my journal 3

Replying as I read.

Oh, "a great job in holding himself back", that's good to know, so despite the fact you never wrote anything offensive, you're now defending someone who periodically insults my systems, without good reasons (if I say they're profitable, they're profitable - it's not like anyone has other knowledge about my systems that I do not have), and does so repeatedly, year after year. Oh, "frustrating experience"? Don't forget that you're not forced to read it.

Yeah, "you have the ability to be a successful discretionary trader and a successful systems trader and even both at the same time". I definitely don't mind any criticism given these premises you made. It's quite different from reading "million miles away" and "very disappointing".

Yeah, our emotions get in the way of money management.

"So sometimes you can really trust your emotions, and in other situations you shouldn't trust your emotions. The professional trader has to know which situation is which and go with his/her gut feelings when appropriate, and completely override them when appropriate.": interesting.

"Looking at a chart and just 'knowing' that it is going to bounce is an emotion.": in my case it is where my emotions should not be trusted, because any time i see a falling chart, I forecast a bounce. I don't wait for support to be reached, which is instead the case most of the time. The emotion involved in this case is my impatience and eagerness to trade.

"So is the desire to close a profitable trade to book the profit (good feeling) and the desire never to close a losing trade because of the bad feelings that come with booking a loss": very good description of other harmful emotions.

idea2develop

"Many people assume that this is too hard. However research shows that it can be done by anyone, unless your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is damaged. ": ok, so I am not damaged in that part of my brain, but there can also be other reasons why I can't control the damage done by my emotions, such as learned environmental factors - personality... I don't remember what it's called. In other words, this might require so much work that I cannot easily fix this problem. Another thing I cannot seem to be able to fix is to stay away from trading if I am home, and it's too hard to stay outside all day long. This is all part of what we could describe as the "emotional problems of trading". Maybe.

Yes, I remember reading about the marshmallow test. The interesting thing is that I do not have addictions otherwise and I am very controlled otherwise (imagine being a vegan). It is as if I vented out in trading all my frustration for being so controlled in every other area of my life.

Oh, "By the way, you rarely post your trades anymore.": unless you're talking about just the last week, if you got this impression, it must be because you haven't read the last few months of posts, because in fact I post my trades much more than years ago, and I even went so far as posting a file where I analyze 16 markets and prepare for trades weeks in advance:
View attachment index.html

Yes, I'll be following the pope's election in the coming week(s).
 
I guess my next question has to be: are you actually asking a question here? Despite it being assumed by every reader, do you actually want to succeed as a trader and become independently wealthy? Are you actually asking why you haven't got there yet, or are you in fact resigned to your current situation with your job, your lifestyle, your trading, your capital and your emotional flaws?

PS Sorry but I did read index.html. I was hoping to see more analytical stuff with support and resistance levels, but as you just stated, you aren't using them. I thought you were, at least back in 2010 I thought we discussed a group of conditions you need to see fulfilled before you consider a bounce trade.
 
Replying as I read.

No, I am not asking questions to the readers, except encouragement, and yes, I hope to become profitable, but on the journal, I simply write down my thoughts and what goes on in my life. Whether I become successful or not. I enjoy writing for the sake of it. I wrote journals, thousands of pages, before becoming a trader.

Well, I don't remember exactly what we were doing in 2010, but I consider this level of details pretty thorough and satisfactory. Since you care about it, I'll try to add more and I'll keep it in mind as I write my next "index.html".
 
Has trading taught me nothing ? - I should have weighed up the potential risk:reward of an intervention like the post that caused the upset. I should have asked myself - what is the upside - is it worth the potential downside based on historical precedent, ? before such an intervention...but alas I made an emotional decision to post without this analysis and look where it got me - I got stopped out !

What was supposed to be helpful has again upset you - you who cannot counternance being wrong - as it is an affront to your fragile / delicate psychological balance. I had forgotten how sensitive you are to any type of helpful critique. This notwithstanding - I can't let your subsequent post go unanswered.

You will be aware that the definition if insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different resuult - this is in effect what you are doing and keep on doing.

Let's be clear:

1. I want you to succeed - you know this

2. I have no problems with your automated systems but my critique is as true today as it has always been across your journals;

a. You have to date not found an automated way (ie requiring no further human intervention) of deciding

i. When any individual automated system in the portfolio will be traded
ii. What trading volume will be used for that system when it is traded.

This is not a critisism - it is an observation - and I know you have tried very hard and diligently in these areas....So in effect your automated trading strategy is still to a large extent dependant on discretionary decisions. You can rant and rave, shout and scream, throw your toys out of the pram as much as you like - but this remains the position.

3. Your automated systems may well be profitable overall - but you don't trade them 'overall' - you are selective (see 2.a above) and they are insufficiently profitable for you to rely on them. This is compounded by their long drawdown periods and borne partly of the problem discussed under point 2.a above. We know that the future always seems to be far worse than the past/expectation born of the past results..and that you are disappointed in this and the long drawdowns associated with your auto trading.

The corollary of 2. and 3. above is that thus far - your automated systems have failed you in that they have not fulfilled your aim/goal of you being able to rely on their income.

4. Borne partly of your disappointment with your auto trading is the discretionary trading whose other motivating factor is your compulsive gambling tendency. You have said that you don't know what your edge is and the money management is pretty much non existant...this will likely lead only one way unless you identify an edge and optimise safe money management to it.

5. The chances of achieving your often stated aim/goal that can be summed up as a consistent long term income from your trading activity that you can rely on/live on remains low. ...Part of the obstacles to this are structural as discussed above ie

a. The discretionary element of your auto trading (as discussed under point 2 above)
b. Not having an identified edge with optimised money management for your discretionary trading

These aside, the main obstacle is that you are utterly unable / unwilling to change your behaviour to that that is required to give you a better chance of achieving your stated aim/goal. .....I refer you to the definition of insanity above. You manifestly rule this possibility out saying that you have multiple personalities and cannot possibly change - any half hearted attempts you make are diversionary and short lived.

These psychological impediments are probably the single biggest threat to you achieving your aim.

6. Is there a sane rational reader of this journal (that can be bothered / dares to post lest he incur your wrath) that does not agree with what I have written here ? - harsh maybe - but truthful and meant in a helpful way.

Other than you, no one would be more pleased if you achieved your aim than me...Like you I worked diligently to develop my own trading edge over many years and like you, had to overcome the psychological impediments that were holding me back from a successful implimentation of that edge such that it realsied my own aims/goals from it...Hard work and diligence should be rewarded but too often they are not and particularly in trading.You simply have to give your self the best chance of success. This inevitably involves a long hard look at your self and your weaknesses in this regard. This is hard and the truths can be difficult to accept - but they are your friend not your enemy - the truth cannot hurt you it can only help - if you let it. For you - this seems almost impossibly hard as it probably exposes other areas of your life you would rather not shine the spotlight on.

Now it may be that the structural issues associated with your auto trading cannot be solved...(point 2.a above) and if this the case you may have to find another solution that does not lead to you putting your trading capital and aim/goal continually at at risk through bad money and risk management associated with your discretionary trading.

Please do not feel the need to reply..unless you completely misquote me or misrepresent me this will be my last post on your journal...there is no upside to sensible debate/discussion with you.

G/L
 
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Replying as I read, but I will stop reading as soon as I'll find anything unpleasant.

Yes, you know I get offended when you exaggerate facts against my systems and how they're "very disappointing" and how I am a "million miles away" from being profitable. If I am not "very disappointed" by my systems, how can you be, given that all you know about them comes from me?

What is "an affront to your fragile / delicate psychological balance" is your misrepresentation of facts. I am honest about everything that goes on in my trading: I can't say the same about your writing. My conclusion is that you are in bad faith and you have a lot of fun putting down my systems.

"1. I want you to succeed - you know this": I've been wondering about it, and thanks, for reassuring me, because it seemed to me that at the very least you want my systems to fail, given that you call them "very disappointing", when instead they're clearly profitable.

Oh, come on, you cannot blame for not having been able to automate my entire money management, especially given all the math that I've been studying and reporting here on the journal, and now that I am even taking private math lessons to work on this problem.

Oh, ok, you acknowledge my work. Well, it is very simple then: we can agree on things if you don't exaggerate the problems of my systems by saying that I am a "million miles away" from supporting myself with trading and the other mentioned things you said against my systems. When you say that stuff, it seems that you enjoy putting down my work, especially since you exaggerate the under-performance (always do, have been doing it for years) - I'll take it that as an offense. So just don't do it.

They don't have a long drawdown period, this is not the truth. They have periods when they do not make as much money as I'd like, but that is not a drawdown.

At any rate, now you're phrasing things more respectfully so I'll keep reading.

"your automated systems have failed you": again you're exaggerated, and the proof is that even I, with all my negativity, have never said anything close to it.

I am getting close to the point of not reading anymore again.

Yes, disappointment and boredom leads to discretionary trading.

Yes, I can also take what you're saying about my lack of money management and your forecasting disaster. Just don't exaggerate the problems with my systems and we'll get along.

Ok, so far so good... even this: "These psychological impediments are probably the single biggest threat to you achieving your aim.".

I don't mind this type of language and statements.

"what I have written here - harsh maybe - but truthful and meant in a helpful way": ok, I wasn't sure, but I guess I'll have to acknowledge your good faith after all, provided you stop insulting my systems when they do not deserve it.

Another thing I've always noticed is that you stick to the journal, read it, and take great care in your posts: big problem though with you insulting me and my systems. You have to moderate your language. Stop being "harsh" and stop exaggerating the flaws of my systems.

"no one would be more pleased if you achieved your aim than me": ok, I am glad I didn't block you then, so you could write this, to clarify your intentions. I am quite touchy and get offended easily, but you did exaggerate, especially since you already know that I am touchy. Another offensive statement, by the way, is saying "fragile / delicate psychological balance". You could call me "sensitive" and it would not offend me, but you tend to pick the offensive term and phrasing quite often for someone who says he has the best intentions. Then you also go out of your way to say you care. It's a pretty unusual mix, and that is why you keep going in and out of my ignore list.

Ok, I spotted the usual unpleasant stuff later in your post (last paragraph), so I'll stop reading here.
 
This is dedicated to my brazilian girlfriend on facebook:

Claudio Baglioni - Amor lindo (Amore Bello) portoghese - YouTube

Today I am... I mean right now I am in a pretty good mood, because, thanks to the daylight savings here in Europe, I will have one extra hour relative to the US markets, for the next two weeks, when that daylight savings schedule will start in the US as well. So I can turn the systems on every day at about 22.00 instead of having to get up at 7 am the next day. In other words, the US markets will be ahead of us by one hour.

No more unpleasant negativity on this journal from anyone, please, not even from my long-time readers. In other words, wash your mouth before you talk about my systems. Or, if you can't be respectful and tactful and sensitive, don't even talk about them or my trading. I don't care if profitable traders tend to be mean sarcastic negative unpleasant people - in that case I prefer to interact with unprofitable nice traders.
 
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travis said:
Replying as I read.

No, I am not asking questions to the readers, except encouragement, and yes, I hope to become profitable, but on the journal, I simply write down my thoughts and what goes on in my life. Whether I become successful or not. I enjoy writing for the sake of it. I wrote journals, thousands of pages, before becoming a trader.

Well, I don't remember exactly what we were doing in 2010, but I consider this level of details pretty thorough and satisfactory. Since you care about it, I'll try to add more and I'll keep it in mind as I write my next "index.html".
Click to expand...

Thanks, that would be cool. I always figured I could learn something about entries from you.

The reason I ask whether you ask or not is simple - it's because it would define your level of resolution. You need to have the resolution of a saint to succeed, as everyone in this business knows. I think the answer to my question would have been different from someone who had the absolute commitment and resolution to succeed in every fibre of their being.

I think they would have said "of course I am damn well asking!"

I don't want to sound abrasive (and I have a slight sense of pride that I can handle myself better than bbmac here) but I ask myself now which is bigger here in Travis's life: success in trading or maintaining the Travis personality?

So why do I say that, which could easily be construed as an insult (e.g. I might have just said your ego is too big etc)? Do I want to insult you or do I think I know the solution to getting past this stumbling block which has held you in the same place for so long? bbmac said pretty much the same thing - personal change is required. In relation to my previous post about emotions, it's all the same thing. Those emotions include the desires not to admit failure, not to appear dumb, etc.

What I have discovered in myself, which is out there in books for everyone to know about, is that all of our emotions stack up in our minds when we are making a decision or seeking a solution, and we have to process them, judging each feeling on its relevance and merits and either acting on it or not.

When things happen too fast, which they tend to do in trading, we skip the rational analysis and just go with the feelings. And there are a million other ways that our feelings get control, but that's not the point.

The point is, we have to train our feelings. Those 95% of dumbos out there who grunt and scream and disturb and act stupid - they are acting on their feelings. We are all like that inside but we can choose to train our feelings to do better. And many of us do. Traders train the feelings they need for trading. Even the most rude and ignorant ******* out there on the street has probably trained his feelings in some area of his life because they decided it was necessary to suppress certain feelings to get something else they wanted more - I can't think of a good example, maybe in love & sex - they knew to get the girl they had to behave in a certain way.

So money management for your systems is relatively speaking a complete side-show compared to the damage that you wreak on your account with discretionary trading. All you need to do for money management is stick to 1% of your account per trade and avoid correlation - if you find a better methodology then great, but you don't need it.

You do need to find that tiny area of control in trading that you do have, since you have admitted that you are not brain-damaged, and train it to become bigger and more powerful. Whatever the challenge, however badly your dad brought you up, whatever bad habits you developed, it can be done. But you need to have the resolution of a saint.

I would be interested to see stuff about overcome seemingly insurmountable mental obstacles, rather than reading that, well, the obstacles are just insurmountable. I am trying to do the same thing.
 
OK, today I had to stay home due to some technical problems (technicians coming home, etc.), so I'll definitely seize this opportunity to reply to the above post.

I will reply line by line, as I read, as usual.

In case you ever get disappointed by the conciseness of my analysis on index.html (which is more thorough than ever), don't forget that each time I am analyzing 17 markets each time. It almost impedes my trading just to have to write these 17 analyses down each time. At the same time, it slows down my trading and it obliges me to do some analysis, and to a point this is good, even great, but I can't overdo it to the point of it being so overwhelming that I stop doing it altogether. So I need to keep it concise, but I'll keep in mind your requests.

My "level of resolution": I am quite determined to keep going, as you can tell by all these years of trying, but you're right, in that I might not be determined to make the necessary changes. "You need to have the resolution of a saint to succeed": right, maybe I just have the resolution of a sinner, maybe I only trade because I am a compulsive gambler rather than a disciplined trading saint. I think I am something in between. But I'm trying, Ringo, I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd... No, you're right. I might be more in love with my "travis personality" than with the goal of becoming profitable. You brought up some really good points. I'd like to achieve it my way, achieve profitability while keeping my... touchy/acrimonious/spiteful personality. But this might not be possible, I am now realizing.

Yeah, for some reason, you never said something that I construed as an insult, so thank you for all these years of sensitive posting. Maybe because when you write you have in mind the person's feelings? Ah ah, it seems simple but there's so many people who forget about this small detail when they speak. I just met one at work yesterday. He keeps getting into arguments with everyone because half of what he says can be construed as an insult and yet he does not mean it. But I think this is a unique case, in the relationship between how much he offends and how little he means to offend. I mean, this guy manages to insult people on a daily basis more than average people insult you when they mean to. Hey, maybe that's the case with many people who were writing here and I removed from my contacts. But hell, I can't spend too much time wondering if they mean or not mean to insult me: I have to stop the behavior as quickly as possible, because the web is really replete with insults, and I could never keep a journal if I were to be afraid constantly that after each post I write, there might be a post full of insults following it. It's working great as it is, so there's nothing to change. And, beware - it's not like being insulted will turn me into a profitable trader.

"your ego is too big": Yes, you definitely have a point, and, again, I might be unwilling to let go of it enough to become profitable. Because, as you know, ego means you can't take losses in the right way, and hold a grudge, and engage in revenge trading, etcetera.

"held you in the same place for so long": not the correct analysis. If you mean that I did bring 4k to 24k before, roughly another 5 times, this is a repeat indeed. But, in the latest repeats of previous performances (which all ended in blowing out the account), there's been more skill and less luck. And also, I brought the 4k to 34k this time, so there's been an improvement, and in this field, we measure improvements by the smallest unit, so I would never say that I've been in the same place for so long. This is the closest you've gotten to offending me so far but I am still not offended.

Yeah, we have to "process" our emotions": very nice concept and phrasing.

And yes, "when things happen too fast...": the speed of trading gets in the way of processing our emotions properly and translating them into action.

Oh, an even more complex concept here: training our emotions/feelings.

Look, no matter how primitive I may seem in handling my feelings, I am doing work in this area, too. I am behind, definitely. My journal shows that the feelings that I experience are still overpowering me: anger, spitefulness, and so on, taking losses personally.

But while we are it, let's clearly state that your input will help, but no offensive feedback can help, so go ahead and keep coaching me - this is just great. But I don't want to be coached like a soldier at boot camp. My father was in the army for years, and he tried bringing me up that way, only to turn me into a rebel to all rules, so I am allergic and have a phobia for that methodology. Furthermore, I cannot say to all those writing... what I call "insults" on my journal that they're following a precise "boot camp sergeant" methodology. Many of them are most likely enjoying the process of insulting, as happens in the other threads. At any rate, having had the Great Santini as a dad, I am fed up with this methodology, so I haven't been allowing any sarcasm nor insensitive criticism on my thread.

Yeah, my father has been an insensitive person, and, under the false pretense of helping and improving us, he's been venting out his frustrations on us, throughout our lives. These people need to be stopped at the start. There's no point listening to them. They're not trying to help you and their preaching doesn't help. These people rarely teach you anything practical. They just go on yelling insults, but you could never remember one precise piece of advice to help you. There's some variations, but I can spot them pretty quickly usually. Obviously, given that I am already fed up with them from the start, always from being fed up with my father. So, most definitely, they're not on my contact list.

So money management for your systems is relatively speaking a complete side-show compared to the damage that you wreak on your account with discretionary trading. All you need to do for money management is stick to 1% of your account per trade and avoid correlation - if you find a better methodology then great, but you don't need it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you're mostly right. I haven't automated my money management, and there could be some serious damage coming from it in the future - as bbmac pointed out. So you're not completely right. However, you're right in that this risk is nothing compared to the risk that can be produced by my own discretionary trading / compulsive gambling. At the same time, what must be pointed out as well is the fact that two thirds of my profit so far has come from my discretionary trading. 10k from automated systems, and 20k from discretionary trading. But the journal shows how much distress these 20k from discretionary trading have caused in me. It's almost as if I had been at the hospital myself - and when I say "hospital", I think more of the risks from the doctors and nurses there than from your illness.

"Train your self-control and make it bigger": yes, I am trying. And you say that I can make it bigger, but I wonder if this is the case. I'll keep trying.

What would be much easier to stop trading altogether, I mean to stop discretionary trading, but I want to reach a certain capital before doing that. And I am almost there, I can stop at 40k of capital, because then my systems might give me enough monthly profit to be satisfied.

In the meanwhile, ZW, JPY and GBP seem to have reversed, GBL is under control, totally ("stoplosslessness" situation). I might be able to reach that 40k I want and then retire from this discretionary madness altogether. Retire as a "profitable trader", although I'd probably be unprofitable in the long run. But this, in probability terms, is true for all traders (although to varying degrees, and in my case it's the worst probability). I mean, think about it: would we say that Jesse Livermore was an unprofitable trader? And yet, technically, he was an unprofitable trader.

OK, other than my specific case, as far as I'm concerned, our discussion is left at this point: can self-control be trained? I know you said that it can. And also my experience shows that it can. But, well, I don't know how much you know about this field, but it might be a good idea to tell me precisely how to go about it, because if I don't know how to go about it, then it is still impossible, while being possible. Coach me step by step and I won't be annoyed. And even just one step will do. Even just the first step to improving my self-control will be useful. Don't write long posts please, because I won't be able to reply in such detail as I did today.
 
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Foto Un mega teleobiettivo per fotografare il nuovo Papa - Repubblica.it

151529192-840c092a-6ed4-4535-943d-ef4dde9298f6.jpg

We're all waiting. The new pope will probably be elected today. I'll walk again to saint peter's square in a few minutes.

Yeah, I can't complain about lack of entertainment today.

More nice pictures here:
Vatipics, i giorni del conclave - Repubblica Tv - la Repubblica.it
 
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1500 words in that post. Not bad for an internet forum post.

Hopefully there won't be anything regarding psychology & training that requires such long posts. I'm trying to find a way to train myself as well so it's not going to quick, considering that I'm trying to complete a new trading plan. I'm also trying to complete a Ninjatrader indicator for organising S/R levels which is currently causing debugging problems due to the latest upgrade I just did and due to the time zone shift at the moment, and there are some boring personal issues which are impinging on my time too.

In fact I haven't had a chance to read that post properly yet but I will do later of course.
 
OK, let me know if there's any quick exercises, because as far as self-control I have lots of it in every other area of my life, so it'll be interesting working on the concept of self-control and even evaluating oneself. Let's explore it together in the coming weeks.
 
Excellent pope:
La Stampa - Bergoglio, il Papa gesuita che viaggia in metropolitana
Non ha né autista né macchine blu.
I suoi preti prediletti sono quelli che lavorano nelle «villas miserias», le baraccopoli della capitale argentina
ANDREA TORNIELLI
CITTÀ DEL VATICANO
Il nuovo Papa, l’argentino Jorge Mario Bergoglio, gesuita, 76 anni era stato il cardinale più votato dopo Ratzinger già all’ultimo conclave. Bergoglio è stato un porporato anomalo. Ha sempre rifiutato incarichi nella Curia romana, e in Vaticano è sempre venuto soltanto quando era proprio indispensabile. Fra i vizi degli uomini di Chiesa quello che meno sopporta è la «mondanità spirituale»: carrierismo ecclesiastico travestito da ricercatezza per le forme clericali...
Click to expand...
A really down to earth pope.

Pope Francis | Papa Francesco | Papa Francisco | The New Pope Of the Catholic Church Vatican 2013 - YouTube
 
Hi Travis,

I'm still here. Learning the world of code. One of my strategies is running. Now the long wait to see if it performs live. Working on various other bits of code while I wait. Position management being the main thing.

Best wishes to all on this thread.
 
Wow, today I was that close to starting a verbal fight with a colleague, but I stopped just in time. I asked him for a coffee break and it turned out he appreciates me and my work and just has a habit of talking in a way that I consider disrespectful, and that he considers "direct". Good thing I said to myself: let's first make sure he means disrespect before jumping to conclusions.

At any rate, while I am definitely touchy, he is definitely non-diplomatic, because just two weeks ago, I was told that he got into a huge fight with an equal-ranking colleague (he's higher than me so I think twice about getting into a fight with him) because he told her "ragiona", which in Italian... sounds more like "use your brain" than "think about it", but he probably meant it as "think about it", and, given that he also yells when he talks, she must have interpreted it as "connect your brain to your mouth".

Unbelievable guy: it turns out that he holds me in great esteem, and I spent the last two days thinking about how to fight back and make him stop disrespecting me. He talks very fast, very loudly, very rudely... and yet there are no personal attacks. I mean, he even says stuff like "damn you", which would be enough to make me stop talking to someone for good. But then at the end of the nerve-wracking conversation, he might actually tell you "great job". Very odd experience talking to this guy.

Because of his manner of talking, he is constantly getting into fights with people. I was smart enough to be an exception.
 
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I am currently reading the book that this article is based on:

Do you suffer from decision fatigue?

Considering that it's a long article, if you don't want to read it, this quote sums it up (blogged by some smart alex who said it was ironically long, meaning no-one would ever make the decision to read it:

"Making decisions uses the very same willpower that you use to say no to doughnuts, drugs or illicit sex," Baumeister says. "It's the same willpower that you use to be polite or to wait your turn or to drag yourself out of bed or to hold off going to the bathroom. Your ability to make the right investment or hiring decision may be reduced simply because you expended some of your willpower earlier when you held your tongue in response to someone's offensive remark or when you exerted yourself to get to the meeting on time."

I have just started reading the book by the same author on the same subject. Hope to find some key information. Do you see the connection to your last post?
 
Yes, but it confirms to me that I am not simple to explain as far as compulsive gambling. Indeed, as I pointed out before, I am extremely in control and controlled: I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't have illicit sex (or any sex at all), I don't eat doughnuts, I am a raw vegan, I swim an hour and a half every day, I hold my tongue so much that it's a problem to talk, I wait in line, I get up from bed, even earlier than I should, and I can hold my pissing.

Then, after all these successful deprivations, obviously, I engage in compulsive gambling, because I feel like... what the hell else can I do in life?

So your next suggestion might be this (but I tried it already and it doesn't work): engage in a debauched lifestyle where you drink, smoke, rape women, eat doughnuts, pee in your pants, sleep all day... and see if the compulsive gambling urges go away. It doesn't work either.

By the way, today I need to celebrate some, because tho... those GBP, GBL, JPY, ZW trades are finally starting to go my way in a big way, and my capital is now above 33k, only 1k from terra incognita:

Map_North_America_1566.jpg

I am heading for Ontario. Ontario reads "terra in cognita" on my map, and it means big money. It means freedom, pot-smoking, sex with prostitutes... finally it's all coming together.

Roxette - It Must Have Been Love [with lyrics] - YouTube

This song is from my youth and it reminds me of all the women that I didn't do.
 
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All those things are just examples of willpower energy usage.

Your self-control in terms of raping the next attractive woman you see does not correlate with your self-control (or lack of it) in uncontrolled risk-taking in the markets.

If anything, what the article is saying is that the more self-control you expend in one area, the less you have available in another, i.e. they are negatively correlated.

They also show that there is a correlation between blood sugar levels and self-control.

This sounds like the crudest idea possible that I just got from the article, but it could be worth trying before I can find anything more intelligent in the author's book: before you look at your trading account and have the opportunity to indulge in discretionary trading, if you think you shouldn't but fear you will, eat or drink something really sweet. See if that affects your decision-making.
 
Well, interesting - I had found out the same thing about a year ago, through my research, that self-control is limited resource, and it gets depleted (cfr. this post I wrote almost a year ago, and there is another interesting post right after it). So, I should not waste it on my daily life, except where its return gets maximized.

But you know what? I don't buy that either. I have doubts that it gets depleted, or rather it does get depleted, because the example was this in their tests: that if children use a lot of self-control in one activity, they will have less on another activity. But guess what? I believe that for my case, this depletion of self-control gets offset and balanced by the good habits. In other words, you might need self-control to not smoke on day one, but it decreases as the days without smoking increase and therefore you can end up with a life where you're totally in control, because you have acquired the good habits one by one.

But what still escapes me is why I cannot control my compulsive gambling, given that I've acquired all the other good habits. I don't even scratch my head that much any more.

...

Bingo!

That is exactly what I was looking for. A practical test for me. Having some cake handy, next to my laptop, ready to eat it as I turn on my TWS. I will test this in coming weeks, to see if the effect of eating a cake can increase my self-control over compulsive gambling.

...

Capital above 34k!

Need to celebrate with another song of my youth:

Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares To You (Lyrics) - YouTube

I might have to go get some cakes, because this is when I usually get out of the trade. I stay in until I risk blowing out my account, then, when I risk doubling it, I get scared and get out.

I am just a few hundreds from uncharted territory. Need to get out and eat some hot chocolate and American pastries. There's a shop nearby. They suck, but they're definitely sweet.

Nothing compares... nothing compares... nothing compares to me. Yes, I know. I know. I am so special. I am Jesse Livermore, except I am taking it to a whole new level, and maybe I won't blow out my account like he did. Oh my god, I am so Jesse Livermore. I am King Midas and everything I touch turns to gold, I am king top/bottom picker and everything I pick reverses. I am so good...
 
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