my journal

1.5102

It didn't look good. I am allowed to exit early by system.

Feelings: I am pretty satisfied that i've experienced yet another situation without suffering any damage: exiting early. At first I felt uneasy, because it reminded me of usual discretionary trading (in the sense of "gambling"), but then I said: let's practice, for the sake of learning to exit early and I did it.

Another thing: it didn't look good for those big red candles of course, but also the fact that it was lasting so long, and that it crossed and re-crossed the fast moving average meant that pretty much my trade had aborted already, since the way I mean it to go is to cross the average and go straight up. However these are all hypotheses and I will still let myself be free and choose with discretion whether to stay in a trade that hesitates, without including this rule in my system, which must have as few rules as necessary, because otherwise I'll stop looking at them (especially if they don't work: you can't just add a rule because it would have worked this time).

Tell you what. From now on, I won't even write about any prices of entry or exit, but just draw those yellow circles. I don't have to prove anyone anything, plus for privacy reasons... wait, even better: I'll just post the chart when I enter and when I exit with the yellow circles, because the system is clear and I don't have to specify anymore whether I entered long or short. I can also stop posting "pre-entry" titles so I can avoid having to go into "Go Advanced" mode.

Intuition of exiting proved good, and prices are falling now, by ten ticks lower than where I exited.

Ok, for today, I am most likely done. Enough stress, not many opportunities (tuesday is unpredictable), tired from not sleeping, plus I am satisfied with having gotten out of a bad trade without losing any money. Without the help of these rules, it would have never been imaginable, because rather than exiting from a trade without making the money I was expecting, I would have been in denial about possibly being wrong, and I would have risked a loss of 2000 rather than accepting to exit without making at least what I was expecting to make. Pretty amazing sudden and unexpected change. Totally amazing excellent discovery.

Second day sober, which reminds me that it means nothing because last time I went for a month without any discretionary trading (when that meant "gambling") and then relapsed worse than before.

Hi Travis

No problem, it is always interesting to be able to consider other's point of view and compare and contrast it with your own. I've found it's best to always have the attitude that pretty much anyone can teach you something (or at least, you can learn something from interaction with them). Furthermore, I feel genuine sympathy and even empathy with your struggles and genuinely would like to see you progress and succeed in your mission to become a succesful trader. We are very alike in many ways, even if we are clearly also quite different in many ways.

Yep, probably a very wise idea to curtail the posts... (and yes, sleep is important.)

Well, thanks for stating your point of view so clearly. While I understand it fully, I cannot agree with it. For my part, I actually suspect you underestimate the usefulness of books. For reference, I'm very much a tecno geek (as you might guess from me being a programmer.) We have 5 computers in the house, and you have to remember that I spend all day every day using computers and technology, searching the web, interacting with PDF's and other electronic documents and so on. I'm no luddite as far as technology is concerned, on the contrary I'm very much a pro-technology self confessed geek. As for trading specifically, I have a heck of a lot of PDF's and E-books in electronic form, so it's not like I shun search engines and electronic versions of books at all.

Despite all this, or rather, maybe precisely because of this, I'm acutely aware of the shortcomings of modern technology. In many situations I just simply find the simplicity of a physical book much preferable to the electronic alternatives available today. Searching is useful and well and good, and forums and blogs ceratainly have their place, but to me they can, at least currently, not replace the place of good reference (or other) books. Search engines, forums and the web in general is often ephemeral/transient and fragmented. Sometimes you want to have a thorough (shall we say exhaustive treatise) of a subject in one place, without having to squint at a screen for hours on end. To list just some irritations with electronic books (PDFs):

1) Need a computer to read them, which needs power. Books need no power, and can even be read by candle light.
2) Can't typically annotate easily or at all. (In a book you can underline/make notes, fold over page corners etc.)
3) PDF's can be searched but good books will have indexes as the back anyway, which compensates reasonably.
4) Books are highly portable, computers are not. Laptops are portable but typically the more portable laptops are not that useful for reading e-books.

Bottom line is this: I've read many books in my life, I continue to read books, and I continue to learn a great deal from them. In addition, I follow (for loose meanings of the word follow) 65+ blogs (RSS feeds), are a member on numerous forums, receive probably on the order of 20 newsletters and other e-mail based information pieces per day, am an avid Twitter user to keep a finger on the pulse of the markets where I follow several hundred traders who appear to know their stuff, and generally make extensive use of the internet to further my learning and support my interactions with others. I would therefore submit that on that basis I'm reasonably qualified to have a grounded opinion about how books stack up to their electronic alternatives. The bottom line to me is there's room for both, and anyone trying to use either only books or either only electronic alternatives will be poorer for that choice.

I mentioned the newsletters I monitor. Co-incidentally I noticed this blog post here from John Forman today where it was linked to from an item I received today in the mail. It happens to speak directly to this discussion and your view of books. (Clearly your view/attitude towards books is more common amongst traders than one might think.) :

I quote:

Anyway, I can't help but feel that you're somewhat unnecesarily prejudiced against books, perhaps for reasons that lie in your past. Now, if you don't like books (for whatever reason) or don't like reading (for whatever reason) them, then that's fine, but simply admit it and say so then. Please don't instead try to rationalise your prejudices/dislikes, as that is in fact subtle self-deception and will just stunt your progress needlessly. If however after all the above case-making by me you're still truly convinced that electronics are more practical/better in absolutely all circumstances and for all purposes compared to books, then we'll just have to agree to disagree about that. (Which is fine of course, but as I say I just think that you might possibly be doing yourself a disservice as a result...)

Maybe, however I didn't think I was actually doing any estimation of your reasoning at all -- I'm simply responding to your reasoning, arguments and points of view as best I can, outlining where my points of view differ from yours as well as why, so that we both can learn from the exchange.

Sure, the internet is *great* for finding relevant books about whatever subject you can think of...

OK, forget about the automated systems then. Just focus on your current endeavour with discretionary trading.

Now, from where I'm sitting, you've been trying for 12 years to get that going as well, and have had a very hard time of it. Just recently, by your own admission I got you to read some of Elder's book, and immediately this seems to have already had a positive impact on your approach to the markets and your discretionary trading. To me this really looks like some little evidence that a bit of book reading did you some good!

And now, if we go back to automated system trading, by your own admission you read a book on systems trading which you also spoke favourably of (by Chen?) and which I interpreted to mean it must've helped you with your automated trading systems implementation etc. So clearly again not totally useless.

So from where I'm sitting, despite your protestations to the contrary, reading some books (even though electronic) has clearly benefitted you!

Why exactly can you not just admit that sometimes books can be useful (whether electronic or otherwise), in addition to other tools like the internet and forums and things? Is this perhaps some sort of rebellion thing again against schooltime experience of books and teachers?

Sorry but again I have to disagree. Have you ever taught anyone or had to explain something in detail to someone and answer their questions where your role was as subject matter expert and theirs was the as learner/student/trainee? If not then I submit the above assertion is an idle ungrounded opinion which should not be held too tightly.

As for me, I have been in effective teaching/tutoring positions, both while I was student tutor at university as well as currently/more recently in an informal mentoring relationship with one of the younger developers at work. My experience there in the past, and currently work, is that usually there is a very notable syngergistic effect between you as a mentor/coach/teacher, and the "student"/learner. Due to having to explain things and being asked questions, your own understanding also improves. Oftentimes you will be asked a question that you don't know the answer to and will go have to investigate/find the answer. Usually, this process further solidifies/clarifies and strengthens your own mastery and understanding of the subject matter at hand. Even the process of having to reproduce knowledge and understanding in different forms (written, speech) has the effect of involving different parts of the brain, that ultimately also benefit you as "teacher" or "mentor".

So, in summary, I must vehemently disagree with your assertion that "when you teach you don't learn (you know it's true.)" Sorry!


I must admit I've not read that book but yes. Things need to be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Unfortunately in some cases this means things will still be relatively complicated, since life often is more complicated than we'd like. While I am just as against "ivory tower academics" as you are, it is a step too far to conclude that since some academics are like this that all academics are like that or that all academic endeavour is completely worthless. As is often the case, I submit reality is a little more complicated than that and that the there's a few more shades of grey present than you seem to allow for.

Anyway, before this becomes another overlength post I'll post this. (Oops, it probably already is, sorry!!!)

Edit: Just read this page here. Sounds usfeul, don't you think (at least if, like me, you have trend following leanings)?

Thanks for your reply. I will read it with calm and answer it tomorrow. Upcoming SHORT trade on the EUR maybe.

1) you haven't lost over 250 dollars for the day (from discretionary trading)
2) the 225-period ma is in favor by at least 5 ticks
3) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
4) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines

1) you haven't lost over 250 dollars for the day (from discretionary trading)
2) the 225-period ma is in favor by at least 5 ticks
3) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
4) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines