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Yamato
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For some technical reasons, not my fault, the trade still didn't get closed. Losing 180 right now. What an awful experience, from the start. Just life in general. Nothing against this trade. Just a frustrating life in a frustrating family in general.
Yamato
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WHAT I DID WRONG
And I had even said to wait until 9 but I only waited until 7. Now I see the point of the stoploss and the takeprofit. Place your trade with a takeprofit and a stoploss, and walk away. With a lot of capital, I could place plenty of such small trades, and would be making money every single day.
In this case, I would have slept perfectly fine and would have woken up with 500 dollars more. Instead I stayed up all night, watching price do nothing, and then gave up and sold at a loss, a few minutes before it actually bounced. Losing 150 + 500 (of lost profit) = 650
As someone said to me: if you're afraid your stoploss will be triggered in vain, then put a wider stoploss. That's why I usually do not use a stoploss, because I am afraid it will be taken in vain.
Moving averages not being re-crossed, stoplosses not being triggered, and time not having passed: all methods to keep yourself from looking incessantly at charts and doing something irrational out of impatience and exhaustion.
Today my plan was perfectly right. But after looking at charts for several hours I didn't follow my plan.
And I had even said to wait until 9 but I only waited until 7. Now I see the point of the stoploss and the takeprofit. Place your trade with a takeprofit and a stoploss, and walk away. With a lot of capital, I could place plenty of such small trades, and would be making money every single day.
In this case, I would have slept perfectly fine and would have woken up with 500 dollars more. Instead I stayed up all night, watching price do nothing, and then gave up and sold at a loss, a few minutes before it actually bounced. Losing 150 + 500 (of lost profit) = 650
As someone said to me: if you're afraid your stoploss will be triggered in vain, then put a wider stoploss. That's why I usually do not use a stoploss, because I am afraid it will be taken in vain.
Moving averages not being re-crossed, stoplosses not being triggered, and time not having passed: all methods to keep yourself from looking incessantly at charts and doing something irrational out of impatience and exhaustion.
Today my plan was perfectly right. But after looking at charts for several hours I didn't follow my plan.
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Yamato
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1) you haven't lost over 250 dollars for the day (from discretionary trading)
2) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're monitoring "correlated" chart (1 month to 15 minutes)
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by >= 5 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
2) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're monitoring "correlated" chart (1 month to 15 minutes)
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by >= 5 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
Yamato
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I realize that I need to face the problem of overtrading with a very strict rule, without which I will not weigh my decisions carefully enough, like tonight, when I acted like a mad man. This happens as soon as you get used to discretionary trading. So, from now on, I will only allow myself to make one discretionary trade per day, because the purpose is to think carefully about what's best, and to make money, rather than have fun gambling. And if you're only allowed to make one trade, you'll keep your cool. And I'll also avoid revenge trading. I'll make my trade, whether it's with the pro-trend system or the overnight counter-trend system, and then I'll walk away. There's no point in staying 5 hours to watch charts when you already placed your trade, and your stoploss and take profit. It's like you're watching television, and even if it's entertaining, you should still avoid watching it.
1) you haven't made other discretionary trades today
2) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're monitoring "correlated" chart (1 month to 15 minutes)
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by >= 5 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
1) you haven't made other discretionary trades today
2) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're monitoring "correlated" chart (1 month to 15 minutes)
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by >= 5 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
Yamato
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So let's start getting used to the idea that, no matter how it goes, this is going to be my only discretionary trade for the rest of the day:
As long as I'll follow this rule, I won't relapse into my compulsive gambling addiction, which would make me break all rules. So it's a rule to prevent me from entering a state that will make me break all rules.
1) you haven't made other discretionary trades today with this or other systems (you can make any type of discretionary trades outside this system as long as you set an exit plan before entry and follow it)
2) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're monitoring "correlated" chart (1 month to 15 minutes)
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by >= 5 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
As long as I'll follow this rule, I won't relapse into my compulsive gambling addiction, which would make me break all rules. So it's a rule to prevent me from entering a state that will make me break all rules.
1) you haven't made other discretionary trades today with this or other systems (you can make any type of discretionary trades outside this system as long as you set an exit plan before entry and follow it)
2) your entry and your take profit are >=10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're monitoring "correlated" chart (1 month to 15 minutes)
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by >= 5 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after touching the other side >= 3 minutes
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Yamato
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It's the final countdown...!
We're leaving together
But still it's farewell
And maybe we'll come back
To earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame
We're leaving ground
Will things ever be the same again?
It's the final countdown
The final countdown
Ohh
We're heading for Venus and still we stand tall
'Cause maybe they've seen us and welcome us all, yeah
With so many light years to go and things to be found
(To be found)
I'm sure that we'll all miss her so
It's the final countdown
The final countdown
The final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh ho ohh
The final countdown, oh ho
It's the final countdown
The final countdown
The final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh
It's the final countdown
We're leaving together
The final countdown
We'll all miss her so
It's the final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh, it's the final countdown
Yeah
We're leaving together
But still it's farewell
And maybe we'll come back
To earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame
We're leaving ground
Will things ever be the same again?
It's the final countdown
The final countdown
Ohh
We're heading for Venus and still we stand tall
'Cause maybe they've seen us and welcome us all, yeah
With so many light years to go and things to be found
(To be found)
I'm sure that we'll all miss her so
It's the final countdown
The final countdown
The final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh ho ohh
The final countdown, oh ho
It's the final countdown
The final countdown
The final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh
It's the final countdown
We're leaving together
The final countdown
We'll all miss her so
It's the final countdown
(The final countdown)
Ohh, it's the final countdown
Yeah
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Yes. This chimes with what another trader I'm learning from has once said to me. He said the 2 most difficult lessons for new traders to learn is:
a) Do what you're told (Yes he is rather blunt. But he means, you follow the plan/system to the letter, and do not allow yourself to override and innovate at every turn/at a whim. Taking ownership of your trading (which implies personalising and doing your own system research and tweaking when you're already disciplined/profitable) is one thing, but arbitrary/non-disciplined "innovation" and overriding your system is quite another.)
b) Doing nothing (meaning, taking action (e.g. entering/closing trades) in trading is often interspersed with long periods of doing nothing, and it's sometimes a real problem to resist the urge to take action, especially when you see a position in the red and every part of you is screaming for some/any action to "fix" the perceived problem.) Staring at the screen all day obviously can make this worse. You need to be able to often do nothing when you want be a successful trader.
Yamato
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Yeah, totally right. Instead, what I've always been doing is coming to the markets for company when I was feeling bored, and comfort when I was feeling down. Looking for a trade to sometimes entertain me and other times to put me in a good mood by giving me money. That's why automated systems are so superior to discretionary trading: because they solve all these problems at once. It's much easier to let your systems work and totally ignore trading, than to check out trading on a daily basis and resist those urges we've described. It's easier to not buy chocolate at all, than to buy chocolate, place it on the table, and not eat it.
Automated trading would be perfect for me, but I don't have the capital for it. I'd need three times as much as I have right now. So I'm going to have to go back to discretionary trading, and try to fix myself in order to do it profitably. I think the new rule of one trade per day, if I can follow it, will fix all "addiction to the markets" problems.
So right now I should just walk away from the screen, but I have nowhere to go. Because first of all I'd need some sleep but today, since I was home, i let the plumber come in to fix the shower. So they're working here right now, and I can't just tell them "i'm going to sleep, you do whatever you want". But other than this I have some problems because my life basically does not exist, as they say "i don't have a life". In order to work on this stuff I became even more antisocial than I already was, and the problem is not that friends or activities are not there: the problem is that i don't enjoy either any more. I don't care to meet anyone, even if some of them are willing to come visit me. I don't let them come because people are more problems than pleasure at this point. I prefer watching tv. People cannot be lowered in volume, turned off...
Automated trading would be perfect for me, but I don't have the capital for it. I'd need three times as much as I have right now. So I'm going to have to go back to discretionary trading, and try to fix myself in order to do it profitably. I think the new rule of one trade per day, if I can follow it, will fix all "addiction to the markets" problems.
So right now I should just walk away from the screen, but I have nowhere to go. Because first of all I'd need some sleep but today, since I was home, i let the plumber come in to fix the shower. So they're working here right now, and I can't just tell them "i'm going to sleep, you do whatever you want". But other than this I have some problems because my life basically does not exist, as they say "i don't have a life". In order to work on this stuff I became even more antisocial than I already was, and the problem is not that friends or activities are not there: the problem is that i don't enjoy either any more. I don't care to meet anyone, even if some of them are willing to come visit me. I don't let them come because people are more problems than pleasure at this point. I prefer watching tv. People cannot be lowered in volume, turned off...
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Question: If you're open to the idea of spot forex, then why not try a micro account somewhere (where the minimum lot size is $1000) or even a broker like Oanda which has no minimum lot size? This will mean you can scale down your automated system trade sizes to within levels where you can auto-trade again within the confines of your available capital. It will however probably mean having to learn MetaTrader (or Dealbook360) or the Oanda API (which also costs $$$ after a couple of months although this is waived if you do a certain number/volume of trading) depending on which broker you end up using.
So I realise this may not be very a practical suggestion/may involve a lot of work. (Also I presume your systems may not be appropriate for spot forex...) Even so I thought I'd just mention it as it crossed my mind...
Yamato
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Yes, thanks for the ideas. I had thought about it, but very briefly, because, as you said, it is not practical. My automated systems can only work with some futures, and with IB TWS and excel. If I wanted to move them elsewhere (other broker and other markets), even if it were possible, it would take me months. Very impractical.
I'd rather try to control myself and help my systems with one discretionary trade per day. It's going to be very hard. I definitely have the potential of making one thousand per week, without too much effort. But this means having the patience of waiting another 3 months to reach the needed capital (1000 per week, so it'd be 12 thousands), and I don't have that patience, so what happens is instead of just waiting for 3 months, I'll end up waiting forever, because I push my luck and take too many risks: instead of picking one good trade per day, I'll try to pick 10 good trades, and five of them will wipe out what I made on the other five. But even if someone gave me that capital, or I won it somehow, I might lose it all, because I'll always be in a rush to make more and push my money management to reckless levels: I had 25k several times in the past two years and each time I brought it back down to 5k. I remember when I was at 31k this summer, I felt it was too small, and that I had to find a way to increase it. I am totally unbalanced and have no common sense. My anxiety ruins everything I build.
What did I say about the plumbers? I'd go to sleep as soon as they left. Well, they left, and here I am still awake and typing away. I don't think I'll even go to sleep. In the morning I am tired and I say tonight I'll go to sleep early, and when the night comes, I rarely do it. It's all a mess. All the good things I do because of my perfectionism, I destroy them because of my anxiety, which itself is the cause of my perfectionism. I stayed up all night and I can't go to sleep even.
I did all this work at the bank, everyone thanked me, they even said, the boss, "what would we do with him", just three days ago (a colleague told me), and what do I do? I skip work for two days in a row without even calling in sick. Isn't this a totally efficient way of ruining all the work you've done? And why do I skip work? Because of anxiety. I worked so well because I wanted to be on top of things, but when things got out of control because everyone kept giving me all their work since I could do it so well, then that same anxiety made it impossible for me to sleep and go to work, because they gave me more than I could do, and I take my work personally. Everything has to be perfect and finished at the end of the day. I cannot start a second task until I am finished on the first one. I never leave any emails unread when I come home, or I can't leave the office. And they forced me, by increasing quality and quantity at the same time, into an impossible and unbearable situation for me, so that I don't go to work simply because I refuse to work poorly. I want to do everything perfectly, but you gave me too much work to even be able to do it decently, and so you're forcing me to either fall behind on my work (like the rest of the office) or stay late. And i can't accept either choice. So I am in an impossible situation and I don't go to work.
I'd rather try to control myself and help my systems with one discretionary trade per day. It's going to be very hard. I definitely have the potential of making one thousand per week, without too much effort. But this means having the patience of waiting another 3 months to reach the needed capital (1000 per week, so it'd be 12 thousands), and I don't have that patience, so what happens is instead of just waiting for 3 months, I'll end up waiting forever, because I push my luck and take too many risks: instead of picking one good trade per day, I'll try to pick 10 good trades, and five of them will wipe out what I made on the other five. But even if someone gave me that capital, or I won it somehow, I might lose it all, because I'll always be in a rush to make more and push my money management to reckless levels: I had 25k several times in the past two years and each time I brought it back down to 5k. I remember when I was at 31k this summer, I felt it was too small, and that I had to find a way to increase it. I am totally unbalanced and have no common sense. My anxiety ruins everything I build.
What did I say about the plumbers? I'd go to sleep as soon as they left. Well, they left, and here I am still awake and typing away. I don't think I'll even go to sleep. In the morning I am tired and I say tonight I'll go to sleep early, and when the night comes, I rarely do it. It's all a mess. All the good things I do because of my perfectionism, I destroy them because of my anxiety, which itself is the cause of my perfectionism. I stayed up all night and I can't go to sleep even.
I did all this work at the bank, everyone thanked me, they even said, the boss, "what would we do with him", just three days ago (a colleague told me), and what do I do? I skip work for two days in a row without even calling in sick. Isn't this a totally efficient way of ruining all the work you've done? And why do I skip work? Because of anxiety. I worked so well because I wanted to be on top of things, but when things got out of control because everyone kept giving me all their work since I could do it so well, then that same anxiety made it impossible for me to sleep and go to work, because they gave me more than I could do, and I take my work personally. Everything has to be perfect and finished at the end of the day. I cannot start a second task until I am finished on the first one. I never leave any emails unread when I come home, or I can't leave the office. And they forced me, by increasing quality and quantity at the same time, into an impossible and unbearable situation for me, so that I don't go to work simply because I refuse to work poorly. I want to do everything perfectly, but you gave me too much work to even be able to do it decently, and so you're forcing me to either fall behind on my work (like the rest of the office) or stay late. And i can't accept either choice. So I am in an impossible situation and I don't go to work.
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Yamato
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I was distracted and missed the requirement being met:
EXITS
1) Bracket order of 20 ticks.
2) You can exit early if you wish, but not increase the distance of the stoploss.
3) If the trade is still open after 1 hour, close it as soon as both averages are against it.
TRADES:
20091130: takeprofit
20091130: takeprofit
20091201: early exit with 1 tick profit
20091202: stoploss
20091203: takeprofit
20091204: early exit with 5 ticks loss
Today I was out of control again and the day ended like crap, with hundreds lost (between yesterday's GBP trade and today's 5 ticks EUR loss). But the day ended on a good note as I followed my rules, and created a couple of very healthy rules for my discretionary trading. If I lose hudreds today it's ok as long as i learn a method that will work in the future. As long as I keep on reinforcing the habit of making just 1 trade per day and following all the rules I write down.
And even with a losing day like today, it's a relief to see that during the whole week I never had a loss of 2000 like I used to have in the previous months when I engaged in so much discretionary trading. With the previous method, of full scale compulsive gambling, during this week I would have gone below the capital needed to trade any future contract.
EXITS
1) Bracket order of 20 ticks.
2) You can exit early if you wish, but not increase the distance of the stoploss.
3) If the trade is still open after 1 hour, close it as soon as both averages are against it.
TRADES:
20091130: takeprofit
20091130: takeprofit
20091201: early exit with 1 tick profit
20091202: stoploss
20091203: takeprofit
20091204: early exit with 5 ticks loss
Today I was out of control again and the day ended like crap, with hundreds lost (between yesterday's GBP trade and today's 5 ticks EUR loss). But the day ended on a good note as I followed my rules, and created a couple of very healthy rules for my discretionary trading. If I lose hudreds today it's ok as long as i learn a method that will work in the future. As long as I keep on reinforcing the habit of making just 1 trade per day and following all the rules I write down.
And even with a losing day like today, it's a relief to see that during the whole week I never had a loss of 2000 like I used to have in the previous months when I engaged in so much discretionary trading. With the previous method, of full scale compulsive gambling, during this week I would have gone below the capital needed to trade any future contract.
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bangkokgee
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hi travis long time no read,glad ur doing fine bro keep it up
Damn right. Maybe print that out and stick it atop your screen as visible reminder? Anyway
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