Day Trading & Forex Forum

DanFrank

Hello,

I've been a long time silent reader of these forums. Learning something new everytime I log on.
My full time job is performance management / Business improvements based. With this in mind I'm a planner, and have been doing so for a few months now before even staking £1 on the market.

I'll be running my new 'business venture' as I would any other, with Visual Management of metrics being fundamental. In the link below are the metrics I'll be monitoring daily (yellow), with the others being used for calculation purposes only.

The metrics will be displayed on my 'trading office' wall. (second image).

Any thoughts on my approach would be great. Am I going OTT?

Regards
Dan

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chilltrader

This is the type of useless management gimmicks which are ruining the country .

Are you working for the NHS by any chance?

DanFrank

No not the NHS, although I know they are a bad example of how a business should be run using Improvement principles (Lean & Six Sigma). I think something has gone wrong at the top!

zupcon

I think you should possibly give serious consideration to both the frequency at which you calculate these metrics, and the possible psychological effects the numbers you derive can have on your trading.

the blades

yes, I've been here before in a previous life.

If you're not careful you'll find you're taken over by managing the measures themselves (6 SIGMA being a good example, where the tool becomes the end and not the means if you're not careful).

As one currently suffering from paralysis by analysis, I'd guard against the use of too many unnecessary numbers.

I generate **** loads of unecessary numbers (thankfully automatically), but the one that matters is my account balance at the end of the month. Keep an eye on that and a quick summary of what went right and what went wrong, IMHO.

UTB

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you fill up my senses

DanFrank

The Blades

This is the type of response I was hoping for. Someone who's been there, done it and found out its not really necessary in this game. Learning from other peoples mistakes is as good as doing it yourself as long as you understand why it went wrong and how not to follow in their footsteps.

I've obviously read a lot over the past few months and have tried to pick out what I need to do to succeed at this. I know that one of my biggest weaknesses is logging down what I'm doing and have to backfill gaps sometimes. This won't be good enough if I want to develop my methods over time. Thanks for your input.

Dan

0007

Couldn't agree more. (Just wrote a screed saying same but managed to delete it by mistake). My gut feeling is that Dan has a fine but unnecessary scheme.

If you like spreadsheets and stats like i do, it's dead easy to expend more effort on the stats than on trading. You (I mean I) have to fight it. You can however, with the right figures, prove you've been trading correctly even when you've made a loss - now thats quite uplifting, until you look in your wallet!

I agree that the most important stat is what you've got in your account (and is it getting bigger?). When you are consistently profitable beyoind your wildest dreams you will have time to play with all the metrics etc: but you probably won't want to then - it's nicer on the golf course.

Stats & metrics are no exception to everything connected with trading (and life) - keep it simple.

__________________
0007 -
"A Gentleman should not be seen before mid-morning unless he is returning home from the night before"

the blades

it's a great discussion and resonates with me at this time.

Dan - you've highlighted your weakness - not logging what you're doing - hence it's difficult to measure what went right and wrong. Concentrate your efforts on this, I'd suggest. It's an enormous weaknes of mine, so if you have any tips....


007 - bang on about spreadsheets. No doubt a wonderful and essential tool (for me), but also a major cause of my "paralysis".

UTB

__________________
you fill up my senses