JTurner77

ZOS: I am definitely not OT, but my understanding is that you are correct based on my charts/indicators. I am curious to know how you all view cotton, wheat, corn and beans under the rules of this system. They all triggered sell signals on 12/29 or 12/30 but the next day's low either equaled the signal day low or fell just short of the low. The markets then rallied again and the stockRSI setting did not climb to 100, but did rise once again and is now beginning to tick down. Are these simply "pass" trades?

Here is an EOY update on my trading. Since my last post in here, my trading has been much more erratic and far less disciplined. I am embarrassed to admit it and annoyed with myself. My last post in this thread was on Friday, Dec 16th and I was short 2 contracts of coffee. I had been fairly decent with sticking with the downtrend and after reading this thread, others and some books I had made a committment to be more disciplined in riding the trend down and sticking it out. I was looking for a drop to the 200 level on the weekly. But flirted with the idea of covering my short in the 213 area thinking that perhaps coffee was overextended. But, I put those thoughts aside and wanted to be a good little trader and "sit on my hands." At the Friday close, my 25k account had grown to just over $41k and was my highwater mark. On Monday the 19th, coffee traded below 213 and then sharply rallied sharply to close near the high. Honestly, I tried to short and scalp against this freight train. Dumb dumb dumb. Even more idiotic, I kept my short position (which was way too big) into the close. It should probably be noted that this was the first time I carried a trade with negative open equity overnight. Thanks to some positive trades in Cocoa and Sugar, I was "only" down 3k on the day. My open shorts then proceeded to move against me further until finally I puked the position in the 221 area. The quickness of the mounting losses was sobering. I mean, I knew there was fire there...but sheesh. Coffee continued to rally hard into the 224 area. I recognized 224 as an area of resistance. I scaled into another short position at 223.5, 223.65 and 223.85. Coffee would high tick at 224.05. My stop was in the market at 224.10, I shit you not. I really felt good about this trade. Coffee began to lose momentum and started to slide toward the close. So, what did I do? I covered my shorts at an avg cost of 222.5 and rung the register for a grand...and I knew it was a bad move as soon as I hit the send button. Nearly immediately after I covered, coffee would drop dramatically over the remaining 15-20 minutes of the session and close below 221. It would trade below 219 the next day. Thus I missed out on approximately 3k plus in profits. Although I kicked myself, I was feeling rather fortunate to only have been down another $2,200 and my account rested at 35.9k. The next day I learned a little bit about revenge trading and lost another $940 on a stupid trade. I finally said enough and refused to trade the next day. On Dec. 23, I tried again but gave myself very little rope and was stopped out for a $200 loss or so. My account now stood at $34.7k and psychologically affected me in that now my profit for the year was under 10k. Between Christmas and the New Year, I bounced my account around and ended the year at $35.4k. Clearly, I have a lot to learn. It was interesting how my mental mindset mutated after my open profits evaporated and it infected my thought process. I sort of naively thought before this experience that I could compartmentalize each trade and that wasnt the case. I lost a signfiicant amount of money trying to "do the right thing" by sitting on my hands and then I wanted to get it back. Honestly, I thought I was beyond that. I also, wasn't happy with my trading size in that process. I should have been smaller. Even more troubling is that I found myself on some subsequent trades willing to risk more than 2%. Up to this point I felt I had been fairly adept at taking my losses prudently. I am proud of the fact that even though I had taken some significant losses (for me), that I still had the moxie to get short again at a higher level and not be gunshy. Yet, again, I am not happy that I short three contracts even though they were within my risk threshold. If you would have told me when I started in mid-November that I would be up over 10k at the end of the year, I would have said you are crazy. And yet here I am and I am unhappy and a little pissed and dejected by decision making. I am happy that I sat on my hands with the coffee trade, but I feel like I really made a mistake by consciously refusing to recognize the reversal off the bottom. I mean...it reach a significant new low and then sharply rallied above the previous day's high and closed near the high. I knew that this was significant and yet, I not only ignored it...I shorted more and carried an open position with negative equity. Anyway...just some New Year's rambling.

I downloaded the free version and have been trying to play around with it, but am having difficulty. Even when I run the preloaded strategies for backtesting, no results are produced. It simply says zero trades and leaves all categories unchanged. Do I need to have some sort of data feed attached to this version in order to backtest these strategies?

I am interested in testing out some ideas that I have but lack coding skills and am not the most tech savvy guy in the world. What is the best way for someone like myself to evaluate and test ideas out on futures data? I am not looking to do anything extremely complicated. FWIW,I currently am a ThinkorSwim platform user.

Thank you for responding. I am aware of what you said and take it to heart, however, I am not familiar with the StochRSI indicator and how its parts make up the indicator. I am more concerned about having settings that are timeframe consistent so to speak. For example, in this thread it is stated that the moving average doesnt have to be 21 and 65 and that it is flexible. However, a 4 and 9 MA would not work for this system since it is a little too far off. I am trying to make sure my settings for my stochRSI are in the ballpark for these rules. Can anyone confirm this for me based on my post above? I am pretty sure I need to change both the 14 settings to 7. Do I need to modify anything else?

SIUYA: In my thread I have discussed my tendency to cut my winners too short and I believe this commet by you hits the nail on the head for me. As you know, I enter up tight against resistance or down at support levels in my trading to minimize my risk exposure. However, there is an anxiety level that is probably higher than other entries because you are so closed to getting stopped out. I think you have crystialized this issue for me in that there is such a wave of anxiety at my entry points that once my trade moves in my favor and the anxiety begins to subside I want to exit the trade. Poor analogy but I liken it to a running back that breaks thru the line of scrimmage, gets by the linebackers and then takes a knee out in the open field when he is in the secondary and has nothing but open field and the goal line ahead of him. Brilliant observation on your part. Thank you.

SIUYA: That is an awesome thread. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It is very much compatible with my current trading philosophy/strategy of trading with the trend and trying to enter on pullbacks/retracements so as to minimize risk.

OptionTimer: Great thread. I am only thru the first 80 posts and have about 320 more to go to catch up. SIUYA brought this thread to my attention after I posted some thoughts in the beginners forum about my trading style. Interestingly enough, although I am not nearly as regimented or structured as this system I am beginning to learn about my style mirrors this very well and will serve as a great way to allowing me to become much more disciplined. Additionally, not to sound lazy, but can you point me to the post number detailing the exact rules and indicators you decided to go with? In the first 80 posts you guys are feeling it out and discussing stochastics, rate of change, etc. It appears you settled on stochasticRSI. I use the think or swim platform and the stochasticRSI default settings are: rsi length: 14 overbought: 80 oversold: 20 rsi choice: Wilder rsi price: Close k period: 14 d period: 3 slowing period: 1 smoothing type: Simple Moving Average Can you clarify what settings you are using? I am trying to follow along but would like to be able to have my charting software up with the same parameters you are using while going through these charts. Thank you for the tremendous amount of time you have devoted to this thread.

Gooner: I guess part of me is looking to assure everyone that I am a credible poster and the other part is really, genuinely interested in a constructive criticism/critique of what I am doing. I feel that a major component of me being successful is being accountable to myself and that one way I can be accountable to myself is by being an open book to others. Kinda of like...if I know I am sharing info with people about my trading it will help ensure that I am more disciplined when I am making my trades because I know that others may see what I have done and call me to task for making some dumb decisions. FWIW, when I started trading I sat down with my gf and told her what I was doing and how much money I was risking, etc. I told her that I didn't want her to ask me daily how things were going, but that she had permission to check in with me on a regular basis and I guided her on what sort of questions that I felt would be constructive and reinforce positive behavior and accountability. I think for me it was important to do that because it reinforced how important it is that I succeed and for me it also reinforced how vitally important it is that I cut my losses and get out of trades. Although, admittedly I have let a few get a little bigger than I would ideally like. Not sure if any of that makes sense to you or anyone else.

No worries. In hindsight, I can see how my words could be interpreted as such. Personally, I found it amusing because I am so far removed mentally from even thinking that I could possess anything of trading value for another person. I will take a look at that referred thread. You are right about the sounding board and that is my goal here. My desire is to be honest with myself and with others and work like hell to do whatever it takes to be successful at this endeavor. I don't want to be right, I want to win and make money. If I need to crawl naked over broken glass to achieve some level of success then that is what I am going to do. You know...the mind**** that is trading is so surreal. In my life, I have achieved success at just about everything I have attempted. But when you are wading in the trading waters, you sometimes have no idea what is reality and what isn't. I'd like to believe that of the more than 100 trades I have made that my success is attributable to some measure of "skill" or "talent" and I am perfectly willing to acknowledge the fact that I have probably benefited from some degree of luck or fortuitous circumstances. There is a constant unease because everything that I am doing or experiencing during this process is strangely incapable of being classified as real or imagined, if I make sense. You want to believe that you are doing well on your own accord, but you don't want to delude yourself or become overconfident. You want to be amenable to constructive feedback and criticism, but you don't want to be unduly influenced by some random stranger sitting behind a keyboard somewhere. When you have read so many trading books you learn all the maxims and axioms of trading. So, then you start to wonder if you are simply regurgitating what you have read and learned by rote or if you are actually practicing and implementing these teachings. Being a newbie trader can be very unnerving. Even though I am doing remarkably well and exceeding all my expectations...my success causes me concern and doubt. I am constantly waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me. Since 11/9/11, I have run my account from $25,000 to just over $40,000 with today's open trades. It is not sustainable and it is not realistic to expect this to continue. I am certain of this and today one part of me wanted to close out all my positions and go flat merely because it all seems too much too fast and yet, the other side of my brain said...stick with your trades. You like the trend. You like the position you are in. I am reminded of Jesse Livermore: "It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine--that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon." Anyway...that is enough of my vomitous rambling.

SIUYA: When I said I was hesitant to share specific details it had nothing to do with fear of disclosing trading secrets and everything to do with protecting myself from an onslaught of skeptical criticism. Ill be honest, putting myself out there for you guys is a little intimidating. I am not a promoter of any kind. As you state, my style is discretionary so I do not have any specifics to give away in that regard that would compromise my trading style. I am completely open to the idea of discussing trades that I have done. Hell, I would even post/email my trading statement if some folks are genuinely interested in analyzing my performance to date and providing me with constructive criticism. Even though it is tough to take criticism and as much as I want to even withdraw and be less exposed, I know that I need to be open and sincere in this discussion. And I also know that I need to be prepared to receive positive and negative feedback.

VTK: I totally agree with you guys in wanting to keep my losses smaller than my wins. I think over the last few days I have made A LOT of progress in this area. Ive been trying to sit on my hands more and let the positions run. I think much of my small winners has to do with the fact that I am scalping trades when I enter a position that I like and it is a function of really trying to keep myself from digging too deep of a whole when I started trading. Especially after my initial traumatizing loss of $720 and I wanted to scratch and claw back into the green.

MightyMouse: I took another look at my numbers updated through today and here is what I have found barring an arithmetic error, but my eyeball check says it looks accurate. My closed contract winners: 101 contracts with a $15,315.70 profit equals $151.64 profit per contract My closed contract losers: 31 contracts with a $4,338.70 loss equals $139.96 loss per contract My open trades: Sugar - Short 3 contracts with an open profit of $3,326.40 Coffee - Short 2 contracts with an open profit of $1,293.75 You are fairly accurate in your assumption about me scaling into a position. But it varies. Sometimes I scalp a single contract against resistance and watch price action. If I feel the buying momentum has subsided after a couple of scalps, I will then try to keep my last scalp and hold and see what happens. If I like an idea, I will find an area I am comfortable entering the trade and then scalp another contract or two as the price moves against me. I know the trading axiom is that you never average losers and that averaging losers is for losers. My caveat to that would be, I do not average a loser if the price has gone past a point where I feel the trade is not a valid trade. I guess what I am saying is, I do not ignore a stop to average a loser. One example was a few weeks back when I was trading soybeans in the overnight. The price rallied hard up into the 1125 price area. If I recall correctly, I sold a contract at 1124.50. Beans climbed to 1125 and traded for a while at the number. Then it dropped back down at some point to put me in the red but I didnt get my scalp off. Beans rallied again and I sold at .75. The market traded in the 1125.50-1125 area for about 40 minutes or so. I then went short another 5 or 6 contracts or something like that and placed my stop at 1125.25. In this particular example, Beans eventually hit my stop and I was stopped out at 1125.50. It then screamed up to like 1127.50 before quickly retracing back below my entry point and dropping substantially further without me. That is one example of a loser. But I felt the $25-$50 risk per contract was more than justified by a break to the downside that would have garnered me the potential for $400+ per contract. With respect to your point about trading one market. I definitely see the pros and cons of that position. FWIW, I have traded the following markets: Soybeans Feeder Cattle Hogs Cocoa Cotton Sugar Coffee Orange Juice Emini I definitely do not feel prepared or capable of trading some of the other markets. But generally speaking, I see a price pattern and price activity that I like and I trade it.

VTK: I hear you for the most part, but shouldn't we also allow ourselves to be excited or derive some sort of satisfaction out of winning. Or am I being complete dense here? At the risk of embarassing myself and looking like an idiot to anyone that reads this, I couldn't help myself this afternoon. The last two days I have been killing it with today being especially so. It was by far my biggest winning day. At the closing bell, I slowly stepped away from my screen took a couple steps and proceeded to clap my hands a few times, yelled really loud and said "&*^% Yeah!" It felt good. I have been trying to keep an even level when I trade, but I also feel that one should be able to be proud of themselves or enjoy the moment at times, too. Do you think I am looking at this from an unhealthy perspective?

Zoso & Yogi: Thank you for taking the time to comment. I noticed that both of you made your first ever post on this forum in this thread. That is pretty cool. The feedback you have provided me along with the others has been very helpful to me and it is something that I have been digesting over the last several days. Since I last posted, by account has grown considerably. Frankly, I am hesitant to share specific details about it. However, I want to be successful and I am more interested in learning to be successful at this endeavor than being embarrassed, critiqued or even ridiculed by others. I am having a hard time breaking down my trading to date but I have gone over my trades and will break them down here somewhat. First and foremost, I am not sure how I should classify my trades or what makes a trade a trade. As I alluded to above, I do a lot of scaling in and out of trades. Take the very first trade I made that was a $720 loser. That was two tradeable events. I bought at price x on the 9th and then bought 2 more contracts on a tight stop the next day against support before being stopped out. For the purposes of this discussion and my trade log, even though I recognize that as one trade idea, it was two "tradeable events". Since I started trading, I have had 103 tradeable events with a total of 131 contracts opened. Again, the first trade would be 1 of the 103 events and 3 of the 131 contracts. Here are some stats on the 103 tradeable events: 82 were winners (anything greater than $0 after commissions) including 1 open trade in sugar (short 3 contracts) 21 were losers Of the 82 winning tradeable events, 40 were single lot trades with at least $100 in profit. Another 3 tradeable events were two lot trades with at least $200 in profit and then the open trade in sugar with 3 contracts in excess of $300 profit. Thus, 44 of my profitable trading events exceeded $100 per contract profit. Of my 21 losers, 9 trades exceeded losses of $100 per contract. All nine losses are listed below: $260 total on 2 contracts $201 total on 2 contracts The rest were single lot tradeable event losers: $460 $180 $437 $325 $571 $400 $600 I am sure I am not presenting this in the best format or the best detail upon which to analyze, but that is a broad sketch of what I am doing with my trading.

Lots of great stuff in here and I appreciate the contributions of everyone who shared.

Welcome. I wish you the best in your trading.

Strongtrader: When you say 5% a day, I do not feel comfortable with that expectation. In fact, I don't feel comfortable assigning any expected percentage return or daily trading goal. Since I started trading, there have been about 22 trading days. Even if I assumed a static return of 5% on $25,000, that would be $1,250 a day. Multiplying that by 22 days would put me at +$27,000. Surely, you don't think that is a realistic scenario for any trader, no? One of the primary factors that caused me to put myself out here for the public to see with this thread was that I feel my profits to date have come far too easy. My per day avg right now is at $270 a day.

VTK: Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think what I am taking away from your comments about confidence and fear is this: Since I recognize that I have some fear when I am trading then I must be hypervigilant about those moments when I feel confident or have had my ego boosted by a winning trade(s). My fear is the giveaway that the confidence I am feeling is an illusion and that I must be very deliberate in my decision making. Additionally, fear can be broken down into two different forces. In one sense, I should always have a healthy dose of fear (or perhaps, a healthy respect) for the power of the market. However, clearly, I am experiencing some fear based on my trading size when I hold overnight positions. It is this fear that leads you to suggest that I should decrease my trading size to a level where a potential move against me will not bring about this unhealthy level of fear. With respect to exiting rules, you are correct. I have to be honest and state that I am not sound in this part of my trading. Although I feel that I do respect and adhere to the "cut your losses" tenets, I am not proficient in exiting profitable trades in a manner that suits me mentally/psychologically. I must confess that I am a little stumped here and am vexxed by this. It is in this area that I get internally confused and tossed around by the myriad of trading axioms beginners like me are exposed. Let your winners run, but don't let your winners turn into losers. Thank you providing me with some food for thought.

Tams: No offense taken in any way nor do I feel your comments are malicious. While of course it is disheartening to read your take, I appreciate the feedback. I do not expect you to write a thousand pages stating your position, but I would like to see you articulate your reasoning with a bit more specificity and detail. The most gnawing aspect of your comment is that you seem to be essentially suggesting that I abandon any hope of trading success and you intimate that there is seemingly nothing I can do to become successful. That is vastly different from saying, "Hey, congrats on being profitable to date. However, I am a little concerned about your approach based on your comments and think that you should stop trading until you work on issue x, y and z." If you are seriously of the former opinion and not the latter, I do not really think your comments as put forth in their current form are fair to me...not that I am entitled to anything from you.

I am going to use this thread to some degree to puke out some thoughts, so please forgive me in advance. I wanted to mention some trades that I have really thought had the potential to be solid scores, but failed to capitalize on. For example, I sold Cocoa short on the breakdown below 25.60 and covered at 25.09 only to watch it drop and drop and drop with no retracement. Arggh. Orange Juice: 11/28 - Sold two contracts at 179.20 and 179.95 against a 181.10 stop. Covered them for a modest profit after it wouldnt break thru the 175 area and then broke back up above 178 at 178.10 I had just read a trading book and it said never let a winner turn into losers. I figured if it broke above 178 it would trade to resistance and then was afraid it would break out of what appeared to be the bullish flag/penant from 175-178. 12/5 - Sold another two lots at 179.35 and 179.50. Covered at 178.30 for a quick gain. Now it is trading at 170 which is what I had figured and am kicking myself because that would have been $1500 per contract gain and I only netted $700 total. Lean Hogs: 11/30 - Shorted 2 contracts at 92.325 which was damn near the high tick of the day. Covered for a modest gain same day. If I show just a bit more patience, I am banking some very solid wins for myself and my stops were never even threatened. This sort of forced me to be more disciplined in my trading the last couple of days. I already alluded to my emini trade which was the impetus for starting this thread. Then on thursday, sugar rallied and closed near the high of the day after being down heavy the day before and closing on its low. I sold 3 sugar contracts in the 94.12 area at the close with a 94.27 stop. I was a little fearful of being short 3 contracts overnight and a gap up move, but I felt that price action got weak on the rally into the close and felt it was a calculated risk. The next day, gapped down and traded all the way down to 93.16 or so. At one point in the low 70 cent range I got flat and then kicked myself for getting out early. So, I reented short in the same area a few minutes later. I then thought about covering my position at 93.20 but told myself I was going to stick it out and be committed to the trade. Sugar then rallied strongly into the close. I was sitting on a $3,100+ profit and saw it evaporating. I pulled the plug at 93.55 with about 10 minutes to go in the session when my daily P/L dwindled to $2,000. I then said..."stick with the trade Turner" and shorted 3 contracts at .55. The last trade was at .57 but then settled at .40. I am a little scared to be short 3 contracts over the weekend but I believe the trend is down and that I have to have the guts to stick it out and stop getting mad at myself for cutting my winners short. You can see that I am still fighting conflicting emotions and trading axioms. I am really enjoying this self-discovery, but it is frustrating. Of course, when you are profitable it is far easier to enjoy the self-discovery. I get that. So, now my P/L is +$5,900 and I am doing the best I can to have the right mental approach.

Siuya: Lightbulb. :-) Thank you. Gooner and anyone else wishing to reply: When does confidence become overconfidence? I have read that when you are trading poorly you should cut back your size repeatedly until you turn it around and even some say you should stop trading a for a while to rebalance yourself mentally. I have also read that when you are trading well you should perhaps become more aggressive while you are in a groove. Is it acceptable for a person aspiring to be a successful trader to feel confident or proud of themselves when they have taken down some wins and show a solid uptick in their P/L? I get the concept that the market is right and that we can't predict price action, but what is the appropriate mindset for one to have when they are trading well?

Is there a way to expand th number of comments per page so that I can view more than a handful before click next page button in each thread? For example, have the original poster's comment following by 25 or 30 subseqent comments?

Are you guys saying that stop orders are identified as such and visual to other traders or are you simply saying that the pros will look to goose the price thru a certain area they believe have a high probability of containing stop orders?

I don't have a lot of experience with trading in general, but I have traded OJ a few times in the last few weeks, which is the limit of my experience. Spreads can be 60 or 70 cents wide at times or more about $100 apart. I would expect there to be significant slippage if you put a stop order above or below the market.