my journal 3

[Yamato]

Ok, I am back unfortunately, because the mother ****ing neurologist doctor cancelled out on me, given that he's got a cold, the secretary said.

So now I came back home, and guess what? Just as predicted, I found something I didn't like... JPY closed with the stoploss!!

****. It was up 650 dollars this morning.

So, what did I do?

The martingale wasn't possible, because the stoploss had closed it.

So I went long again, at 07.

Then ZW is losing more than yesterday, and I did martingale on it.

All my preaching and thinking... all wiped out by a simple 200 dollars stoploss triggered on JPY. What hurt was the missed profit, too.

This is me. This is how I behave.

...

Here's what I'll do.

I'll close the JPY provided it gives me 200 dollars of profit, enough to cover the stoploss that it triggered.

I'll close the 2 contracts on ZW, provided it gives me the 1000 it was losing.

Then I just take the whole day... week... month off. I am done with myself. I am tired of this martingale, revenge trading crap. I just cannot defeat my harmful urges and control myself. I am the scorpion biting the frog.

 

[Yamato]

Within the span of a few minutes, I went crazy.

I opened contracts on JPY, CL, ZW, GBP...

Closed the CL with a small profit.

GBP and JPY are negative, but not by much.

I am back into full compulsive gambling mode.

I hope this ends in a few minutes, because it's just a matter of ticks before I can recoup my losses or missed profit for the day, and then I can go out and get drunk or whatever I feel like doing.

I am only keeping an open mind on GBL, which will soon achieve stoplosslessness at 144.

For the rest, I cannot afford to loom over TWS.

... Not now please. Not now that I am so close to being profitable.

 

[VielGeld]

Then I just take the whole day... week... month off. I am done with myself. I am tired of this martingale, revenge trading crap. I just cannot defeat my harmful urges and control myself. I am the scorpion biting the frog.

Sounds like a plan. Don't let the past repeat, eh? You've got some good stuff going on now.

 

[Yamato]

Yes, thanks for the feedback.

Now, amazingly, I went away for 20 minutes to talk to my mom and the lady working here, and ZW got closed with a loss of 100, instead of 1000.

So I am again above 30k.

Now I am just waiting for a rise of ten more ticks on JPY and GBP to see all my positions closed.

And then I'll be off to a movie, kebab, and some charity in the street. Today, if everything goes well, I need to donate about 15 euros, because I'd usually go to a restaurant and blow 60 euros between restaurant and cabs.

The new equation I figured for this charity goes like this.

25% I give myself (save)
25% I give to whoever I invited as a gift (if I am alone, I save another 25%)
25% charity
25% I use to eat

So I eat kebab and I'm 30 euros richer, and I feel better, too.

 

[Yamato]

k, what the hell

JPY didn't recover the loss, but i made money on GBP and CL, and then ZW, too, where I recovered almost all the loss from yesterday.

So, I'll just take the day off, and I guess the extra loss of 100 dollars on JPY (on top of the stoploss of 200 dollars) serves me right for trying to make it back by engaging in revenge trading, and then martingale, by adding a second contract.

Ok, I am done. No more of this crap.

20110919 - YouTube

Capital above 30k. I am done. I am going out. Watching a movie.

 

[Yamato]

Wow, what an interesting evening out.

I took a bath first, one hour long, it was hot.

This allowed me to stay out for 2 hours, in the cold, this is probably the coldest week in Rome this year. It's like recharging your batteries for me. If I can rely on a hot shower or even better a hot bath, then i can withstand any amount of cold, such as cold water, cold wind, cold temperature. Others feel the cold and mind the cold. I don't, provided there's heat before and after it. I could have gone out in a t-shirt and wouldn't have minded.

So I went first to see Quartet, at the nearby movie theater, but it wasn't good enough to keep me seated for longer than 30 minutes.

So I left and went to the Vatican, St.Peter's square, to be more precise.

Franco Battiato - Bridge over troubled water - Fleurs 2 2008 - YouTube

On the way, I had that plan to blow some money in charity, which is the best way to blow your money, because it maximizes the productivity of it.

But i didn't find any people asking for money except for one lady, who unfortunately only received a coin of 2 euros, despite the fact that she was the only one I gave anything to. I didn't know, so I saved the other coins for the others, who didn't materialize.

Maybe it's cold, or maybe in st.peter they forbid people from asking for money. Quite contradictory.

People flock to Rome to find out what they should do to go to heaven, and then there's the "last ones", those who will go to heaven because they don't have money, and those are supposed to hide?

Pretty amazing, if it's the case.

Probably it is the case. The poor have to be hidden not to show the contradictions of the rich: that they're wasting their money on crap, while there's others who are starving to death. That's why the poor have to hide, and the rich come up with the crappy excuse "they'd buy alcohol or drugs with the money", "they're lazy"... usual crap that the 99% of Italians, all Catholics, have gotten me used to. The rich want to have the money, the comfort and to feel good about it. They want it all.

I've been wondering a few things about the Vatican lately, due to that pope resigning and all. I posted the other things.

I was also wondering about the Vatican during the war, and how it managed to survive, and keep the bombing off Rome. Mostly the allies didn't bomb Rome, because of the Vatican presumably.

But unless I'll ask my father in the next few days, it is unlikely that I'll find out anything meaningful about the Vatican... I can only scratch the surface no matter how much I'll walk around Saint Peter's square.

The few interesting things I've noticed today were, besides all the foreign journalists interviewing bystanders:

1) no dogs allowed in saint peter's square, which is good because I don't have to walk looking down, checking what I step on, given that Romans are otherwise pretty much animals so they don't care about anyone else but themselves and let their dogs act like animals. Romans really really suck.

2) the people in saint peter's square are not Romans for the most part, or if they are, they're the most civilized ones. Which is good, because I don't mind hanging out with priests, vegans, animal activists, and similar civilized people.

3) as a consequence of the above and other prohibitions, there's no littering in saint peter, and there's no assholes either. Basically it's an opportunity for me, the only opportunity to be in a peaceful neighborhood. Pretty close to home. It's unlikely that I'll meet anyone unpleasant in saint peter, and I'm probably the worst person in the whole square, maybe excluding the few school trips. And the police, who however do not engage in police brutality in saint peter, so... better than nothing, and actually they're probably protecting us from crime in this case.

I think I should go there more often.

It's funny how people say "go home" in the sense of "don't look for trouble, go home". In my case, if I stay home, I'd be precisely looking for trouble, because I'll get on my laptop, check TWS, and:

1) place some trade with the stoploss and engage in revenge trading once it gets triggered
2) place some trade without the stoploss and engage in martingale trading once the loss exceeds a few hundreds

idea2develop

So, hopefully, I'll take advantage of saint peter now that I've got an excuse to be there, like in 2005.

And I'll take advantage of movie theaters as usual.

I hope I will, because if I don't, i will certainly blow out my account. Which in the meanwhile is closer to 31k than to 30k, thanks to a NG trade by the systems. Approaching uncharted territory.

Nat King Cole sings "When I Fall in Love" - YouTube

I just wrote myself a .txt note reminder to not trade discretionary:

I'll never solve my problem, because I have too much pride to refrain from revenge trading in case my stoploss gets taken, and in martingale trading in case I trade without it and my trade becomes unprofitable.

Travis
Wednesday 02/13/2013, 13:26:24

sting - shape of my heart (lyrics) - YouTube

 

[Yamato]

Ok, i am going to bed. I started the systems for tomorrow, so, if I do things right, there'll be no temptations until the day after tomorrow.

I mean seriously, I could simply turn them on and off once a day at 7 am every day. All it takes is 15 minutes of work every day.

Given that the bugs and errors and disconnections are history, I should be doing it. And stay away from the risk of compulsive gambling.

Gambling-free for already... 5 hours.

Capital at about 30,500

I feel ok. I feel relaxed. I can sleep without nightmares. I won't wake up in the middle of the night to check if my account has been blown out by 4 JPY contracts.

I am all flat except one trade by the systems.

 

[Yamato]

All it took was one look.

All it took was one look.

First mistake, monitoring TWS without the need for it. Systems would have been running fine without my monitoring.

Second mistake, taking a look at how JPY was doing.

Then I placed my umpteenth discretionary trade, LONG, and without a stoploss. Now it's making 100 dollars, but obviously what counts is the methodology, which in the long run is unprofitable.

Then I didn't stop there, and placed a LONG trade on ZW as well, which is also making 100 dollars. Again, no stoploss, so I am setting myself up for a third mistake in case these two trades turn unprofitable: martingale.

All slight mistakes that lead to the road to perdition.

Now another day at the office awaits me, with my roommate not showing up for another 2 hours, as usual, and I'm relying on it, because I work better without him. Shameless slacker. Then he'll make a half-an-hour phone call, and then he'll ask me to go on a coffee break with him. Today I'll go because I promised him.

June 8th.

My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there is a change.

All my life needed was a sense of direction, a sense of someplace to go. I do not believe one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, but should become a person like other people.

...

I was wrong. He did show up two hours later, but he didn't make a phone call for half an hour. It was only 2 minutes, then he took off and went straight to a coffee break. Now it's 11 am, and this amazing human being still hasn't started working.

...

By the way, yesterday I asked my dad about that thing, the people asking for money: he said they're not allowed by the police on Saint Peter's square. Definitely the church in this case doesn't practice what it preaches, literally, because Jesus didn't say to be rich, stay rich, and keep the needy away from yourself. I am not doing anything either, but at least I am not the authority preaching this message.

...

Ok, about to go home. It is 14.20. Check out the schedule of my roommate, with a monthly salary 3 times mine.

10.35 shows up at the office (2 hours later than everyone else)
10.40 after phone call goes on coffee break
11.00 comes back and starts his personal phone calls
12.40 goes to lunch
14.22 still hasn't come back

 

[Yamato]

Back at home, closed the JPY trade with big profit. ZW is now unprofitable, whereas it was the only one profitable this morning. It will probably come back up, either today or tomorrow. It is somewhat related to NQ.

I will probably end the day with more than 31k.

 

[Yamato]

Crazy... I am now at about 33k, only 20% away from decupling my account in the span of six months.

And I am experiencing some performance anxiety, instead of relaxing because I now make more with trading than at my job. I am stressing out because I have only 15 more days before the end of the first six months, and I am afraid I will not manage to decuple the account.

This is the typical state of mind that blows out my account usually, the feeling of being "on a roll".

So funny how a month ago, I was talking to my colleague and she recommended to take away some money, all the profit made, because she said that otherwise I would have ended up doing like the previous times and blow out the account. And I told her: look, if I remove capital, then profit will not be maximized, and since I am expecting to be profitable, it doesn't make sense to remove capital.

Had I listened to her, now, after starting with 4k again, I would have made 4k instead of 16k. Given that we had the discussion when I was at 17k.

My eyes right now are wide open like when I play video games. Same state of mind as Uncle Scrooge McDuck:

Uncle Scrooge - The Daily Money Swim - YouTube

Definitely not in the right state of mind to trade.

Am I going to be Scrooge McDuck or Barry Lyndon?

Barry Lyndon - Theme Sarabande - YouTube

...

Going into the bath tub, to avoid any risks. Didn't go to that Japanese restaurant for over a week. That part of blowing out money is finished and it's been replaced by giving it away, which is much cheaper because you are satisfied with much less. It's a way to save money. Some people buy cars, others jewelry, I give it away. It's cheaper because I just need to give 10 euros in one day and I feel ok. With restaurants, to get the same feeling, you'd have to spend 100 euros. With cars and jewelry I don't know, because I've never been that way, never wanted to buy anything but free time, and restaurant has been a temporary corruption of my scale of values. I now found a good replacement for it.

Anyway, going into the bath, so I won't do any damage for one hour.

 

[Yamato]

I just wrote myself this note:

Do not blame or praise yourself for losing or making money on a trade. Blame or praise yourself based on whether you used or not a good risk/reward approach to the trade.

Travis
Thursday 02/14/2013, 13:26:54

Indeed I may have lost some money on closing early a NG trade by the systems, but it was a good choice when I made it (bad choice only if you trade with hindsight, knowing the future). So I am not counting that as a discretionary loss for today, because it made a lot of sense based on my previous observations of the markets. It was a choice that in the long run pays off. If I don't evaluate and reward myself on this basis but rather on mere profit vs loss, I will never reward myself for the right behaviors, and I'll never achieve long-term profitability.

The Truman Show Soundtrack - YouTube

 

[Yamato]

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge over troubled water (with lyrics) - YouTube

That's right, I need to ease my mind. I am getting... I got beyond the chartered territory of 31k, and now I am feeling uneasy.

Above 32k, not as good as I hoped, but let's ease my mind because otherwise i'll blow out my account.

Let's not forget what happened the last time I reached these levels, in the Spring of 2009:



It is really time to pull the plug out of my discretionary trading. For the record, the big rise in my equity line, a few days before reaching 31k might have been due to a loan of 10k I took from my bank, so I actually never got as high as I did this time, with a starting capital of 4k.

I had never octupled my account before. This is an historical moment. Historical and hysterical.

 

[Yamato]

I am still holding a grudge about that trade gone bad on NG and on GBP as well.

Today I probably lost 400 dollars on crappy trades I made.

But I can't blame myself for losing 1% of the > 32k I have so far.

If I did blame myself and held a grudge, the remaining 99% would be endangered.

8 Tips to Stop Holding a Grudge | World of Psychology

1. Acknowledge the problem

Figure out what it is that’s causing you to hold a grudge. You have to know what the problem is in order to solve it. When you allow yourself to see the real issue you can then make a choice to move forward from there.

2. Share your feelings.

A grudge can form when an issue isn’t fully confronted. Without being judgmental about yourself or another, clarify your feelings on the situation. Then, decide if this is something you will work on in your own heart or by contacting the other person involved. Only when you are ready, communicate with the other person about the issue. Whether you work it out on your own or involved the other person, you may feel more relieved by releasing that built up tension and all involved can have a better understanding of the situation and able to resolve the issue.


3. Switch places.

To get a better understanding of the other person, try putting yourself in their shoes. This will give you a better understanding of their point of view and behavior. Maybe the person in question was in a lot of pain. This doesn’t justify their negativity, but it will help you understand it. The more you understand the other person and their behavior, the easier it is not to let go of a grudge.

A natural response may be to develop a grudge, or even a hatred of the person who has caused us pain. But the person who holds the grudge always suffers more!

The longer we hold a grudge the more difficult it is to forgive and move on. You can begin to free yourself when you begin to forgive. Here are eight ways to get a grip on the pain and find the strength to let it go.

4. Accept what is.

Choose to create your own healing, with or without an apology. Don’t wait for the person you are upset with to come around. For all you know they are already past the issue and not putting as much thought into it. Even if they don’t offer an apology, it doesn’t mean they are not remorseful. Some people are unable to apologize or may not fully understand that the person they hurt may need to hear one.

5. Don’t dwell on it.

Once you have decided to move on, keep on moving. Don’t put too much thought into the situation or continuously discuss it. It will only make things worse and harder to get over. If ever the issue is brought up in conversation, change the subject or just look at it as the past and leave it there.

6. Take the positive.

For every negative situation there is a positive. If you take this as a learning experience, you will benefit from knowing more about yourself and the other person. Choose to learn a valuable lesson or walk away with a better understanding that can help you let go of the issue and not resent the other person.

7. Let it go.

Letting go allows room for peace and happiness. A long lasting grudge will only drain you physically and emotionally and can surely affect your health. You will use more energy than you can imagine by holding a grudge than you will by letting go.

8. Forgive.

Of course forgiving doesn’t mean you will forget the issue. It’s just acknowledging your differences and accepting that no one is perfect and we all make mistakes we should learn from. Forgiving isn’t the easiest to do especially when you’ve endured a lot of hurt and pain, but it’s the only way to truly let go and have peace.

I am acknowledging the problem.

I have shared my feelings with GBP and NG, and have been putting myself in their shoes.

3. Switch places.

To get a better understanding of the other person, try putting yourself in their shoes. This will give you a better understanding of their point of view and behavior. Maybe the person in question was in a lot of pain. This doesn’t justify their negativity, but it will help you understand it. The more you understand the other person and their behavior, the easier it is not to let go of a grudge.

I am letting go of my grudge. I forgive GBP and NG.

LA STRADA. FEDERICO FELLINI. NINO ROTA. MAURICE ANDRE. - YouTube

 

[Yamato]

It's really time to stop discretionary trading. I am really losing it. I am losing all balance, emotional, financial... everything is at risk. I cannot produce any more profit. I am too confident, and too proud and vengeful. I am practically feeling like god again.

That awful feeling always comes before putting at risk my account. I am in danger. I am in danger. I am in danger.

I was given many warnings by the markets. Many warnings. By some miracle, I managed to still come out alive from all these disastrous martingale trades I made.

I am not going to have another chance. I either stop now, or I will blow out my account. Today was my last warning. No more martingale. No more of this dangerous crap.

No more discretionary trading altogether. No more. I will ruin 5 months of work.

 

[Yamato]

I am too exalted. I need to find something to do.

I need to swim, find someone to go swimming with.

I am too exalted. This is not going to end well. I have lost all sense of modesty.

Even if I lost some money unnecessarily today... precisely because of it, very dangerous mix: revenge, pride, arrogance... tomorrow is the day I'll blow out my account.

Very very dangerous.

I'll call my friend right now to arrange a meeting, to keep myself busy for the whole afternoon.

Suicide Is Painless (MASH Theme) with lyrics - YouTube

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

 

[Yamato]

Only now that I am about to achieve my objective of making money with trading on a consistent basis, do I realize that I've rarely spent any quality time with my parents, because the work ethic imposed it. We all feel that all that matters is working hard. Enjoying yourself is not an objective and having a good time with your family for all of us, except maybe my mom, has always been treated as a distraction. It's like I've never lived, or like having lived in army barracks my whole life.

 

[D70]

Quick update.

I've made a desktop for my live strategy (and a 2nd desktop for testing). I am running my 1st strategy across 6 products. It has so far outperformed me which is interesting. It isnt perfect in code because I cant get the position sizing quite right (because I cant yet get it to remember the trades it's done) and I cant get it to execute real time (it still waits for the close of the bar or next bar).

I have set TradeStation to send stop/limit orders to it's server. Figured this is only safe way to operate should my computer crash / power cut / anything. I'm guessing there are a few dangers when autotrading but as long as all my orders are sat with TradeStation and not on my machines, it should be safe, no? As it's no different to manual trading.

Now I'm obsessed (maybe not quite obsessed) with testing all the other strategies I've ever dreamed about and figuring out the perfect exit methodology, and so on.

Just hope my code skills will gradually pick up. I'm watching the educational videos provided by playstation, sorry, I mean tradestation and looking at their pre-written code to figure out which bits I can utilise but have a long way to go.

Great work Travis, clearing the 30k barrier comfortably. Now put that equity curve aside and concentrate on the trading!

 

[Yamato]

Sad about not making more, but my gambling had to stop somewhere, and it's better to stop it while it's cheap than later, when it blows out my account.

All it took, it seems, was a loss of 1%, to wake me up to the reality: I am not invincible. I make mistakes.

This morning I connected to the server, took a look at all the markets, but didn't place any compulsive trades. I said to myself: "enough".

Now the account is slightly above 32k, but it's a 32k that is more solid than a 33k achieved through gambling. Had I succeeded yesterday, I would have gambled more today. But I failed with my gamble, or rather, I broke even, with the last trades being losing trades, and this left me discouraged rather than excited and it made me realize that I have run out of luck.

Let's celebrate:



A 32k account of someone who is on a roll and quits the gambling table is safer than someone who stays at the table with 33k. And it is time for me to quit the table and let the automated systems trade. As they say, let's quit while I'm ahead.

JPY may now rise for days and weeks, and I'll probably miss out on thousands of dollars of profit, but I am not ready for discretionary trading any more. I have never been ready for it. I haven't learned to be profitable. This octupling of the account is simply due to the fact that, after 15 years of trading, you can come across a series of wins.

Yes, a little bit of skill is required and it is most likely the case that I have helped my luck, but it is nonetheless luck, and if it runs out, I will be wiped out, given my unprofitable method (martingale, revenge trading, top/bottom picking).

Let us not fool myself. I have blown out 20 accounts or more. Of course every once in a while I will increase the account by several hundreds percentage points. Given that I am willing to risk it all. But this is not going to continue for long.

It is time to quit while I am ahead, because I know how easy it is to fall back to zero from here. The past... this equity curve from 2009-2010 shows it:

 

[Yamato]

Quick update.

I've made a desktop for my live strategy (and a 2nd desktop for testing). I am running my 1st strategy across 6 products. It has so far outperformed me which is interesting. It isnt perfect in code because I cant get the position sizing quite right (because I cant yet get it to remember the trades it's done) and I cant get it to execute real time (it still waits for the close of the bar or next bar).

I have set TradeStation to send stop/limit orders to it's server. Figured this is only safe way to operate should my computer crash / power cut / anything. I'm guessing there are a few dangers when autotrading but as long as all my orders are sat with TradeStation and not on my machines, it should be safe, no? As it's no different to manual trading.

Now I'm obsessed (maybe not quite obsessed) with testing all the other strategies I've ever dreamed about and figuring out the perfect exit methodology, and so on.

Just hope my code skills will gradually pick up. I'm watching the educational videos provided by playstation, sorry, I mean tradestation and looking at their pre-written code to figure out which bits I can utilise but have a long way to go.

Great work Travis, clearing the 30k barrier comfortably. Now put that equity curve aside and concentrate on the trading!

Thanks for the feedback.

Well, I should put not just the equity curve but everything aside, as I said, because I am not profitable as a discretionary trader. So, I have been lucky, it will not continue, but the good news is that the systems are profitable as far as they've shown until now, so I should stop my gambling and let them trade.

Great work to you as well, and yes, despite appearances, it is safe to let automated systems trade, even when they screw up due to some technical problems. In fact safer than trading yourself, at least in my case.

 

[Yamato]

What can I say. I am pretty happy. Easy day at work. Roommate gone most of the time. Still celebrating for the >32k of the account.

My mood relies entirely on my equity curve. That is good and bad. The problem now is that my mood got used to a rising equity curve. So it won't be happy if it stays flat. And I will be depressed if it falls.

In order to avoid the risk of relapsing into compulsive gambling when my equity curve hesitates due to losses by the systems, I must get back to when I never checked the systems. Just turn them off and on at 7 am, and forget about them. That's when I made the most money, in 2008. Less than now of course, because I never achieved this performance before.

But I always remember the spring of 2008 as the most memorable one, because I knew much less than now, and I brought 3500 dollars to 24000 dollars in less than 4 months.