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I'm short even though one of the requirements wasn't met. Broke my rules.
ECB press conferance with Trichet going on;
Causes volatility, especially as a Q&A session can bring up anything;

The press conference following the meeting of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank
on 3 December 2009 will take place in Frankfurt am Main at 2.30 p.m. C.E.T. and have the following format:

* an introductory statement by Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the ECB; and

* a question and answer session at which registered journalists will be able to pose questions to Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the ECB, and Lucas Papademos, Vice-President of the ECB.

http://www.thomson-webcast.net/de/dispatching/?ecb_091203_stream_video
 
Thanks, again.

Made some more money by going long, and breaking my rules again.
 
ok, made hundreds... that's good enough... now I won't trust my rules again, or hopefully it will just be a bad accident. turning it off for a few hours: enough of a heartache... finally I am back at 7k.
 
ok, made hundreds... that's good enough... now I won't trust my rules again, or hopefully it will just be a bad accident. turning it off for a few hours: enough of a heartache... finally I am back at 7k.

Some observations:
1.) There are no perfect rules.
2.) This implies that one set of rules which capture a statistical edge will nevertheless fail in some situations where another other rules (or a discretionary trade) will succeed.
3.) You cannot therefore distrust your rules just because you happened to manage to make money outside of them.

If I was you, I'd be thankful for making some money and immediately go back to following the rules as much as possible.

Just some thoughts. :)
 
Yes, that's good advice and reasonable remarks, as usual. Thanks. (#2. that's why I created 42 systems, each capturing a different edge).

I am still unstable from today's trading session. It wasn't good at all for me. I am still tense from that. I am referring to the 14.30 CET trades, wth that trichet news being released and so on. You're right, from now on I'll go back to my "usual rules" (that lasted me already 3 days). Much less stress.
 
Dude! a few losses and you're breaking you're discretionary rules? Just stick with it!
 
Yes, you're right, but it wasn't because of any losses. It was because I was staring at prices too much. I got hypnotized.
 
at least you made money :). still you broke your rules , honestly dude, just set the stop and profit target, or if you want to protect profits then have a scale out plan, scaling out gives you piece of mind . scaling out half of position at halfway to profit target, other half placed at breakeven
 
I can't scale because I usually just trade 1 contract. Yeah, overall I value peace of mind, I'm starting to realize that. I'll follow my plan because of it gives me peace of mind.
 
like you'll feel guilty knowing you made money breakign your rules, like you don't deserve it . If you move up to 2 contracts you could begin scaling :)
 
Scaling to me is a very foreign concept. Even if I could do it, I don't think i would. I don't understand the logic behind it. I mean if it makes sense to open a trade, i don't see why it shouldn't make sense to open all the positions you are planning to open right there and then, and I don't see the rationale for postponing that, and the same applies to closing that trade. I don't get it. I am bad at formulas, so maybe that is why I don't get it.

Regarding the feelings of guilt, I have some, for being greedy, for letting my greed drive me to act dangerously. I feel that I shouldn't have done it, because I didn't follow the plan and took big risks. But it wasn't entirely gambling, as I couldn't miss the opportunity to make money I could make in those moments of high volatility (usual news at 14.30 CET), and so I had to improvise, because you can't trade the news with moving averages (everything happens in 5 minutes). I need money right now, because I am very tired from the office, and I am trying to get fired. Every day I try to get myself fired. Today I didn't go and I didn't even call them to say I was sick or what was the matter with me. Of course they know that I am worn out by all the work they're having me do, while they go on long coffee breaks. So that's also why I can just stay home one day and not get fired. It's either I do that or I go for the shooting rampage.

If only I could get to 20k of capital, I think I could get fired any time and be able to support myself. However what I can't do is quit, because parents and relatives would never leave me alone and would forever tell me that I have been reckless. Yes, because I have a family, a father in particular, who also shares his wisdom only when it's too late. Some of it you get in advance, before you do something, but most of it you get it later, in the form of useless criticism: "you shouldn't have...", "you could have...", "if you had...".

I did get to 25k once, over a year ago, just on my automated systems, but back then I was into full time gambling mode, and partly I blew the winnings, partly I spent them, and partly I started a trade on the GBP that didn't want to bounce back up, and that took me from 15k to 4k, because I kept my positions open (long) for over a month.
 
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Scaling isn't a good strategy for Travis; It will give him an excuse to enter without a good entry...
1. One position at a time
2. With the trend
(Maybe only go long, if its an up day - Only go short, if its a down day) And try make it so an actual trend exists; Not much a direction/range - One that has sustainably existed for a while maybe?
3. One contract

;) I think if you waited patiently until a nice day-trend appeared, not trying to catch the start and bought a contract when you deem a good buy - It would work out well; Because you seem to, when you go anti-trend ... Get stuck in some big trends against you, so maybe you should work on capturing them!

Also; Maybe post trades that you are considering on here first; Noting the trend and direction and where you plan to exit; Then maybe you can get feedback on appropriate exits (like stops/Targets).

Cheers
 
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Yes, I will. I've been doing that (posting my trades before I make them). The things you said all make sense. My discretionary system is pretty clear, and I've posted it each time here. Today I didn't follow it at around 14.30 CET.


PRO-TREND DISCRETIONARY SYSTEM
HOTKEYS
Set up hotkeys:
"B" for "buy 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order,
"S" for "sell 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order,
"C" for "close position".
----------------------
CHARTS
SET UP THESE CHARTS ON IB'S TWS:
1 MONTH TO 15 MINUTES OF ES, CL, GBP "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 can be made if:
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
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 MADE
20091130: takeprofit
20091130: takeprofit
20091201: early exit with 1 tick profit
20091202: stoploss
20091203: takeprofit
 
Insomniac again

Sweet dreams, son
Damn, it happened yet another time. Since everyone keeps telling me here to give my father a chance, I did, and stayed in the living room a bit longer, until he came home. And sure enough he told me about his worries. Didn't ask me anything about me, didn't tell me anything pleasant, but went on telling about his worries the whole time. His worry today is that there will be a huge inflation, all over the world, and our money in the bank will lose most of its value. So we have to hurry and buy a house as soon as possible. So it's not enough that I couldn't sleep all last night because I carry the weight of my office on my shoulders despite not having any responsibility as manager or anything, but only because I am doing everything. Now I have to spend another night awake because as usual my dad has told me about some impending catastrophe. That sonuvabitch. Ever since I was a child this sick mother ****er has been telling that he could die at any time, and to be prepared, because when he was six his father died. Great, dad, thanks for putting me in this world and then ruining my life. Sweet dreams to myself now...

Impending catastrophes...but he doesn't seem worried
I told him that it's a bad idea to buy a house in rome, because he could get ripped off, and because I don't like rome at all and I don't plan on living here, and he doesn't either after retirement, so why would we buy a house where neither of us plans to live? Also, I told him, why... how can you worry so much about inflation and let your portfolio manager handle your money and invest it in stocks and bonds when obviously he doesn't know anything about how to invest it or else you wouldn't be having bonds from the bank you're a customer of, and your capital would have increased at least more than 2% a year. So you give me all this stress about inflation, but you didn't give a damn about your money for the past 20 years... it makes me wonder whether you are just sick and enjoy randomly passing worries on to people around you. Sick son of a bitch...

A question I didn't want to hear
Then he told me "what should I do then...?". I can't believe this guy asked me such a question when my whole life he acted like he was god and knew about everything at all times. I dodged the question because it made me uncomfortable, but lately I've been thinking that he lost some of his confidence. It seems like a big change actually.

I want his money, but I don't want him to give it to me...
I could have said to him: since your money is not worth very much to you and since it might lose all its value soon and since you're asking me what you should do, then give me just one hundred thousand euros and let me invest it as I wish. But I didn't say it, even though it crossed my mind. First because he might have said no and that would have been humiliating. Second, because he might have said yes, and that would have been a disappointment, because I'd have felt like my father ceased to be what he's been all these years: the one in charge, the responsible one. If he said "yes, I'll give you the money you ask for", I'd feel like he's become senile. And that in turn would be make me feel quite stressed out, because I've always counted on him to not be stupid. My world would kind of crumble, if he told me "yes, you can have my money".

But actually I don't want anyone's money
So, when he asked me "what should I do with my money?", I didn't say "give me some" because he might say no and offend me, and because he might say yes and worry me. And also for a third reason: I didn't want a yes, because I know how irresponsible I've been in the past, and I certainly could not afford to lose 100 thousand dollars or my trading career would end. As I've said before, I believe, to protect yourself from yourself, you should start with as little capital as possible and then build it up, all by yourself. That's the only way to become totally good and reliable, when you learn the value of money and the difficulty of making your capital grow. And you also learn it without losing too much money in the process. If you can grow a big enough capital (30k) despite starting undercapitalized, then it means you're really ready to take other people's money, but then you wouldn't need it, because you already have your own capital. So in all situations, or almost all situations, it's not a good idea to ask people for money. Unless of course you don't have a job, and no income, and then you cannot start unless someone gives you some money. But then maybe you should get a job.

Undercapitalization is less of a problem than overcapitalization
So I don't believe in being given money from other people. One should work and raise his own capital. If I had been given the money I wanted to be given, by now I wouldn't have lost 50 thousand dollars in 12 years but millions. Hopefully I'll make that 50k back in a few months. I've lost it 500 at a time, week by week, month by month, very slowly. It's less than 400 dollars per month, in 12 years. Partly I lost it because I didn't know how to trade and gambled instead. Partly I lost it because I could not trade the right financial instruments, futures. I traded options with large bid-ask spreads, instruments with low leverage... commissions... these are all problems, but you have to be able to make money even on the wrong instruments, if you really want to be ready.

It's best to encounter all problems from the start, and while you have a small capital
So all difficulties are good, even having a small capital or trading the wrong securities, and having an account with the wrong broker. Because they all teach you what's better. You learn to value the good broker, the good instrument... for example futures are superior to options, because you have to worry about less. There's fewer variables to worry about, so they're just better. They allow you to focus on picking the right direction and timing. You can't do everything so you should try to keep things as simple as possible. That's what people at work don't understand. They ask quality, quantity, don't simplify and don't even want to work. They want me to work for them and they don't even make it easy for me. I am going to have some fun now, seeing how far I can push them before getting fired. They don't even appreciate my work, I mean they appreciate when I am gone, but not when I am there. They say it's easy because I do it quickly, not because they could ever do it. Maybe tomorrow I won't go to work. Maybe I will.

Overnight LONG on the GBP, expecting a reversal
I started a long trade on the GBP, outside of my system, looking for a 25% correction compared to the down move of today. That's what you usually get in the night after something like today happens. But maybe I am wrong. The GBP doesn't behave like the other markets I follow. The JPY is even more unpredictable. But most likely, with those 2 contracts, I'll make the 500 dollars I am expecting to make. That would take me to about 7.5 k, which means 50% gain in a week so far. I am pretty satisfied. Of course in the previous week I had taken my capital from 10k to 5k, so that's how bad I actually suck. Yep, I just looked and the GBP is rising as expected. Already up 260 dollars. Another 20 ticks and I'll be done. Nope. Just looked again, 30 or more minutes later after that previous sentence, and now I'm only up 60 dollars.

Still cannot sleep
After all these hours spent writing, thanks to that last pleasant chat with my father, I can't go back to sleep. Instead of telling me something to tranquilize me, since he knows how stressed out I am about my work getting out of control, he told me about inflation and how all money will soon be worthless, quite a way to agitate me and right before I was supposed to go to sleep. If it weren't true, it would be funny, possibly the subject for a comedy, I realize that.
 
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Sleep well... Don't let your dad's worries get to you. He's getting old with all that entails. You do have a choice about whether or not to worry about your work stuff and your dad's worries. Simply choose to not worry about them (sometimes that's easier said than done, but even so.) There's no point in worrying about something if you can't affect the thing you're worrying over. So resolve to never worry about stuff, unless the worry can help you achieve something to solve whatever you're worrying about. And even then, it's usually better to just take action to resolve whatever you want to worry about, rather than actually wasting energy worrying. And if something is beyond your control, then just let it go. No amount of worry will make any shred of difference then, so it's totally wasted energy and effort.

Anyway, as for the concern about inflation and it's effects on cash - your dad may be right in the long term but it really shouldn't be something to lie awake over at night, and certainly not right now/yet. For what it's worth, I take a keen interest in the inflation vs. deflation debate - I'm fairly undecided on the outcome at the minute, although shorter term I think we've got more deflationary pressures to deal with, longer term probably all the money printing must *eventually* result in higher inflation but it remains to be seen how much and when. I suspect we'll have Credit Crunch V2.0 before we need to worry about inflation as the primary problem.

In any event, you should just tell him not to worry, it's all under control (and then just keep an eye on the whole issue.) It may be worthwhile to start gaining some exposure to gold bullion and other precious metals, maybe some purchases of GLD or such, which is an ETF that actually buys gold bullion. Gold's noticeably up lately as I'm sure you're aware. As for me, I've been contemplating getting some precious metals exposure at some point as an inflation hedge but I don't think it's neccesary yet... Don't really see the point of tying funds up holding gold for extended periods. But then I'm a relative noob so what do I know!
 
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Yeah, thanks. But my dad is like me. He thinks he knows more than anyone else, so if I tell him that you said to not worry, he's not going to listen. He's got his sources and he'd teach me about trading if I let him. He's always lecturing you even about whatever subject is your favorite subject, never acknowledging you any competence on any subject higher than his competence. Even if I told him about Taxi Driver being my favorite movie, he'd start telling me, teaching me something he knows about it. Then he'd move on to another topic, without allowing you to say anything about your favorite movie. If you still try to tell him something about it, he won't show any interest. Now you can see why I am so opposed to people trying to teach me anything: I've developed an allergy to that, since I've had a father like this.

In the meanwhile, my GBP position is losing 200 dollars.

Thanks for the info about inflation-deflation. That's what I suspected, and I wasn't really that worried about it. But after meeting with my dad, he just took my peace of mind away from me, enough to keep me from sleeping, if you add the stress about work to the stress he just gave me. To tell you the truth even if my dad didn't speak, the memories from the past are so bad, that just being next to him before going to sleep stresses me enough to cause me insomnia.

My mom told me that my father told her a few times that everything he touches he destroys. It's true. He's destructive. Sometimes I think that I tend to self-destruction. Like if I am doing ok with my trading, I'll come up with something that brings my capital back down. Or if I am doing ok at work, I'll skip work for a few days. I don't know. Sometimes I feel that I should have killed my father. Either killed him or have moved very far away from him, like to australia. And never talked to him again. He abused me emotionally, maybe without realizing it. But still, I should have not stayed around and let him destroy me. However the fact is that I lived pretty far from my family for over 10 years, but I still felt his negative influence through phone calls and emails.

He's given me a desire to destroy myself, subconsciously, indirectly, via anxiety. Maybe not exactly a desire: what destroys me is anxiety and compulsive behaviours, such as posting incessantly on this forum, scratching my head... all these things, that anxiety makes me do, come from worries he instilled into my mind over the many years we lived together.

Some sentences that still resonate in my mind are: "do not slouch or people will take advantage of you" (or similar, hard to translate), "always leave a room exactly how you find it", "do not leave the mark of your ass on the bed after sitting on it, to make a phone call"... I remember he used to kick me and my mom, quite frequently, trying to signal to us that we were saying something inappropriate. I remember still very vividly reprimanded for my handwriting (when his is unreadable), for not shaving while on vacation...

This is like talking to the shrink except that I can do it for free.
 
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BTW, I also managed to also start clawing back some of the loss of the other day today, as I managed to get in early on the right side of an interest positive trade which went quite a bit of distance thanks to the ECB stuff (short EUR/TRY @ 2.26167, this is the same pair that caused me the loss, but now I'm on the right side of the trend and gaining interest while the trade is open.) Also still have another open trade though unfortunately interest negative, but anyway, managed to capture about 1000 pips so far (long USD/ZAR @ 7.30388). All in all I'm up about 17%, not bad for a days work... now to ensure I don't lose it all again!!!
 
BTW, I also managed to also start clawing back some of the loss of the other day today, as I managed to get in early on the right side of an interest positive trade which went quite a bit of distance thanks to the ECB stuff (short EUR/TRY @ 2.26167, this is the same pair that caused me the loss, but now I'm on the right side of the trend and gaining interest while the trade is open.) Also still have another open trade though unfortunately interest negative, but anyway, managed to capture about 1000 pips so far (long USD/ZAR @ 7.30388). All in all I'm up about 17%, not bad for a days work... now to ensure I don't lose it all again!!!

Well, congratulations. I don't know much about the "pip" world. I hear everyone here talking about "pips" rather than "ticks" and I don't know how you guys trade, what brokers, how the trading takes place, if it is at an exchange like CME, or if it is "bucket shop", which I also ignore how it works... I still haven't figured out what "spreadbetting" means but I am pretty sure we're not talking about futures. So it must be... I don't know. I get lost with all these currencies and pips.
 
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