TradeRunner

Hi Thales What did you do during your 10K hours? TradeRunner

I'm assuming you only accept Steenbarger's definition of a performance related activity and ingore his other opinions on this subject? Nothing is more common that the notion that you learn to trade by trading. I humbly ask that you check that premise. You would not learn to fly a plane by getting in the cockpit and flying a jumbo jet, nor would you learn surgery by taking a knife to a patient. Why should trading be any different? Every performance field I have researched progress from knowledge acquisitions to skill drilling to simulated performance to real-time rehersals. Dispite this seemingly obvious truth, we see few traders attempt to learn through training. Instead, they approach trading in an amateur mode, only to lose money and court frustration. Brett N. Steenbarger, Enhancing Trader Performance p.90 TradeRunner

Sorry I don't follow you argument - its performance related and requires loads of practice. What is your point? I guess you would start with this and skip this? and then this You learn to ride a bike using stabilisers. TradeRunner

I can't imagine why you wouldn't start like that. If you can't consistently make money on sim then why bother wasting capital trading live?

Hi Urma I saw the latest xkcd cartoon and couldn't help thinking of you: TradeRunner

Hi Tams Why do you think trading is not a business? TradeRunner

Sure, I understood that you and Cory would be making sacrifices (and I didn't mean to imply that it was an easy choice for you or Cory). I also know that I could do exactly what you did however for me that would mean risking losing my family and I guess I don't need or want to be a trader that much to risk that. I agree with what MCM said. I really respect the courage and commitment you made but for me I will need to choose a different route and that route may be longer (holding down a full time job and practicing in the evenings) but hopefully it will be less stressful! TradeRunner

Or was your entry too late? I took the same short as you (3rd trade on my chart) but sold the break of the congestion at resistence and the retest of trendline higher up. TradeRunner

And that must be POTM. Keep going Cory! I'm slightly envious that both of you are in positions not to need an income - 4-5 years not earning is just a non starter for most people. TradeRunner

Hi Jim Welcome to the forum. Like you I also work during the day so can’t trade real time unless I’m on holiday. My practice routine is as follows: Weekdays 1. After work I replay the day’s action and enter trades as if trading in real time. I’m practicing using one instrument only: 6E 2. Before I start the replay I delete any trend lines and support and resistance lines that I drew the day before. I then mark up all the trend lines, support and resistance lines that I think will be useful for the day’s trading. 3. After I have finished replaying the day’s action I create an image for the day that includes my entries, stops, and targets and a summary of my day’s results. The utility “snagit” makes this an easy task. 4. After I have done this I review the days trading: a. I mark entries that I missed or deliberately skipped (regardless of whether they would have been winners or losers). b. Note how well I did at identifying support, resistance and trend lines c. Note any problems / errors that need to be corrected. Weekends 1. More reviewing of the trades taken 2. I go back and replay the good and bad trades including the trades that I missed or skipped. I use Sierra charts to replay charts during the week because I its replay functionality is excellent and easy to use. At the weekend I replay the charts using OEC because this is probably the platform that I will use when I go live but I find its replay functionality difficult to use. Sierra charts costs $26 pm and OEC is $24.95 pm. By the way if you are using Al Brooks then I would start by practising just one of his entry setups. TradeRunner

Hi James I'm confused with your argument. First you say "...will probably become a thing of the past". It doesn't sound like you are too sure. Then you go on to say "some will find an edge". So you are saying that some people will continue to successfully use technical analysis some will not. Isn't that how it is now and will be in the future? What change are you predicting and if that change has already happened can you throw up some charts that demonstrates the change? TradeRunner

Hi Urma You are so right and it’s funny because only the other day I was thinking the same thing. No wonder so many fail. By the way did you see this post by Don Miller: Don Miller Trading Journal: Monday Notes - MATD, KISS, & More That guy is such a loser! Can you believe he sometimes trades with just a laptop? Unbelievable, personally I think he is fraud. Anyway I've got to go. I'm trying to decide on my trade station setup. Currently I only have dual monitors and as you know that's just totally inadequate for a professional trader. I’m thinking 10 monitors would be ok, but I'm sure I could make more if I just plump for the 16 now. What do you think? Best wishes. TradeRunner

Ahhh - President's Day. Note to self must take note of American bank holidays!!!

Where is everyone? Is it a US holiday or have you all gone to see Don Miller in NY? Anyway good day for me although with 6 trades I might have veered into over trading: +76 Some of my entries were aggressive but I also managed my stops aggressively.

Bang! Bang! Today was a exceptional in that each trade that I skipped turned into winners. Other days I'm really pleased that I skipped some trades.

Trading can be really frustrating sometimes:

Hi Dinero / Brownsfan You can do this instantly from your account management web page: Sorry if that is what you meant but it sounds like you might be sending an e-mail to support.

Hi Marko Was this an error or a valid trade that didn't work? I took that trade as well and also took a -1R loss. So that error that I see here for me was alowing it to go for a full loss (although it did reverse quickly) and also being distracted with this trade and missing the 6E trade of the day. TradeRunner

Thursday's trading: 2 trades (+8) I didn't run through Friday. Keep up the good work Thales and everyone else I really appreciate it. Hopefully one day my results will be good enough to be questioned by trolls

Hi Thales Yes I did have a short bias (see picture). I think I was clinging to that bias and skipped the long you are talking about. The short I have marked up I didn't see because I wasn't concentrating enough at the time enough though it was at a resistance line. It eventually went down to what would have been my target 140.00 although I'm not sure I would of held it into the news. So I think there are some things to work on here. Thanks for the comments. TradeRunner

2 trades: BE Good to come away today without losing any ticks but obviously it would have been better to win some. Trades that I took didn't go anywhere and the ones that I skipped or didn't see moved with ease.

1 Trade: BE Even though I'm trading on replay and could trade the full 24hrs I have stopped taking any trades before 6:00GMT because I would never be awake at that time if I was trading real time.

Monday's 2 trades: -20

2 trades: (-41) Stopped trading after two losing trades. Difficult day.

1 Trade: (+21) It would have been cool if I was composed enough to reverse when I got stopped out but unfortunatley I was still thinking down and missed the obvious HL. The other swings didn't have clear HL/LH entries.