Holding Yourself Accountable

[brownsfan019 17]

I suppose most of you have seen this already, Dr. Brett wrote a post about it today.

 

James - per this link and something Dr Brett mentions, take a look at this site - https://www.stocktickr.com/

[now123pivot 10]

I just saw this thread and am interested in holding myself accountable not just to myself (without any excuses) but also to my fellow traders here at TL. I like the idea of a spreadsheet which would list all of my trades and would distinguish between planned and emotional trades and missed trades (trades I should have taken in accordance with my methodology but which I didn't take because of fear of being stopped out etc).

 

In regards to Soultrader's questions #3, I reckon this system would have to rely on our honesty if we do not want to explain our individual trading plans in detail... and since this is something I would want to do to improve my results, if I post inaccurate results I only end up cheating myself.

 

I think James can mediate and introduce members since he's the most involved founder of any forums I've known.

Edited March 13, 2008 by torero

[torero 10]

Here's my idea on how this can be done. It's been common in real life for a couple of traders to get together and rent an office to save $ and of course get rid of the boredom and loneliness, etc. So my idea is similar to this idea. A member here gets to pick or asks a 2-3 fellow members to be their confidence men where they can build up the close-knit communication and sign some sort of confidentiality or non-disclosure before passing out their statements. This means there should be no hiding behind the usernames but real names with real addresses, phones etc. I assume it takes time to build up the relationship but if anyone wants to get serious this is the only way to go to the next level. I think the sure way to tell if the member is committed is seeing how long he's been on the forum and how many posts he's made (optional because it doesn't really tell much the quality of the member but by seeing participation on a regular basis you know there's no gaps of interest to the forum).

 

But finding the right partner(s), there has to be similar trading styles, instruments etc in order to understand each other's method more or less.

 

I know this might be a bit much but hey, anyone wants to be profitable down the line, some risks have to be taken, wouldn't you agree?

 

How's this idea sound? Thoughtless or useful?

[james_gsx 16]

Torero, I like that idea since I believe it would add a lot of credibility and it would take the whole accountability idea to the next level. It also goes in with something I had jotted down, so here it is.

 

We could continue to use the community format, but have it broken down into private groups. That doesn't mean "Group A" or "Group B", but simply a network of people you trust. Therefore User A, could be in a network with User B and User D, but not User C. But User C could have both B and D. If that makes sense... This way the people you can work with could be unlimited, or as private as you wish. Some people don't wish to share a lot of their information with people, whereas others are more open about it.

 

On a day to day basis I used the template I posted earlier, and it worked out fairly well. There are a few things I would change, but I like the idea of journaling each trade, grading it, and having my P&L. From there, we could log it on the website or excel and have it automatically track basically everything. This way we could see what days we trade best on with each setup, how our overall performance is going, etc.

 

Then I took some of the ideas the trading blog had about the A-F system. I decided that the trader could grade himself on an A-F basis. He could use his overall trade grade, say a 4 for the day, to help determine his overall grade. But ultimately he could grade himself based on how well he saw opportunity, his emotion, or whatever else is bothering him. Then he could write down comments and possibly find patterns that affect his trading and immediately adjust/create goals to overcome the shortfalls.

[now123pivot 10]

I like the idea of forming groups of traders with similar methodologies (say, MP, fibs etc). I had suggested starting a PalTalk room for people who use JPerl's VWAP methodology but didn't get many people that were interested...

[brownsfan019 17]

Interesting ideas here... it's always fun to see where things can morph to when the idea is tossed out there.

 

My immediate thoughts...

 

> I like the intimate, personal accountability. Looks great on paper. Concerned about how it can actually work in real life though, esp with every little personal detail out there... I know I would be concerned about that.

 

> I like the A-F scale that Dr Brett talks about. Simple and concise.

 

> James_gsx also has a nice looking template/sheet that we could model after.

 

> Similar trading styles groups sounds good as well. Looks like I will be a one man candle trading group though seeing that the active threads are VSA or some VWAP thing.

 

It comes down to how many are serious and will contribute. Just look at this thread - we have maybe 10 or so people posting in it. There could be many just reading and thinking - I'll join! - but I am not holding my breath either.

 

My immediate thought is that initially, we need to start with something that many can participate in and then see where it goes. For example - a simple template where you give yourself a A-F grade with some commentary is a great place to start. Why? IT'S EASY. Click A, B, C, D or F and then jot a few notes if you feel like it. Very similar to the elitetrader P&L thread but w/o actual numbers (unless you want to post) and with a grading scale.

 

From there we can see where it goes. Maybe a few dedicated hearts there can branch off and do their own thing. Maybe James can make a private area where you have to be invited to participate - you know, for the die hards.

 

Here's a quick thing I did in notepad to envision what I see here:

 

 

 

It's not much, but it's a start. Motion creates more motion and ideas, right? We've talked about this before, so it'd be nice to get something going this time around. The above setup gets it going real quick (I would think).

 

A complex, massive template can take awhile to program and could scare people off from using it IMO. I love what James_gsx has, but I also think something that intense could scare people off from using it.

 

Once it gets moving, we can see where it goes...

[james_gsx 16]

I like the A-F system with comments to start as it would be simple and something that could easily attract people to use. I will continue to use the template I created, as I think that will help me down the stretch.

 

The only concern I still have is where and how would we do the A-F system? Obviously a forum style won't work, since no one wants to make a new thread everyday. Maybe we could create a calender type thing. Monday - Friday with a quick grade next to it and notes so others can easily view. Monday would be at the top, then down to Friday. Or a simple calender could work as well. Those are just my thoughts, anyone have any opinions?

[darthtrader 10]

but I like the idea of journaling each trade, grading it, and having my P&L. From there, we could log it on the website or excel and have it automatically track basically everything.

 

Personally, I think this area would be the most interesting to explore. The only thing we can really nail down that we all have in common is basically trading the same instruments.

I would love to have a program that I put in my entry/exit/stop and then a whole ton of metrics gets calculated.

if a winning trade...how much heat did the trade take, how much profit could you have made with a perfect exit on the setup while in the trade, what would the trade look like if you had held X minutes longer, Y minutes longer, X minutes shorter, Y minutes shorter. What if you had entered the trade X minutes earlier, Y minutes earlier.

all the same for a losing trade with a few others like if the trade was profitable at some point but turned into a loser, exited sooner, exited later, ect.

This would not make sense for scalping but I wouldn't think it should be that hard if using 1 minute bar data for ES, YM , NQ. Mysql database keeping the minute bar data around for 2 or 3 days and if you snooze you lose.

Your grade for trade location, getting jumpy and exit too soon, holding too long..it would all be a hard number and not just something qualitative. Have a variable that people can just name their setups and then over time you could track something like average heat on a particular setup.

Then just have a notes section for each trade to input observations, emotions, ect.

[james_gsx 16]

Just from the template I made earlier, I already found one of my biggest problems is exiting too early and letting myself get stopped out. Obviously that's not going to work over an extended period of time, regardless of how much money I made/lost today.

 

So from that data alone I can nail down two things.

1 - my targets are too big for the style of trade

2 - I get greedy and exit too early

3 - Both - I take a lot of contrarian plays and get trigger happy.

[Soultrader 12]

Let me bounce off some of these ideas with my coder and see what he can come up with. Itll take some time as I am extremely busy at the moment as well but will begin developing this project.

[brownsfan019 17]

Let me bounce off some of these ideas with my coder and see what he can come up with. Itll take some time as I am extremely busy at the moment as well but will begin developing this project.

 

It really comes down to what the coder is able to do. There's so many ways this thing can go, so that's why I was thinking simple at first.

[darthtrader 10]

Just from the template I made earlier, I already found one of my biggest problems is exiting too early and letting myself get stopped out. Obviously that's not going to work over an extended period of time, regardless of how much money I made/lost today.

 

So from that data alone I can nail down two things.

1 - my targets are too big for the style of trade

2 - I get greedy and exit too early

3 - Both - I take a lot of contrarian plays and get trigger happy.

 

this is where i think something like "if I had held X minutes longer" over time would be amazing information to have. Especially once you have enough data points to chart what would happen with setup ABC if you had held 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes longer. Also enough to compute a meaningfull average P&L if you had held X minutes longer. Improving your setup then would be nothing more than finding your average hold time for setup ABC, then using a stop watch or clock to make sure you stay in the trade avg hold time + whatever X minutes gave you the optimal result until your average hold time came more in line with adding the extra time to the setup. You would also start to see overall market conditions change when this stops working effeciently.

I don't know if this is realistic though to do on the web and not just on a local spreadsheet. Would be quite a project I would imagine.

[darthtrader 10]

Also for the chatroom, maybe have a few seperate chat rooms that only meet once a month to start out. Market profile room, candle room, vsa room. The chatroom is cool but to go on everyday I really don't want to know what other people using other setups are doing like that, gives too much bias to your view, especially if your doing something totally different than what the guy who said they bought/sold are doing.

If the chat sessions were more specific and infrequent I think alot more people would show up and we could all learn from eachother with more specific setups and less noise.

[now123pivot 10]

I like the idea of grading our days, though I will probably keep a more detailed journal for all trades taken throughout the day so I can go back and analyze them later.

 

Someone early on in this thread commented that they meet at the end of each week with a partner to discuss their week and I reckon weekly, rather than monthly, meetings might work out well ... that said, maybe we can establish rooms which meet more or less frequently (depending on demand) and see where that goes.

[brownsfan019 17]

Someone early on in this thread commented that they meet at the end of each week with a partner to discuss their week and I reckon weekly, rather than monthly, meetings might work out well ... that said, maybe we can establish rooms which meet more or less frequently (depending on demand) and see where that goes.

 

And with something like PalTalk, that is super easy to do. It's a matter of interest and people following through.

[james_gsx 16]

Does Paltalk cost any money? I have skype, and I know that's free.

[brownsfan019 17]

Does Paltalk cost any money? I have skype, and I know that's free.

 

There is a free version and a paid version I believe.

[now123pivot 10]

I am not certain about the cost of PalTalk either... but I too have Skype and like that a lot as well.

[james_gsx 16]

Is it possible to setup a "conference" on skype with 3 or more users, or even on PalTalk? Maybe not talk to eachother via microphones, but use their chat feature?

[dandxg 10]

Is it possible to setup a "conference" on skype with 3 or more users, or even on PalTalk? Maybe not talk to eachother via microphones, but use their chat feature?

 

Yeah I am on 3 way voice for skype right now. The only downside is the one who starts the conference call needs to have the fastest computer because you are the super node per skype. You can also check out tradingrooms.com and get a free room, voice isn't as good as skype but you can post live charts too.

[james_gsx 16]

Well my skype thing is james.lengyel feel free to add me. If we decide to go the paltalk way, then I'll download that or whatever we decide to do.

[brownsfan019 17]

On Paltalk you can create a chat room. That's the nice thing - you can make a room and it's just there to use. Although the same thing can be done via the TL chat room as well. Paltalk has voice, which is nice if you want that.

[Blu-Ray 10]

Paltalk's a good idea, I've used it a couple of times and it's good, however you would need to make it into a private room , ie. requiring a password, which could be posted somewhere on this site. As I've noticed there's constantly people just popping in and out of rooms..........just my thoughts anyway, but I'd be up for that.

 

Cheers

 

Blu-Ray

[Soultrader 12]

I already have a Traders Laboratory room on paltalk which I created about a year ago. Wanted to make it a TL chat room back then... I believe its still there. If interested I can double check on this.

[james_gsx 16]

I think we would be interested on that James.

 

I went ahead and downloaded it, my name is james_gsx

Everyone feel free to add me so we can get this going!