Trader P/L 2009

[thalestrader 14]

Thought I would post this as it might then sink into my thick skull. Why oh why did I take that first trade (Red Arrow). Went long after only a 23.6 retrace and only 3 ticks from a floor trader pivot level. DUMB. But more importantly, why did I not take the next trade (white Arrow) ? A healthy retrace and sufficient room to get off my first target before hitting resistence.

 

Hopefully putting this down in black and white might help.

 

Hi there,

 

I don't know if you really wanted anyone to answer your therapeutic questions, but I thought I'd share a few observations.

 

1) Your first long trade, presuming it was in accordance with your established trading plan, was fine. You had a long entry signal, you entered and placed a stop loss, and your stop loss was hit, taking you out of your position with a very small loss. Excellent trade!

 

2) Your second question as to why you did not take the second signal is, as you note, a more important question, and one that is easily answered. I am again presuming that this was a signal for you to take a position in accordance with your established trading plan. Presuming such, then the reason you did not take the trade was that you feared taking a second loss.

 

3) Had you not feared the second loss, and had you taken the position, and assuming you would have managed the trade with some sort of trailing stop, you would have made a net profit on the two trades.

 

Success at trading is not about eliminating losing trades and only making winning trades. Trading is about managing risk by keeping your losing bets small in extent compared to the size of your winning bets. Success in trading is the cumulative effect of all of your bets (winners + losers) and not your winners alone. In other words, a focus on a high winning % almost always leads to a trader who is in the end a net loser. I know more than a few traders who brag about winning 70%, 80%, even 90% of their trades. Yet the average losing trade is 8 times larger than the average winning trade. I'd rather be a trader who only wins 40% of his bets, but whose average winning trade is 2 or more times larger than my my average loser.

 

You obviously have the discipline to enter a trade and place a stop loss. That means you are ahead of 95% of the folks who trade. Yes, 95% - and the percent who trade without an active stop loss is probably closer to 99%. On Friday I watched as a trader with my firm took a position in a stock with no stop loss, cursed as the stock moved against his position, and then doubled down by adding 1000 shares to his initial 1000. I then watched as he cursed the market for being wrong as the stock decined another 1.50 from his second entry. He does not like taking losses. He regularly averages his losers, only to suffer a greater loss. On Friday that one trade wiped out his profits from the last two weeks. You are miles ahead of this guy, and he's a pro (being a professional in this sense has everything to do with employment status and nothing to do with soundness of one's approach).

 

Now, you need to stop letting losses rattle you and knock you off your game. In Market WIzards, Larry Hite has a wonderful line where he says that being a trader, he is amazed at how much you can make from being wrong. What he meant, of course, is that losses do not matter. They are part of the game. The winners will more than reward you for the losses you experience.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[bathrobe 10]

How far in advance are you placing your orders for them to be partially filled when price doesn't trade through your entry/exit? I only have limited experience trading ES, though I am planning on switching from YM to ES sometime in the future. This topic interests me because often on the YM you can get filled when price doesn't trade through because the BxA is often actually spread by 1 point. Thanks.

 

Usually a few minutes, though sometimes 20-30 minutes if I am waiting for a pullback.

[Mickey Caine 10]

Thanks Thales.

 

Really appreciate your comments. You presume correctly. Fear really is my biggest problem.

 

However thanks to your comments, have now patted myself on the back, as I always trade with a stop, I never move it away from price and I never average down on a trade. You may well have given my confidence a wee boost there. I shall read your post again on Monday morning before I start trading. I also liked the idea posted earlier re putting a post it note around screen saying "Follow your Plan" each time you do not follow that plan. I will make sure I can still see my screen by lunchtime.

 

Thanks again.

[brownsfan019 17]

Regarding trading the ES w/ limit orders, IMO you should assume that price must TRADE THROUGH your level to get a fill. As BR has said, if it just touches your level, you may get partial or no fills. That is one difference of trading the ES vs. YM or even NQ for that matter. If you are reviewing previous ES charts and you see that price touched your level, don't assume you would have been filled. Sometimes there's 10 contracts traded there or 1000. If it's low, you more than likely will not get filled.

[atto 20]

you should assume that price must TRADE THROUGH your level to get a fill.

Exactly. Simulator results are not reliable, so you need to assume that price went past your entry. Rarely will you get a live fill at low or high tick. A small word of wisdom: when your entry setup works perfectly, you might not get filled on a limit. When it doesn't, you'll always get filled. If your entry strategy nails low or high tick often, consider using market orders (or stops).

[jonbig04 10]

Exactly. Simulator results are not reliable, so you need to assume that price went past your entry. Rarely will you get a live fill at low or high tick. A small word of wisdom: when your entry setup works perfectly, you might not get filled on a limit. When it doesn't, you'll always get filled. If your entry strategy nails low or high tick often, consider using market orders (or stops).

 

You are exactly right. I am never using another limit ever again. :doh:

Well ok maybe I will....but not very often!

[brownsfan019 17]

Atto brings up a very good point - if you enter on limit orders, your losses are GUARANTEED to fill; meanwhile your wins MIGHT fill.

 

 

If that seems backwards to you (like it does for me) considering entering on buy stop or sell stop orders. Your winners are GUARANTEED to fill and your losses MIGHT fill. Personally, I only enter on buy/sell stop orders - I want to buy into strength and sell into weakness; not buy into weakness and sell into strength.

 

Just

[Robert Joyce 10]

Bathrobe..... Ok, there is probably something else that should be said regarding those 10 to 50 contract orders....... Are You Crazy...... Judging from your comments on this thread so far there is no way you should be buying that many contracts, you told us you were playing with 'scared money'. My advice is for you to go back to 2 contracts and if you must leverage in you could work your way up to 10. Believe me I am thrilled you did it and made money... but I would be very sad if you get stopped out for a huge loss. So just chill for awhile. You proved you have the kohonas to go large, now prove you have the kohonas to exercise some discipline..... Good luck whatever you do...

[bathrobe 10]

Bathrobe..... Ok, there is probably something else that should be said regarding those 10 to 50 contract orders....... Are You Crazy...... Judging from your comments on this thread so far there is no way you should be buying that many contracts, you told us you were playing with 'scared money'. My advice is for you to go back to 2 contracts and if you must leverage in you could work your way up to 10. Believe me I am thrilled you did it and made money... but I would be very sad if you get stopped out for a huge loss. So just chill for awhile. You proved you have the kohonas to go large, now prove you have the kohonas to exercise some discipline..... Good luck whatever you do...

 

I loaned my brother money which came out of my trading account, from the time when I began posting on this thread up until last week my acct size was about 3k and for me that was scared money, I was unable to scale into trades as usual and a loss crippled my account size. Two weeks ago my brother repaid the loan and I am back to how I have traded now for some time.

[brownsfan019 17]

I think BR knows what he's doing.

 

[HAL9000 10]

After not trading on sim for a while, mainly because the lack of time during last week, and because I am in the process of sorting things (out), I have just done two little scalps today (the major move down had already stalled/paused).

 

Emergency stop would have been 12 ticks, but I have tightened it.

Two clean and easy trades in my view.

 

When I started to try trading futures, I decided that 50 bucks on one contract every day would be nice. Maybe I have become greedy in the meantime.

 

But today ... this should be it. (Daily target)

 

 

 

 

Brown - BTW. Step 3 on my thread will show your approach on my chart(s).

I will write it tomorrow (I hope).

[bathrobe 10]

ES +1750

 

CL +200

 

It looks like it is a possibility to have oil line up inversly to the S&P again as it did last year. Could yield some nice opportunities.

[pimind 10]

Ended up Over $900 after commissions.

 

Had a positive day but it was a grind all day. Traded over 65 Round trips. Made several mistakes fortunately they where going long near the bottom and got multiple opps to get out without much damage.

 

All in all even though I made good money i'm not happy with my trading today for several reasons.

 

1. Entered against the trend again, I wish I could get a shock collar everytime I did it then maybe i would stop.

 

2. Held a trade way 2 long . It was stupid trade with no signal went hard against me then gave me the opp to get out with a few + ticks, but I held on this happened several time each time + a few ticks, A rare gift from the market gods. Anyway I should have taken the first one, and didn't.

 

3. Moved my stops.

 

4. Extremely stressful trading.

 

Again it worked out for me today had it not I would have gotten slapped hard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brownsfan019 17]

6-15-09

 

 

 

The 'issues' w/ me and the 6E continued today. Had a couple rough days there lately but I'm coming out ahead on most of these fights... so to that, I provide this smiley for those thinking they can shake my boat on the 6E...

 

(note - if you are offended easily, stop now and go to a new thread)

 

 

 

 

 

[Mickey Caine 10]

Nice trade there BF. I see your entry and boy did you show some patience to hold through some pretty big pullbacks to get out at that price. My only trade on the Euro today was whislt you were holding that short. I went long, looked a good entry at the time, but stopped me out. Found the Euro quite choppy today. Still there is always tomorrow.

 

Also took a long entry on the YM, decided to reduce stop stop from 20 to 15. Great idea, price retaced 18 then went on to be a winner. Hopefully lesson learned.

[brownsfan019 17]

Nice trade there BF. I see your entry and boy did you show some patience to hold through some pretty big pullbacks to get out at that price. My only trade on the Euro today was whislt you were holding that short. I went long, looked a good entry at the time, but stopped me out. Found the Euro quite choppy today. Still there is always tomorrow.

 

Also took a long entry on the YM, decided to reduce stop stop from 20 to 15. Great idea, price retaced 18 then went on to be a winner. Hopefully lesson learned.

 

Thanks Mickey. I'm trying to let my winners run more, so this was a good example. And I needed that win.

 

As for moving stops, I'll say that for me it constantly proves to be the wrong idea. I almost moved my trail on that 6E trade and had I done that, would have cut that profit in half. Personally, I've never found much good to come from moving my stops. I guess the argument there is that the stop is to stop you when you are wrong, not when you feel like 'protecting' your position.

 

That's what I've found at least. Others would say different. Good to consider multiple options though.

[Robert Joyce 10]

Ok, sim again today, 6-2 contract YM trades, 1 loser, 1 stopped at even and 4 winners for a phoney baloney profit of $430. I had to go out so I only traded in the morning session.

 

Bathrobe... nice numbers again today.... I was only trying to be helpful with my comments on the weekend, hope you understand....

[pimind 10]

Had a pretty good day today, still not happy with all my trades , but a lot better than yesterday still making stupid little mistakes that I should no better not to make by now. Want to work at taking more of my signals and try not to have an opinion on the market being 2 high or 2 low. It is messing with my trading.:crap:

 

Anyway traded 41 round trip lots today. + 380 after commissions.

[bathrobe 10]

Missed the move today.

 

No trades

[thalestrader 14]

Hi Folks,

 

I haven't kept up here on the p/l thread the last few days, but I've been trying to post most of my trades as they occur the best I can elsewhere on TL.

 

My nine year old daughter has decided she wants to learn to trade this summer, so she and I have been watching, of all things, currency charts at night. I'm opening up one of those microlot accounts for her funded with the princely, or should I say, princessly sum of $25 (yes, you heard right, a cool twenty-five and xx/00 dollars American). May as well start her in the bucket shops, just like Livermore!

 

Today's trades yielded +41 pennies/share traded on my stock trades, and +33ticks on the 6B.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[pimind 10]

you can get a microlot account at fxcm.com they fund it with $25.

[Robert Joyce 10]

Ok, still with the sim.... 15- 2 contract YM trades. 2 losers, 5 at or near even and 8 winners, for a phoney baloney profit of $505. or 51 real pts. A couple of them I removed my limit orders and let both contracts run for a bit.

[thalestrader 14]

Hi Folks,

 

Three trades today, +25, +14, +13 pennies respectively for +52 pennies on the day.

 

Today is the last day of school, and for the next few trading days, my daughter and I will be watching coin markets and learning the ropes of the fxcm microlot trading station (she is very excited).

 

We will also be visiting area ice cream stands, hamburger joints, a zoo, and an amusement park (I am very excited).

 

Let's call it a "working vacation."

 

At any rate, I will be concentrating on family, so I will not be trading, and I likely will not be posting much until next Monday or Tuesday, so I wish you all a great week and good luck.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[thalestrader 14]

One last chart for Bathrobe - I think he was the ORLY trader.

[pimind 10]

thales,

 

Enjoy your time with your family and let us now how the experiment with your daughter goes one on my kids has expressed interest in trading she is 10.