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Went short again

Let's cross our fingers.

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Oh well, so far it went 2 ticks away from take profit... but my rules say i can't exit early so what can i do?
 
Should i change the mother ****ing rules, during an ongoing trade, like i said to that girl not to do just a few hours ago?
 
Let's not. Otherwise from today on, i will always have to worry about whether it'd be good to exit early. Let's not change the rules.

I'd have to stress out continuously about where I should be exiting...
 
On the other hand, I knew it wouldn't fall any more on that down leg, and now I am up 70 from 220 a few minutes ago, and i knew it was it. I knew the fall was over.
 
Had i exited early, right now i would be taking a third short signal. But maybe it was for the best because this third short signal might fail.
 
Oh, by the way, I backtested early exits and it doesn't turn out to be more profitable: that's one of the reasons I am not exiting early. However, a discretionary early exit is quite different from a backtested early exit, which is like a blind early exit, especially since my skills are not good enough to backtest it almost like a human early exit would be, and my parameters for an early exit are too simple.
 
Right now things are like this: either the fall is over, and what are the chances of that? Or my trade will turn profitable. If my trade is not profitable, then the fall would have to be over and then it would make sense to sell the house and go long with all the contracts I can buy.
 
However... it also sucks that after an overall profit close to 500 I might now end the day at breakeven because my second trade fails - just because of the day's low being 2 ticks away from my take profit.
 
I might become so irrational as to change my rules and put the early exit back in there again. Which would... I don't know any more at this point if it would suck or not. My discretionality is usually bad, but just because it's discretion given to a compulsive gambler. If I were a bit more balanced, that early exit freedom would only be a good thing. But since I am a sick and unbalanced person, I need strict and unequivocal rules.
 
All right, Chief... you're our last chance. What do you say? Just raise your hand up. That's all we need from you today, Chief. Just raise your hand up one time. Show her that you can do it. Show her that you can still do it.
 
I got disciplined, and now I'm tired of documenting all my trades live

Ok, guys, no matter what happens, I've realized that this is going to be my last documented trade live because

1) I've learned to be disciplined - and if I haven't, I'll come back to trade live
2) It's hampering my progress to trade live and having to document every single step and thought in front of everyone.

It's not because I want to hide anything: if it were this, I would say so without any shame that I want to keep my good system to myself.

Maybe I'll start posting my trades live again. If I'll need to, I will.

For now I think that I won't, so this will be my last trade (if everything goes as I think it will, and I have learned to be disciplined) thoroughly documented on the journal.

I will answer questions if anyone has any on how my progress is going with this system or other things.

After this, I'll post the usual picture, and all the rules of my system and so on. Just for the sake of doing things properly.

Mostly, I am tired of having to take pictures and having to post all the rules and evolution of a trade.

The purpose was not to hold a course, but rather to attend my own discipline course. I think I graduated. If I'll realize that I am in trouble and start gambling again, I will start stuff, on an hourly basis as i've been doing so far.

What's the worst that could happen tomorrow is that I will - on my own and without telling anyone - reinstate early exits, and move on from there.

Yes, there's a risk that my self-discipline will decrease simply for the fact of not having to justify anything to anyone, something I've been doing so far because I can't lie, so if I write here, I write it all.

But I am tired of taking pictures, and I think that today I missed that early exit merely because I wanted to show everyone I was so good and disciplined and following all my rules: but I feel like an idiot now, as my day might end with a +0, instead of +500.

I thank everyone for following and for encouraging my discipline, and I will answer questions about the system and about how I'm doing with it, in the future, and on whatever rules I've changed.

And if it'll be so good that I don't want to share all of it, I'll specify it, and won't feel ashamed for wanting to hide my system, because I think it's reasonable. But right I've been showing everything. And in the future you can count on me on not hiding rules and tricks without clearly stating it.
 
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I think it's happening. Profit has been back at 200 a few minutes ago. I think my takeprofit will be triggered, eventually. For today I am totally tired, as I said, also from documenting the whole thing. I will stop trading for the day after this.

And if I'll gamble again, I'll be sure to come here and write it down, to shame myself in public. Of course I'll still be as talkative as usual as far the rest. Only I won't talk as much as the pro-trend live trades, because I am tired of all this work I am doing for each trade. The purpose was to get disciplined. I think I've achieved. I am sorry if I'm letting any of the readers down, but I will answer any of their questions right here on the journal or, if they prefer, in private. I feel gratitude for all the readers for the encouragement and even for just reading and caring.
 
Probably the last fully documented trade

So, as I said, sorry guys, but I realized that I got tired of typing all this stuff, and taking all these pictures. I will do it right, but I will end it here.

I mean: the purpose as I've always said was to make money with discretionary trading - through discipline and through a good method (I was lacking both until now) - and now that I see I'm making money by having learned discipline and having developed a good method, I don't see why I should keep on writing all this stuff.

What I will do however is tell you one more time about the method. And I am not even sure that it will work in the future, but unless I come here to tell you I've relapsed into compulsive gambling, it will mean that I'm still following this method.

I will not come to show off every time I win and stay away when I lose: I will either document both wins and losses, or I won't talk about neither. Just like I've done until here.

Oh, and if I do reinstate the "early exit" rule, I'll make sure to come and tell you. But, since today it worked without it (quite an irrational reason, I know), I won't put the "early exit" back.

LAST FULLY DOCUMENTED TRADE AND SUMMARY OF SYSTEM
So here's my last fully documented trade and, later, the state of the system right now.

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PRO-TREND DISCRETIONARY SYSTEM

HOTKEYS
"B" for "buy 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order
"S" for "sell 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order
----------------------
CHARTS
SET UP THESE CHARTS ON IB'S TWS:
15 MINUTES OF ES, CL, GBP, ZN "line" mode
2 DAYS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 15-minutes CANDLES WITH PIVOTS
4 HOURS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 1-MINUTE CANDLES WITH 15-periods and 210-periods moving averages
----------------------
RULES
ENTRIES must be made if:
1) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
2) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes
EXITS
Bracket order of 20 ticks.
----------------------
TRADES:
Here's my trades as of today and the time (CET) they took place:
20091130 17.20sh to 17.30sh: takeprofit
20091130 21.50sh to 01.00sh: takeprofit
20091201 17.50sh to 18.50sh: early exit +1
20091202 18.40sh to 00.15sh: stoploss
20091203 08.10sh to 08.30sh: takeprofit
20091204 10.40sh to 13.00sh: early exit -5
20091207 16.10sh to 16.30sh: takeprofit
20091208 17.30sh to 19.00sh: takeprofit
20091209 18.40sh to 19.00sh: takeprofit
20091210 19.00sh to 20.20sh: stoploss
20091215 17.20sh to 17.30sh: takeprofit: BEST TRADE EVER (SHORTEST ONE: exactly 10 minutes)
20091215 17.40sh to 18.30sh: takeprofit
----------------------
BRACKET ORDER:
Pictures of my weapon and some shots I made.
Some shots I missed.


-----------------------

Remember: if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

MY COMPULSIVE GAMBLING CURED THANKS TO THIS JOURNAL AND ITS READERS
I think I owe a lot to this forum and to these journals and to these readers so I wouldn't mind giving some help, especially because by explaining things I clarify them in my mind.

I knew I had almost gotten it all together. The ingredients for the profitability recipe were almost all there, after 12 years of trading.

This journal and the readers gave me that extra ingredient that was missing: having discipline but first of all having a method. Because, as I said, if you don't have a method you believe in, it doesn't even make sense to follow its rules. So first you have to believe in a method because backtests say it works and forward tests say that it works. That's more or less it. If I'll have problems with compulsive gambling again, I'll definitely come here and start writing about it again.

I am not leaving the journal or the forum. But hopefully the fight against my compulsive gambling is over - not because I lost it, and because I am tired of documenting my live trades here, but because I think that, having a method I can believe in, has given me the discipline to follow it. But all this happened thanks to reasoning out loud here and with the readers. So, thanks, all. And, as I said I am not leaving. Probably, because of having cured my gambling, I will only write 20 posts per day instead of my usual 50.
 
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Balance is back above 6k. Finally. And ZN system today is actually making money. Quite good.

Funny how I can be happy with 6k now when I was unhappy with 10k a month ago. That's because I'm like a patient recovering from an illness. Yes, I am weaker, but I defeated my illness (I think and I hope, but I can't be positive of course).
 
Re: Probably the last fully documented trade

I think I owe a lot to this forum and to these journals and to these readers so I wouldn't mind giving some help, especially because by explaining things I clarify them in my mind.

This mirrors my experience also, and is why teaching is sometimes beneficial both for teacher and student, as paradoxical as that sounds. Anyway, well done. :)
 
Re: Probably the last fully documented trade

This mirrors my experience also, and is why teaching is sometimes beneficial both for teacher and student, as paradoxical as that sounds. Anyway, well done. :)

Thanks. You see, I've reached healing and at the same time fatigue, almost simultaneously. All of a sudden, half way through my 12th trade, I realized "holy cow how tired I am" and "why am I doing this?". But maybe I realized the fatigue because i realized i had reached the objective. Just like you stay outside all day long and don't feel like peeing. Then all of a sudden you get home and you feel like you can't hold it anymore. But then you say to yourself "how the hell did i manage to hold it for all these hours, without even realizing I had to pee?". And the answer is that once you're home you stop holding it, unconsciously, without even realizing that. Probably, in the same way, this stuff was tiring me, but since i had to do it, I put my mind to it, without minding how tiring it was.
 
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