Tim,
Forgive me if I speak bluntly and and at tedious length.
One trouble a person has when (s)he engages in the market is the boundless abstraction it presents. I'm not referring to the "random" vagaries of price action, as that is a problem to tackle later - indeed delving into the "why" behind price action is probably the greatest joy trading can offer - but rather the fact that the trader must impose some boundaries and rules onto this great heaving mass that represents a small group of humans taking money from a larger one. This imposition of structure is the "boring" bit that we all have to go through first before we can be allowed to tackle the sublime crossword on a mentally even footing with the predators.
There are, literally, endless ways of dipping your beloved metatarsal into this foreboding soup. You can choose intensely to scalp size for an hour a day with the intuitive feel (which must be earned through hour upon hour of gruelling experience that eventually becomes stamped into the subconscious) of an air traffic controller who regularly juggles 15 angry 747s safely onto an icy runway, or you can perhaps trade with supreme objective aggression once a year with 10% of your capital, but only when everything perfectly lines up with a vast number of esoteric rigorously backtested criteria.
The point is that you have to decide where you fit in and that is, I think, the purpose of your excellent template. It is clear that you have grasped this perennial traders' problem. So don't worry so much about how the market works for the moment. The important thing is to decide on an approach first and then conduct your testing around it. The price action which is relevant to your chosen approach will then slowly reveal itself, because you will be comfortable, in your element and downright eager to watch, test, hypothesize and refine your plan till the heifers come home. Because you have chosen a comfortable niche the idea is you can remain objective and unlock all your ability to concentrate intensely, but also cooly, almost passively. This is simply not possible when you're flitting around from instrument to system to time frame. Set some boundaries, then focus freely. Of course there is a paradox here: how can you possibly decide where you fit in without trying a number of approaches? Well, that's where section 5 of your template comes in, as db mentions. He's not trying to be antagonistic or unhelpful, I think, rather saying that only you can answer the questions within it. Question yourself mercilessly based on previous experience. If you don't know the answers to some then at least choose some that don't seem to contradict the grain of your personality and knowledge. At least then you will have a framework in which you can progress to the interesting stuff, even if your initial choices prove ultimately to be a little off message.
For instance, how patient are you? Do you like making quick, repetitive decisions or do you like to sit back, diligently sift data and only strike when the iron is suitably hot for tackling linen? Do you want results in the next minute, the next hour, the next day or the next few months? Perhaps you can entertain a combination of two or more depending on what the market has presented.
Do you lust after a rollercoaster, something more sedate, or something in between?
e.g USD/JPY / a utility / the Dow
How much information can you process at once? Is price action alone enough (?Forex), or would you like some confirmation such as volume, breadth, tick, put/call, sectors, lev 2 etc.?
Do you want your product to be very or less vulnerable to news? (single stocks / forex / indices).
What about leverage, liquidity and popularity? Futures / fat stocks/ ickle stocks , for instance.
Anyway, I witter inaccurately, but I hope I'm making some sense. For each and every niche, there will be a corresponding and sensible way of managing your risk and maximising your reward.
Answering this sort of question, which I will patronisingly emphasize yet again as being DEEPLY PERSONAL, will narrow your chosen field of battle down considerably.
*take this with a pile of salt* - If you subscribe to the view that all price action is fractal (there is no such ting as noise) then in some ways it really doesn't matter which time frame you choose, as long as your money management is consistent with the R:R available. Have a look at a daily chart and pretend it is a one minute chart. They look much the same really. So, all you have to do is decide where you fit in and then scale your positions accordingly. e.g I can't handle waiting days with a 50 point stop, a 200 point floating target and a little 1 lot on the line. I'd rather find out much sooner what my fate is, so I'll trade 10 lots with a 5 point stop and a 20 point target, repeatedly. Ignoring scaling in/out etc. Gross oversimplification I know. but I hope my message is clear. You will know where you feel (un)comfortable.
Don't you just hate it when you know what you're trying to say but can't put it into words?
Anyway, I had a crack at the first question. Your template is demanding and seeks savage self-questioning, as it should do. I have probably done it a disservice by answering in a facile manner.
I want to be a trader because -
I value autonomy extremely highly
I am an atrocious team player, especially when it involves following company protocol with which I am uncomfortable
I am introspective and enjoy working abstract problems out by myself
I am an INTP personality
I relish a challenge, especially one that is palpably different from more conventional forms of work. Every day can be wildly different on the surface, yet the underyling forces are always the same. This is the sort of delicious paradox that sets my etiolated brain racing.
I don't require public recognition of my capabilities
I relish the notion of being paid purely to think and act decisively
It is absurdly easy to keep score of my performance in a concrete, binary way (P/L)
I admire the abstract, intangible nature of the business. Virtually no overheads, no physical raw materials or end product, no pollution, no employees, no hard sell, no dependence on demand for my product, no creative/artistic torture as, say, a writer or painter might suffer, no travel, no meetings etc.
There is immense scope for career and skill development
My primary objective is to provide an income sufficient to support myself, with the potential to increase this with no fixed boundaries as my skill increases (as opposed to an income that increases proportionally with the hours I work and/or my place on a conventional career ladder)
These objectives are important to me because I am not content with spending my life on a treadmill. I have little interest in creating or maintaining a certain status level in the eyes of others. I value freedom (although ... "Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty." --Frank Herbert)
I believe I can achieve these objectives because I am diligent, disciplined, creative, intuitive, empathetic and capable of rigorous analytical thought. Okay I heinously flatter myself, but beware the self-limiting belief!
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All well and good. But personal, rather boring/irrelevant to someone else and doesn't tell me how I should be positioning myself in the market. I won't bore you with my answers to the other subsections 5.x, especially as some are "after the fact", as it were. But fear not, answer the sections you haven't completed yourself, honestly, and I think you will be surprised at what you learn. Just dive in and do it. The next stage will become clearer only when you have sorted out your initial niche as it relates, for instance, to your personality and risk tolerance.
Then you can worry about what those nasty big boys with their special smart currency are up to.
Please tell me to insert a sock in any orifice you choose if all this wittering is as useless and patronising as I suspect it may be.
As usual I have used 500 words where 50 would have sufficed. And thanks once again for your template - it has been a joy to revisit and thanks to it I have discovered more than the odd patch in need of darning in my methodology, that's for sure.
Start a journal please, Tim, whether I public or not (I'd recommend private myself as there will doubtless be vultures eager to piggyback your resultant edge/method if they can) and don't whatever you do feel that you need do so in a certain way. The questions are Waterford clear and the answers, at least to the observer, cannot be right or wrong.
I am as guilty as anyone of flitting from product to system to timeframe to approach in my career and I can state with no shame that after a cornucopia of losses things only turned around when I concentrated my efforts in a small, psychologically comfortable area and damn well stuck to it. The techniques naturally follow.
Best of luck mate.
