my journal

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See, what did I tell you?

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And now, going to sleep, and waking up who knows when... and then going to work late.
 
This lifestyle doesn't work. This life hasn't worked. I am unhappy. I am not happy with the parents i was given. I am not happy with the life i was given. I am not happy with the relatives I was given. I am not happy with the friends I was given.
 
Okay, I'm telling you something that I was told not very long back.

1. Stop giving reasons to yourself. The only person believing that its okay is you. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY else cares. Dont give yourself reasons. If you have done something wrong.. well you failed. The only thing you can do is get up.

2. All families are dysfunctional. Again, NONE of them care, it is YOUR life. It is just YOU. NOBODY else. Stop giving reasons for ANYTHING. (I even went to the extent of writing "NO REASONS" on my desktop".

It changed my life. Not so much my trading. Will continue my paper trades and keep you posted through next week. Cheers.
 
I've been saying the same things in the past hundreds of posts. Of course that doesn't mean I've been doing them.

Yes, knowing what to do and actually doing it is not the same thing... :( This is what learning to actually be a profitable trader is all about eh? Even so, one has to first know what is appropriate in order to even have the option of actually doing it, so it's perhaps still worth repeating sometimes for the benefit of random readers as well as oneself to help reinforce what needs to be done?
 
This lifestyle doesn't work. This life hasn't worked. I am unhappy. I am not happy with the parents i was given. I am not happy with the life i was given. I am not happy with the relatives I was given. I am not happy with the friends I was given.

Why not make yourself happy? But maybe you want to be unhappy.. like 5 ZN contracts on a tiny account, thereby virtually guaranteeing a blow-out (if not today, then tomorrow). You've heard it before... 'you get what you want from the markets'. You are getting what you want.

The amazing thing is you have learnt a lot technically. The skills are there. However the winning attitude isn't. Thus you are losing.

Here's something that will work, providing you really want to become a winner:

Right now you are focusing on how small your account is. You are thinking you need to triple it to trade your systems, but you are sub-consciously focusing and worrying about the "small account" or blowing up, so a small account is what you get.

Instead try this: tell yourself "if I can prove I have a good equity curve with small drawdowns from now till 31 March, I will be able to find investors / borrow money / find other ways to massively increase the account. All I have to do now is trade correctly, manage my risks and build this track record"
 
Why not make yourself happy? But maybe you want to be unhappy.. like 5 ZN contracts on a tiny account, thereby virtually guaranteeing a blow-out (if not today, then tomorrow). You've heard it before... 'you get what you want from the markets'. You are getting what you want.

The amazing thing is you have learnt a lot technically. The skills are there. However the winning attitude isn't. Thus you are losing.

Here's something that will work, providing you really want to become a winner:

Right now you are focusing on how small your account is. You are thinking you need to triple it to trade your systems, but you are sub-consciously focusing and worrying about the "small account" or blowing up, so a small account is what you get.

Instead try this: tell yourself "if I can prove I have a good equity curve with small drawdowns from now till 31 March, I will be able to find investors / borrow money / find other ways to massively increase the account. All I have to do now is trade correctly, manage my risks and build this track record"

The best way to be recognised as a worthy trader is:

1. by limiting risk to a maximum of 1% of capital;
2. by trading signals of longer term charts;
3. by taking stops from longer term charts;
4. by having targets substantially bigger than stops (like x10);

All 4 combined represent nothing more than a prudent money management strategy, which is the core of the success of retail traders that managed to get into the minority list. People that try to chase after methods that may only be used effectively by professionals stand a good chance of losing eventually. Bottom line - I would concentrate on the above 4 points to learn how to steadily grow your account, that's my goal also. Good luck.

P.S. If you are generally unhappy, then have you considered spirituality, that helped a lot of people (more than shrinks ever have).
 
Thanks to all for the kind words of encouragement. I agree that my attitude to life (and trading habits) needs major changes.
 
Thanks to all for the kind words of encouragement. I agree that my attitude to life (and trading habits) needs major changes.

That simple agreement means you recognise you need to change.More importantly, it means you will have a higher chance of succeeding in doing so.
Many people with a problem ruin any chance of improving their life because they live in perpetual denial. You are no longer in this group so, good luck on your journey.:)
 
Thanks. It's not easy to be in denial, because my account balance has been telling me for years that something is wrong.
 
I guess the explicit or implicit message from the readers is this: stop complaining (on the journal and in general) and start acting. I thought of this because I was just about to start writing yet another whining post about work (where I am now, after waking up at noon). Instead I decided against it. Please remind me that I said this, because I will probably forget (having life-long habits of complaining).
 
Back at 4800. I had opened 4 ZN and made my last gamble. Now I am FLAT (YES!!!) and almost recovered completely from yesterday's loss. From now on only reasonable trading.
 
I also bought a bunch of swimming gear for swimming at the Vatican pool. You bet, i live right near the vatican. I am going to swim with the priests soon. In holy water.
 
Yeah, I am all set to go.

Opened a LONG on ZN on support, and a short on GBP at the high of a few minutes ago. They're pretty good trades, and especially not overleveraged. If it doesn't go well, I'm standing to lose just one hundred on each trade. If it works I should make about 300 by tonight, on both trades. So I'll be above 5k and then I can worry about my overnight trade.
 
daily overnight trade

Nothing needs to be said. This picture says it all: stoploss of 13 ticks, takeprofit of 32. Since I think it's likely to work, I will go for it. With this ratio, I could even get two out of three wrong, and yet I think it's likely to work, so why not. Sure the entry could have been a bit better, but I guess I gained some certainty by letting it fall (even though I lost some profit, and therefore screwed the risk/reward ratio big time). What's important is that I have a stoploss in place, that I followed my rules and that I didn't overleverage.

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Other things to mention: it took me 5 minutes to evaluate the condition for this trade (not one hour as I had promised), I will be able to sleep over it (potential loss of about 200).

Next time it would be nice if we could study all potential trades with my friend the reader from australia, who said he's using a similar system. It would help me a lot.
 
Now the real test for me will be not removing my stoploss if price gets close to it. That's the hardest thing to do for me. The second hardest thing is waiting for the takeprofit to be triggered. Both problems would be solved by not staring at the chart all day long. But it would be better if I could stare at the chart and still not touch anything.
 
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