Visible PnL ?

When I started off as a trader, I worked in an office with a guy who was pretty successful. He wasn't making huge sums, but he'd only been trading for a couple of years and was already consistently profitable.

He sat there and traded, never showing any emotion. You could never tell whether he was having a losing day, just an average day or whether he'd made a killing. He had the perfect mentality to become even more successful.

But there was one thing that I realised after a while. He never knew exactly how well he was doing during the course of the trading day because he never once looked at his PnL. It was always minimised and out of sight. He never used to peek once. (well, not until the end of the trading day)

And thinking of this guy made me realise - I can't think of any good reason for having your PnL visible during your trading day. If you have done your backtesting, forward testing and worked out a strategy that you are confident with - and you are using good money management - you have no reason whatsoever to even once look at your PnL. It can only bring in emotion and be destructive.

And perhaps by closing your PnL box, you will become a better trader ? And if you need to constantly monitor it, maybe that's a sign that you aren't confident enough in what you are doing ?

Just something to think about ...

Paulie

I'm sure this is one of the key requirements. Markets base don supply and demand are the same as yesterday and this day 100 years ago. If you have a system that works long-term, it works. Its impossible to know 100% what the market will do next, but you only need to know what you will do next.

Yep, I concur with this, he'll have had a vague idea re. his performance from his charts. Once I see the fill and observe there's been no slippage I tend not to look, unless it's to check on the fill of the next trade whilst others are still open...
It's wasted mental energy continually checking tbh, time can be better spent waiting to pounce on the next opportunity...
Having said all this I can recall with vivid emotion the early days when I'd take a trade and continually move back and forth between screens to see if the trade had finally gone into positive territory... Emotionally they were very tough times looking back, without doubt the *mind stuff* is the hardest part of learning this new trade...

Yes, if you peek to often you finish up trading your account rather than the price action. I remember, years ago, needing juuuuuust another £10 to pop my acccount over £5k for the first time. I hung on for it ignoring a primary exit signal and you can guess the rest...........

good trading

jon

Black Swan said:

he'll have had a vague idea re. his performance from his charts

Click to expand...

Fair point, and yes you're right, most outright traders will have an idea from their charts. That said, the guy I'm talking about was a spread/fly trader. He used to have positions littered over the place.

On one occasion around the collapse of Bear Stearns, he finished up early for the day to have a long weekend.

"Good day mate ?" I asked.

"Not sure, I think so"

He then checked his PnL box before shutting down the PC for the day.

"Oh, I made 2 grand". He didn't even smile.


Now I know that good traders will try to play down their success a bit and not want to brag about it, but I genuinely think that this guy didn't really track and couldn't care less about his pnl.

It's that lack of emotion in trading that I aspire to.

If you stop thinking about the money and concentrate on playing your edge, you will reduce your emotions considerably.
Imagine the eye-surgeon just about to take his scalpel to your eye - or the bomb-disposal guy sitting next to the bomb he's working on = are they thinking about their pay ?
I don't think so.

Glenn

Paulie_5 said:

Fair point, and yes you're right, most outright traders will have an idea from their charts. That said, the guy I'm talking about was a spread/fly trader. He used to have positions littered over the place.

On one occasion around the collapse of Bear Stearns, he finished up early for the day to have a long weekend.

"Good day mate ?" I asked.

"Not sure, I think so"

He then checked his PnL box before shutting down the PC for the day.

"Oh, I made 2 grand". He didn't even smile.


Now I know that good traders will try to play down their success a bit and not want to brag about it, but I genuinely think that this guy didn't really track and couldn't care less about his pnl.

It's that lack of emotion in trading that I aspire to.

Click to expand...

When you break down what we do (in order to be consistently profitable) it's repetition with an edge undperinned by discipline and basic money management, that's it. Once you move past the Euphoria of your initial success the emotion moves aside...
Question I continually ask is "Is it enjoyable, is this gig satisfying?" That's the problem I've had today. Made a few pips (hit my self imposed target) but have hated it tbh, really deflated/uninspired with the script....

Yes, making money is boring and SHOULD be boring, so that you can't wait to get on to the spending part, which shopuld always be more fun.