Feng

Thanks Cactus Mo for your first post! One of the challenges of a space like TL is that we dare not get personal. So most comments are addressed to "you" or comment on what "they" do or don't do. I agree that this is no help at all. So, my risk is that first-person honesty will invite attack ("you beginners always... "), so to protect myself there is, of course, writing this under an alias, and my power to ignore. My benefit: I might find my own solution as I write. Or someone might share an insight from just ahead of me on this road. You said: "Here is a solution, Automated trading." This is exactly where I stand, today. My trading is on "pause" after yet another needless drawdown. For me, the automatic part will be around closing a position. What gets in the way of my being *consistent* with this? From the past round, when I way unexpectedly up in my balance, now, reflecting back, I see how drug-like my euphoria was. So, for me, given the long hard climb back from my personal depths of despair, grief, & depression, these bursts of euphoria are like water to someone nearly dead from thirst. I soak it in. But market don't give a sh*t about me, so now my high gains have turned to deep losses. So, stops and limits are the next game changers for me. And part of me wants nothing to do with it. Thus, I pause as I untangle this puzzle. Success in trading everyone, Feng

Thank you Rande for this article. I recently missed a monster move by a monster stock. I'm miffed because I did own it and got shaken out of it by 3 things. I succumbed to bearish articles during a period it was under water; I decided to abide by the 30-day wash rules though it's a trade in the same year, and third, I didn't "sell to the sleeping level," and fade out, instead I sold everything. Grrrr! I woke this morning with a old practice snagged from my dream research years. It's a sentence with specific transformations for nouns and verbs. I earn all the money I can ever need or want from profitably trading stocks and options. The exchanges are: nouns are preceded by "I am having the ___ part of myself" and verbs are transformed to their gerund form (earn to earning) and at the end of the sentence I add "and this is my life." I am having my active part of myself earning all the money parts of myself I am having myself need or want from profitably trading the stock and options parts of myself and this is my life." Writing it this way stirs up stuff. And that's the point. I feel internal objections and the but but buts arising. But ... my cultural experiences, both what I've been surrounded by and from the gains and pains my family has experienced through the generations have lots of contrary messages. But ... there's always contradictory sayings and adages from the four centuries of experience the world has had with stock markets. But ... there's also the drag that markets are indifferent to human suffering, environmental impacts and other things economics call externalities. Markets don't play nice and don't care. One by one I internally address the buts, resolve any contradictory motives, and return to my statement to see what drags up next. Today I awoke knowing I had to reconcile this activity with shadow issues around gambling, debt, and expenses. Then, there are aspects of options trading that mimic scalping theater or sport tickets, and scalping is "illegal" in many states. I, of course, being "law abiding" try to stay on the legal side of the laws. That needs resolution, too. The resolutions will arrive internally, meaning, an onrush of comments about options not being scalping etc. will not help. Because this processing is not about what's out there,but what's in me. I blabbed on longer than I had thought I might, but if you've read this far, thanks for the attention. Feng

Hi LaRd, Quote: "I am currently on a 20 disciplined trade plan with one stock, so my focus is very narrow with nothing more than price and volume for indicators. It is tough as hell and very simple at the same time. I just completed trade 10 and have trade 11 on. The market takes on a whole different look when you get that tight of binders. The object of the trades is to improve my confidence, discipline and beat the stupidity out of myself, lol." Are you keeping charts by hand, as well, because of that tight focus? I am finding getting a handle on discipline difficult as well. I say to myself, fade in with a few trades, fade out with a few. I imagine it, and what did I do this morning? On a whim sold off all my shares of IMMR at once. I think this means I have an older belief buried behind my conscious thoughts. So, I'm going digging for what it, or they, may be and show them exit from my thought patterns. Feng

You know, LaReindeer, you bring up something that's interesting. I have no consistent way to look for that important piece of information. In fact, I actively don't want a consistent way, but to allow information to flow to me randomly. For a while I had access to the WSJ because the prior occupants at my office left with time on the subscription. I read practically every page and it led to some interesting trades. But then the subscription ended. So now I use the news feed on Finviz. It is organized in 2 ways, one by time and the other by source. I look at both ways it's organized. Mostly at random, allowing myself the fun of looking at only the headline and first sentence or delving deeper as I feel moved. I also get articles keyed to my watchlist at Seeking Alpha. This is more consistent, yet random depending on when the pieces are published. If was from one of these that I first learned about mortgage re-investment trusts (mREITs). One of the hedge fund leaders I study, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, has bought into one and I felt it would behoove me to check it out as well. Still couldn't explain it to a middle schooler, but my shares keep advancing. Trade well, Feng

Hi LaReindeer: Let's see what you listed: 1) I currently keep a thought journal document on google drive, 2) and a trade log excel in google drive. 3) I have a set of rules in a document. 4) Then comes the earnings, vix , news, etc. -------------- It's a lot of information to carry. For sure. What I do is keep my thought journal and comments in my excel file where I log my trades and daily balance changes. I write rules and then work them until I've more or less internalized them. Then I don't need the doc as much. About 4)—is this information on your holdings that related to your plan of action? Are they just part of the noise of information about a stock/company/options. What I do is have one or two ideas I'm exploring and use a charting service like stockcharts.com to annotate my chart with lines and comments related to what I'm studying. Right now, for example, I am interested in trading patterns and options prices around quarterly conference calls. So, I'll note when the call is scheduled and other facts using the text box or comment annotation tool. I started their paid service last year, but I think you can annotate a chart for free, just can't save it for later except as a screen shot. Also sometimes I put on my chart are comments on why and when I enter my position and any trends or dates I want to keep an eye on. I pretty much ignore short interest, vix, analyst estimates, sunspots, moon phases, whether Mercury is in retrograde, and most articles and commentators except as a means of making up my own mind. Had a vivid experience of this last summer when Kramer said to sell a stock I was seriously long on. It dropped two days. in a row, by a lot. I see in my notes I disagreed with Mr. Kramer, and held firm. It quickly recovered and proved to be a great trade for me. What do you need to know and how to you need to have it organized so your trading plan is effective? What can you let flow by you because it is not substantially related to how you want to trade? Feng

Thanks Larry, I'm finding that having stops and limits in place sets the zone for me to watch the market. My broker offers a trading order called Order Cancels Order, if my limit above the market price is executed (for example) the stop order below the market price will be canceled. And vice versa. If I notice something unusual (a steep climb or some bad news, for example) I'll cancel the order then make a market order to close the position. Otherwise, I leave them alone. Though I know these help, I'm not consistent. Just a human trader making my way, two steps forward, one step back, F

Metaphor definition: 'A metaphor is an implied analogy that imaginatively identifies one object (or person) with another and ascribes to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second,' (from A Handbook to Literature, ed. C. Hugh Holman, The Odyssey Press). Predictor wrote: "Best metaphor I can give.. stops are like going to a bad dentist with a bad toothache." Ouch! That may work for you when encouraged to come up with a metaphor, but for me, if I thought like that, I'd only use a stop once every 4 - 6 months and definitely find a better dentist! I certainly would never use it when thinking/feeling about something I want to enjoy for a long time. Another response questioned metaphors that evoked risks of physical injury saying trading is 'just money.' Next time you're tempted to not pay your credit card bill, do you think a note saying they should understand because it's 'just money' would fly? This came in a comment that using life preservers as a metaphor didn't fit because trading involves 'just money.' Images (metaphors) of violence, life and death are chronic in the financial literature. George Soros tells someone he changes his mind about the market "and made a killing." Movies "kill" at the box office. NY Times headline: "As I.P.O. Market Shows Life ... " Southwest paper headline: "Home sales up as housing market shows life" Forbes headline "Blackberry dying on the Vine ... " Fortunately for this excursion into lit crit, my metaphors need not pass any test but that they help me learn to use the tools of the trade successfully. F

Oo, thanks for the stack of other metaphors: tools, insurance policy, sleep well habit, friend, and F-U Dad. All of these add more variety to my inner world. They give me choices. I find I get stuck, and my friend or clients do as well, when they have limited alternative mental models (metaphors, if you will) for what they are doing in the context of what is happening around them. Sleep can be disturbed by the risk/reality of losses AND/OR the risk/reality of missed rewards (gains). I did find that I felt less eager to constantly check in when my stops were set. Then, one tripped, selling half of my position, did nothing for a day, then has taken off on a steep climb. (The symbol is DDD). In a way, by selling just part of my position, I am trying to straddle both sides of my personality: a feeling of freedom and skill plus an automatic protector against quick & steep declines. When the stop trips, it also serves as an alert for closer inspection. All good. Feng

I had a wild ride in June: balance opened with 2 big gains. Because I was mostly shorting stocks, a week of rising markets plunged me back to break even for the year. Then, finally, blessedly, groking that the markets had turned, I closed shorts and bot long. Barely ended the month with a gain on 4 days of gains. On reflection, I saw that having stops or limits on my orders would have preserved over $1000 of my balance. So, I asked myself, what's behind *not" using these tools? One experience came to mind immediately: trading the market w/o S&L feels "freeer" and more "masterly." S&Ls feel like training wheels! I had some success with S&Ls long ago when I knew I was going to away from daily attention to markets and wanted my holdings to stop out in case the market dropped. That is indeed what the markets did, and I was very happy to have put in those stops while away. My experience with training wheels is that were am annoyance and symbol of many things wrong with my relationship with my dad. When I was 5 or 6, as the first born child, he bought me a bike that fit him! Rather than getting a smaller one, I literally had to grow up to 11 or 12 to be larger enough to ride it. I had brothers (with smaller, kid-sized bikes) riding 2-wheels before I did. I vividly remember the day of no return when I took off those training wheels and mastered the #$^$ thing! Even today, 40 odd years later, I can feel the heat of the blushing and shame (?) that I was that big and old and could not ride. So, clearly, this metaphor doesn't help. I have several options, one of which is to find a therapist and work this thing through. Another, and faster-cheaper option is to change the metaphor. Some come to mind: S&Ls are ... Nets, like those used by high-wire acts. Life preservers, like those worn when white water rafting Air bags, like those that deploy when cars hit things I might work with these. Don't feel any blushing, shame. I WANT to use a life preserver on a white water adventure! I like this one best of the three, also, because rafting is a mix of turbulence I navigate with my actions (some skillful, some not). Should the preserver be needed, it ought to help me stay alive so I can take another trip. Thanks for reading. This has helped. Feng

Off-topic could be very healthy for discovery by bringing in ideas and perspectives that enrich the on-topic discussion. Who can say what is really off-topic and what is on? About abuse and attacks, well, first, you opened this with a question about "off-topic" comments. An euphemism? I suspect the button on the left to ignore this user was built into the system for just that personal moderation. If it works as promised, no other moderation is needed. I think the "host" of the thread, that is, the person who launched it, might remind everyone of the etiquette ground rules in the first post, especially if the topic could be predicted to generate passionate feelings. Finally, if you are one of the people prone to disrespect or abuse, and you know who you are, I suggest you study persuasive writing and rhetoric (use your search engines). I'm from New York where everyone has an opinion (the right one, of course), is passionate, and in a rush (life's too short and fast for taking too much time) yet manage to express themselves among friends in a way that gets their point across by focusing on getting the point across. It is possible to express passionate disagreement without abusive language, name calling, or putdowns. I live in Seattle now and this skill is lacking among the general population. So everyone sticks to safe or nice topics because they don't have the skin or skills to disagree. Most conversations don't lead to anything because people don't risk showing their opposition. Very sad. Let's be more NY than Seattle. Feng