Welcome to the new Traders Laboratory! Please bear with us as we finish the migration over the next few days. If you find any issues, want to leave feedback, get in touch with us, or offer suggestions please post to the Support forum here.
Niko
-
Content Count
800 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by Niko
-
Yes, as soon as I decided to follow your advice and stop rushing I started to understand. Now, as I felt ready after my "success" at sim I thought I was ready for doing the same live. But these last weeks have proven me that when I face winnings I end up afraid of losing them and exiting too early and when I face losses I turn hesitant on new entries to the point of missing out on legitimate trades. As I said I will take a step back, will do 1 contract live to be able to keep the "real" feelings that I need to overcome in the process. Only when the amount of money on the line is trivial enough will the attention be focused on price behavior rather than fear of loss. The fear of being wrong is another matter. I was trying to get my trades into the clear in order to leave them alone, but as soon as the new RET started to erode my paper profits I felt the anxiety, this was a huge problem during the first week and I tried to overcome it this week, but so far the market has not been as helpful regarding management. I will just use break of LSL (last contract closing criteria now) as the only valid reason to close the contract I am gonna trade, once it has not been SCR and I will allow the RETs to form in calm. Using the LSL amounts to avoiding the issue. It is not possible to create rules about this because so much depends on how price is moving, and that can't be determined on a static chart. Where is the ret taking place? How far into the move? What is the context re previous swings and ranges and whatever trend might be in place, if any? How is it taking place? Hesitant? Erratic? Plunging? Rocketing? Is it "clean"? Are traders changing their minds and deciding to head in the opposite direction? Or are they changing their minds again and heading in the original direction after all? How can you prepare for this? How can you capture it? The retracement is an opportunity for those who missed the beginning of the move to climb on board. If they aren't interested in climbing on board, what does that tell you? How far does price have to back up to give them the opportunity to participate? How far is too far? At what point does price say to hell with it and reverse? And so on.
-
I know, I know, sometimes I just feel that I have been at this for so much time that I need to rush things up, but then I realized I only started to listen with intent around 6 months ago, so the system is not guilty for my sunk costs.
-
Thanks, I will follow your advise. In sim I am already able to take the trades without hesitation, but I start having second thoughts when doing it live. I will trade 1 contract live next week, will follow rules strictly and will review at the end of the week. Will post results everyday with the respective review.
-
Yep, thanks I will do this as well.
-
My day Not proud of the results, but in a way happy that I managed to adhere my max daily loss rule (this is the kind of day in the past where I fell into desperation and very bad things happened). 1. Tried to trade the failure to go above, got scratched twice. 2. As they proved they did not want it below I took the upside, but also got scratched. 3.Once again a failure to go down and tried the REV got scratched as well. 4. and 5. They finally made a HH so i decided to take the first RET, got SCR twice. 6. LH and break of DL took the RET and got SCR 7. Re-entry and got SCR as well. 8. Broke out of the hinge and took the RET but got SCR as well. I know I am doing it all wrong, so I will have to go back to sim, until how db says I am able to make it emotionless. As someone said, "fear fog" due to lack of testing is the problem, not the system nor much less lack of explanation from the creator. Thanks for all your help Db.
-
Actually market conditions are far worst than they were back in the sim days as for my different objectives, thanks for pointing it out. This process of going back to live, has been very interesting, all the emotional responses still there, sometimes they are so strong as to cloud my judgement completely. So far it seems like a no go for next week live trading, today has been a particular mess, as will be seen in my review, but it has served a purpose, I was waiting for this day, in the past there has always been a day when I cracked, and messed up big time (wipe out my account), it is impatience mainly during bad days that lead to a day when I just start making stupidities. That added up with fear and early exits on good days make a perfect combination for under performance and screwing up. For now I am done for the day.
-
BTW and looking at the bigger picture in the daily this could just be a RET after the breakout of the huge hinge from the 24th, so if could rally as easily as it can plunge. We can also just get choppy so beware of that after the open, you dont wanna get chopped into poverty.
-
Seems like 96 was a good deal and buyers rushed in, but so far it has not been enough the change the stride of the trend. Perhaps they will wait for the open, so far there is no selling below 96 and no buying above 600. The MP of this is 98.
-
Prepwork 051414 So after struggling all day yesterday into a giant hinge, buyers tested interest again around the midpoint of the day (14) and found that there was no much interest so gave up and sold, joining the rest of the bears and starting a downtrend in which we still are so far. Looking down, the last point were buyers step up to halt selling presure was 94, if we can break 94 with ease it could be a very interesting ride all the way to 55. There are trades between those levels, but they are from before the parabolic rise, so I will only pay attention to those in case price starts to REV "in the middle of nowhere"- If, on the other hand 94 holds and price breaks its downtrend this could just be sellers testing interest out of a hinge and they then should look back towards the mean again.
-
Thank you, sitting it out is still a challenge, I will re-read the pearls.
-
Kp, thanks for your advice. I gave myself initially 2 weeks of live testing in order to get more information on my own psychological response to something that had turned much easier in demo, so far I realized some of my baggage is still there driving me to inaction or excess of action, I realize that I still feel bad about losing trades (irrespective of size) and that I did not rehearse enough on REVs and BOs therefore I feel insecure about taking them. I have a financial goal for the end of this week, if I meet it I will continue next week, if I dont I will take a step back and train more. All this is irrespective of the number of contracts, 3 is just a multiple, it could be 3 or 6 or 9 or 30, the thing is that I am currently exiting in up to 3 steps when conditions are met, and I cant test that if I dont do it with at least 3. Thanks anyhow for your concerns.
-
Well, I am gonna finish my week and evaluate, to see if I need to go back a step and do more testing before continue moving forward with real money or if I am at a level where I can do both things in parallel.
-
Thanks, it was a really confusing day (my own fault), I overthought it too much, thinking about ranges. Even though as I said in my journal I could keep my cool, and I do not feel it was a total waste, that is no excuse to miss the good trades of the day. Regarding what KP just asked, I would also like to hear more about this deal of trading at and through the mean.
-
Sure, if i feel I am not 100% focused I end up screwing up and not following the rules, so why mess up. If a trade cant be taken in calm is better not to take it.
-
Thanks, so far is not really easy for me to increase my trading schedule, at least not until I am proficient with real money. Today was a bad financial day, but it felt much better regarding execution and calmness. I ended up hitting my daily loss limit again, but it was not because of anger and frustration and that makes me happy. The emotional part was mainly controlled, but still hesitation after 11 led me to ditch a good trade after the DL from the open was lost. I didn't think it would amount to much and ended up being one of the best of the day. 1. Entered too late, left the order without trailing it as price moved higher. Ended up scratching it after sellers failed to hold the LL and got rejected at 04. There was a RET to enter again at 15,25, it was after a rejection of the mean a strong one, not reason not to take it in hindsight, at the time I wanted to see buyers clear the LSH 2. This is what I wanted to see buy it was too late, I bought the top, I did not pay attention to mean reversion, as we were almost as far away from the mean on the upmove as we were on the downmove. 3. I was now looking for a BO, first attempt did not work and I tried a reentry that got me even worst results. 4. After missing the downmove, intentionally i decided to wait and see if they were willing to push below the ORL or not, as they did not I decided to risk a REV, it did not work... 5... but as soon as I got a RET I tried again with the same results. It was the day of the SCR for me.
-
Well, by the time they decided to cascade I was not in the mood to trade anymore The long run is longer than you think. Playing only the best hands can be frustrating. Anger and irritability can arise. The emotions can be severely tested. This is where Zen comes in. You may have to extend your trading session.
-
Thanks, unfortunately all my SLA entries today were pointing towards 13 so, i skipped them and even if I took them they would have been scratched. I ended up trying to get on a Hinge BO around 10:13 but got SCR twice, been out ever since. Looks like we formed some sort of channel area and we have been ascending around the mean of that channel.
-
9:59 Two SCR so far, seems like they dont like it above 21 nor below 04, managed to stay away from the mean It's not so much a question of trading around the mean as trading through it. Once price bounced off 4, it headed pretty much straight for 20, then right back down again. The TR may just be background and not necessarily influential. This is not to suggest that one try to trade these wild swings, but the focus may need to be more on the SLA and less on AMT, given where we are.
-
Thanks, I thought about it but I am not really taking trades premarket now, perhaps later anyway, even if I managed to get in a REV it would have been SCR given my exit rules.
-
9:18 Traders are parked around the mean at 13, waiting for something to happen, perhaps around 12 mins from now .
-
We are BO of this hinge and march TC, so even if they can make it above 18 one has to be on the look for a RET in the hourly that in the 1 min will definitely kill any trend to the upside, without changing the larger picture.
-
After a slow paced rise buyers finally decided that 318 was too expensive, now they are looking for trades on the downside, but so far they have not been able to find sellers below 09. Anyhow, the upwards stride of the trend is at risk and if there are definitely no buyers above 18 the place to go is down. On the way down we might find buyers along the way about every 10 points, but... If prices do not reverse there is no reason to panic if short, just ride the plunge. If buyers decide that they missed on yesterday´s boat and see value above above current levels and manage to trade and hold the market above 18, then buyers gave up at 670 last time, so it could be a nice ride if a trend sets up to the upside. As always, chop can also be the tone of the day, but we will know that pretty soon after the open, if they look up and cant find trades and then look down and cant find either then they will settle around whatever mean they decide to set. So far it seems like the current mean is 13. The dbl btm at 10 at 0850 wld hv made a gd entry since the range was reasonably well-established by then, as would either of the rets thereafter. This is now hindsight, but this is something to keep in mind for the future.
-
This is an update in the turning point analysis I am performing now. Added the turning points that gave life to waves of 10 points or more on Friday and Monday. 16 observations so far 34 to go... :missy: TURNINGPOINTANALYSIS-LARGE-2.pdf
-
I guess they gave up and went out to grab a bite. Perhaps after lunch they will put their back into it, in either direction.
-
Thanks, a lot of details still elude me, fear is still an issue I am struggling with, but at least I am not bleeding my account to death thanks to the SLA.