Getting good at taking losses!

[scholfield]

I'm taking my stops like a robot now.
Unfortunately, it seems to mean that every trade is a loser!
Trying to remain 'robot like' and emotion-less though.

Have made and lost money daytrading over the years.
In hindsight, only time I ever made money was when I didn't use stops and added to losers and waited for the market to come good.
However, that method also guarantees that, at some point, you'll blow up, 'spanish style'.

Only trading cable at the moment to keep it simple and to easier analyse my results.
50p per pip with ETX capital.

This weeks results: (pips)
Monday -15
Monday +16
Tuesday -14
Wednesday -15
Wednesday -15
Wednesday +20
Thursday -20
Thursday -20
Thursday -15
Friday still in a trade

Must have had a strange psychological shift, as i've never managed to take stops with real money before. Feels as though I expect every trade to stop me out, and it usually does!....and yet, I feel no emotion.
Maybe, deep down I know that it isn't possible to make money trading, and I just want to whittle my account away to prove it to myself! lol

 

[NVP]

dude - you can make money trading ........keep exploring and developing your systems.....what TF are you trading for cable ?

N

 

[scholfield]

dude - you can make money trading ........keep exploring and developing your systems.....what TF are you trading for cable ?

N

Lots of timeframes. Actual entry is based off the 5min, usually.

I've actually been researching, demo tradng, live trading, reading etc for years and years, so believe me, I have very good reason to be skeptical about whether it truly is possible, or whether it's only people selling systems etc who make any money consistently!
I've seen the poster boys of trading forums unmasked as liars, and other highly regarded traders eventually give up out of frustration.

I actually had a good few months of consistent profits and wondered whether I had actually finally figured it out, but it's starting to look at though it was just a very lucky patch.

Pondlife: thanks for the message. Yes, I have been keeping various records along the lines of your suggestion.
Anyway, this week was NEGATIVE 109 PIPS. (down £54.50 on my account)
-15
16
-14
-15
-15
20
-20
-20
-15
-16
-15

The master of stops, though
I'd never have been able to take stops like that before. I'd have held onto them until they got back into profit!
Lets see how next week pans out.

 

[perox]

Lots of timeframes. Actual entry is based off the 5min, usually.

I've actually been researching, demo tradng, live trading, reading etc for years and years, so believe me, I have very good reason to be skeptical about whether it truly is possible, or whether it's only people selling systems etc who make any money consistently!
I've seen the poster boys of trading forums unmasked as liars, and other highly regarded traders eventually give up out of frustration.

I actually had a good few months of consistent profits and wondered whether I had actually finally figured it out, but it's starting to look at though it was just a very lucky patch.

Pondlife: thanks for the message. Yes, I have been keeping various records along the lines of your suggestion.
Anyway, this week was NEGATIVE 109 PIPS. (down £54.50 on my account)
-15
16
-14
-15
-15
20
-20
-20
-15
-16
-15

The master of stops, though
I'd never have been able to take stops like that before. I'd have held onto them until they got back into profit!
Lets see how next week pans out.

Don't give up mate. Try to learn price action trading.
Also if you move to Higher time frames, you can generate better signals

 

[scholfield]

Today (Monday)
-16
+30
+20

Monday = +34 pips

 

[Rambo35]

Don't give up mate. Try to learn price action trading.
Also if you move to Higher time frames, you can generate better signals

+1 on that. Go with a higher timeframe which filters out plenty of noise and you get better and more accurate signals.

 

[DitterPD]

"However, that method also guarantees that, at some point, you'll blow up, 'spanish style'."

Spanish style idiom. Where is it from? What does it mean?

 

[scholfield]

Today (Tuesday)
-15
+25

Tuesday = +10 pips

 

[scholfield]

Today (Wednesday)
+20
+20

Wednesday = +40 pips

 

[Dinos]

"However, that method also guarantees that, at some point, you'll blow up, 'spanish style'."

Spanish style idiom. Where is it from? What does it mean?

l assume he's referring to Spanish89, bit of a rogue trader.

i'd agree with NVP, why are you trading cable, if your struggling, try EUR/USD, far easier imho.

If your stops are being consistently hit, sounds like either your entries are a bit off or your stops tops close.

l trade EUR/USD of the 10 minute charts but take my entries off the 2 minute chart and always in to the direction of the 10 Min momentum.

 

[scholfield]

l assume he's referring to Spanish89, bit of a rogue trader.

Correct

i'd agree with NVP, why are you trading cable, if your struggling, try EUR/USD, far easier imho.

I've traded both of them for extended periods over the years. I find them about as 'difficult' at each other

If your stops are being consistently hit, sounds like either your entries are a bit off or your stops tops close.

Yes, I'm keeping lots of records at the moment to see if adapting stops etc will help, but I'm not holding out much hope.

If I had have posted every one of my trades, live, from the beginning of the year until say, early June, I think people would consider me to be a consistently profitable trader. But i'm clearly not.

It took me years to find a method that 'worked' in realtime, most days, for months on end.
It has possibly stopped working now.

Am I supposed to scrap it and spend another 2 years demo trading, and trying to find something else that might give me a few months consistent profit? Seems foolish to say the least.

I've been convinced for a long long time that the way to make money in the markets has nothing to do with charts, or even anything to do with trading off the orderbook etc. I'm just no closer to discovering what that is yet.

For now though, I'm continuing as I started this thread with using my method, taking my stops like a ROBOT, keeping my records, and updating the thread with my daily results from my live account.

There's a chance that someone, somewhere really knows how to extract money from the market and will throw me a bone.

That being said, i'm 3 winning days in a row at the moment

 

[Shakone]

scholfield, is your trading based on some patterns that appear on a chart, or is it based on other trader's behaviour?

 

[scholfield]

scholfield, is your trading based on some patterns that appear on a chart, or is it based on other trader's behaviour?

I trade based on the chart.
I'm not sure how I'd trade based on other traders behaviour.
I guess you could say that other traders behaviour comes though on the chart in the form of price action/patterns.
Others might say that other traders behaviour can only be seen from studying time+sales and the DOM?

 

[robertofx]

scholfield,

Can you share some charts with us ?

So we can have a idea abut your current trading method/style

 

[NVP]

Hey all........

on my own bespoke systems (a little more advanced than the basics I offer here at T2W) if I am following the 15m TF the most I will ever expect or anticipate on the 15m bar is a max 8-9 pips move on E/U or G/U for 1 bar.......and I dont let trades run for many bars on my trading....

Also I may have mentioned this before but in my G8 Forex world I probably see 15-20% max of the bars in any TF being potentially Tradable so I am very choosy in my patterns and setups.....

it is possible to make money trading on a consistent basis but you really need to cherry pick the best signals and be incredibly patient in waiting for them

N

 

[Dinos]

you really need to cherry pick the best signals and be incredibly patient in waiting for them
N

Agree entirely.

 

[scholfield]

Only one trade so far today. (-16 pips)
A very annoying loss due to the fact that it stopped me out by a pip and then absolutely crashed in my direction!

Still, leaves me positive 63 pips so far this week, not forgetting that last week ended down 109 pips.

 

[Dameon]

Schofield,
The most important thing here is that you are honest to yourself and your are getting better.
After a week has ended/ target has been reached, forget about it. Drop the "getting even" mentality and treat each week independently.
This will help you keep emotions off.

Dameon

 

[scholfield]

Today (Thursday)
-16
+20

Thursday= +4 pips

 

[scholfield]

The most important thing here is that you are honest to yourself and your are getting better.

Well, In the longer term, it would appear I've got a lot WORSE!
Not me personally, I supposed; I've remained consistent. But my results.
Like I said, I had about 5 months of profits nearly everyday. Thought i'd cracked it.

My problem now, Is that I don't know how anyone can really think they are consistent and can have confidence in their ability. Maybe one needs to make profit consistently over a 5 year period, live, before they can say they've finally found something of value?

We're all just waiting for the market to change it's mood and render our 5 years worth of 'homework' useless?

Or are we just flipping coins, with the inevitable few making money consistently due to blind luck? lol.

I'm not clever enough to answer most of my own questions, so for now will just carry on.

UP 83 pips so far this week, now.