need to make money every day
 
wrbtrader said:
Everyone that I know that has done the combine...

ALL of them were trading Crude Oil CL futures. Thus, I always assumed its one of the restrictions for the combine. In fact, the traders that were profitable before the combine...they were trading a different trading instrument in comparison to what they were trading in the combine and struggling.

Maybe Yukoner can verify if Oil is a required restriction and if he was trading something different prior to the combine.
More...

They are pretty liberal with what you choose to trade, as long as it has reasonable volume. Lots of traders active in CL, ES and YM. CL is attractive to many because of the daily volatility, as it gives you many opportunities to make ticks and still meet TST guidelines, such as being flat by the end of the day.

Word is, that very soon they will offer Forex and then you only have to be flat on the weekend.

For myself, prior to combine I hadn't seriously traded (ie. to make a living) since about 2010... back then it was YM and ES, and a fair amount of forex. Personally, I like CL as it can really trend through the day, and provides much opportunity for my style of trading.
 
wwatson1 said:
Being flat at the end of each day is a bit daft, why don't your trade your own account?

why do you use stop losses? They just loose you money, the markets are to volitile for stops. your going about this the wrong way that's why your always cra@pping yourself when you make trades, I have loads of floating losses on the books, I Don't really care about losses I concentrate on closing profits as opportunities arise
More...

@wwatson1 I can only assume you weren't trading back in 2008 when the world financial system blew up. Tons of guys trading the way you described were margin called... lots of firms bankrupt as those floating losses just killed them.
I was trading it all, such as the day the Dow dropped 900 points, and I can tell you having stops in place and managing risk is the only thing that works.... for me. I am not a good enough trader to not have my risk defined ahead of time.

A very close friend of mine had a basket of currencies paying him daily swap when the London subway bombings happened, and I think that day he lost about $240,000 (margin called)... only to see the currency basket come back to "normal" a few hours later. The basket was the hedge to itself, which worked fine until one day that black swan happened.... and it didn't work.

As for flat at the end of the day, well that is a TST rule, and if you want their equity partner to back you... you have to play by the rules. I personally don't mind it, as I find it relaxing to finish for the day and not have any positions on.
My reason for trying out with them, is it takes me to a whole new level of trading, and opportunity by leveraging OPM and talent.
 
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