Trader P/L 2010

[Dinerotrader 10]

Great day Dinero. Congrats!

 

Jason

 

1.5 hours of trading. Wish I could do that everyday. There were several good moves after that but I had to cut things short today.

 

Nice work there yourself.

[Dinerotrader 10]

SIM

+$742

 

 

 

I am feeling like I finally made it to becoming a profitable SIM trader. Great week. Had some some good trades this week and some trading plan enhancements to reinforce my setup opportunities.

 

Wasn't expecting that huge rejection at the bottom of the breakdown today. Got a few failed but good setups. I guess I'll have to see if there was a good reason to not have taken them or if those were just the business expenses of the day.

 

Since its Friday, I have been writing a few things to myself about trading. Just thoughts put on paper. Nothing revolutionary. I thought I'd throw them up here with my post today.

 

Losses

Losses in trading can very reasonably be viewed as operating expenses. In trading, losses are a necessary part of daily operations. Maximizing revenue and minimizing expenses is how every business must operate and trading is no exception. If your profit margin is tight like Walmart, you simply increase transaction volume and in turn profits go up while maintaining historical margins. Thinking you can eliminate losses in trading is like a hair salon owner wishing they didn't have to pay employees or pay for supples. That salon owner wants to keep those costs down as much as possible without affecting revenues. The owner could only hire 16 year old hair stylists to keep wage expense low but that most likely would in turn decrease revenue from repeat customers. A trader can easily make the same mistake and cut profits by trying to decrease expenses (losses) to excessively. There is a careful balance of accepting expenses and revenues that must be maintained while always striving to adapt to market changes. A business owner would not characterize a wage expense as a loss and neither should a trader. I will define and shift my own paradigm in trading to realize that each trade loss is simply part of my business expense structure.

 

Ignoring bias

What indicators/bias to ignore while trading. It is easy for me personally, to consider far too many factors in evaluating an possible entry or exit point. Long term trend, intermediate trend, short term trend, previous candlesticks, trendlines, longterm/shorterm/ S/R levels, the day's directional momentum, volume, price patterns, etc. These are all valid considerations but a simulateous weighin of all indications normally leads me to confusion. At a given decision point in the trading process only certain factors should defined in my trading a worth consideration with deliberate and specific ignorance of other factors. Trading decision points would be entry and exit(trail or flatten). I will define which bias define my entry/exit and I will ignore other factors which I feel do not add value to the decision analysis.

[sappjason 10]

Another great day for you Dinero. Congrats again. I also liked reading your thoughts. Very nicely articulated.

 

Jason

 

SIM

+$742

...

Edited March 26, 2010 by sappjason

[sappjason 10]

+$999. Ended early today... However, I'm pretty upset at myself for something that I did today. Today is the first time that I manually exited a position in a LONG, LONG time. I sincerely believe it has to do with the fact that I'm now positing my P/L publicly. I was down again this morning, but as the market started to tank, my P/L quickly reversed and became nicely positive. I was telling myself: "you have to show a profit today---you have to prove yourself" and as such, I decided to cut one of my best winners short. I hate the fact that I am starting to feel like I "have to show a profit". This (very simply) is not the way a professional trader should think (and dammit, I know better). Focus on perfect and flawless execution of my system. That's my job. Not showing a profit each and every day.....

 

Jason

[Dinerotrader 10]

Its too bad we lost everyone on this thread. I was just looking through the 2009 P/L thread and we had Soultrader, Thalestrader, Brownsfan, Bathrobe, ....etc. Great discussions and charts from a diverse group of seasoned traders. It is so nice to just see how everyone did at the end of the trading day. It pushes you do do better, reminds you that everyone is having rough days, etc. Who else can share in the excitement or disappointment from a day of trading better than TL folks.

 

Have a great weekend.

[f355 10]

Its too bad we lost everyone on this thread. I was just looking through the 2009 P/L thread and we had Soultrader, Thalestrader, Brownsfan, Bathrobe, ....etc. Great discussions and charts from a diverse group of seasoned traders. It is so nice to just see how everyone did at the end of the trading day. It pushes you do do better, reminds you that everyone is having rough days, etc. Who else can share in the excitement or disappointment from a day of trading better than TL folks.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

I know I'm new here and also a newbie to trading but I would like to start posting here when I start on sim which I hope will be soon. (need to set up a feed and some kind of broker) This thread is a real inspiration to people like me who are just starting out. Thanks!

[Cory2679 11]

I forgot that Oanda pays interest on their accounts. I've made $0.0004 each day since I opened my account!

 

 

EDIT: From Oanda: Every second, OANDA uses competitive interest rates to calculate interest payments on account balances, and to calculate interest on currency pairs held in open positions. (Either a charge or a payment, depending on the interest rates of the currencies in the pair and whether the position is long or short.)

 

So, even on each trade, interest is paid/charged.

 

-Cory

Edited March 27, 2010 by Cory2679
Additional Information

[JEHs 10]

Its too bad we lost everyone on this thread. I was just looking through the 2009 P/L thread and we had Soultrader, Thalestrader, Brownsfan, Bathrobe, ....etc. Great discussions and charts from a diverse group of seasoned traders. It is so nice to just see how everyone did at the end of the trading day. It pushes you do do better, reminds you that everyone is having rough days, etc. Who else can share in the excitement or disappointment from a day of trading better than TL folks.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Maybe because of all of us "Sim" traders now. I think BFs intention was to show real traders real profits and now, we have a bunch of us "beginners" who are sim trading, thus not really giving an example of the profits, (or losses), that a real trader might be experiencing.

 

I think the intent was for us to look at these posts and ask questions or whatever, if need be, but not to really post until we are profitable. I had started posting at a time when I was trading real, but my last couple posts were sim, so I think I'll just back off until such a time, if it ever occurs, where I can actually show some real profit from real trades....

 

Those are my thoughts on this, FWIW...

 

Maybe a separate thread for sim traders, but what would be the interest in that? Probably very little.

[Gabe2004 10]

..... BFs intention was to show real traders real profits .......giving an example of the profits, (or losses), that a real trader might be experiencing.

 

And knowing that a REAL treader makes 20K a day or losing 5K a day is helping your trading in what way?

 

My experience is that you learn the most from the REAL traders who don't publish their P&L nor do they divulge their trading method explicitly.

There are exceptions ofcourse but those are extremely rare.

 

Gabe

[JEHs 10]

And knowing that a REAL treader makes 20K a day or losing 5K a day is helping your trading in what way?

 

My experience is that you learn the most from the REAL traders who don't publish their P&L nor do they divulge their trading method explicitly.

There are exceptions ofcourse but those are extremely rare.

 

Gabe

 

I didn't say it would help anyone. I just said that was the original intent of the thread. I think, anyway, I certainly could be wrong about that..

 

You could say the same about most posts anywhere on any forum. Are they really going to help? You have to sift through a lot of meaningless info to find the occasional nugget of insight, but even then, nobody in any post anywhere is going to give you the information needed to make you profitable.

 

I have been doing this a long time and one thing I have found out is, for the most part, you are on your own.

 

John

[daedalus 10]

I'll start posting my daily results back in here trading 1 lots as I nibble my way back into the markets doing a bit of a litmus test on my new methodology.

[Gabe2004 10]

I have been doing this a long time and one thing I have found out is, for the most part, you are on your own.

 

John

 

I agree with you 100%.

There are some people in these forums who genuinely try to help.

The problem is to find them; but once you do, they will accelerate your learning.

 

Gabe

[brownsfan019 17]

Guys, this thread is what YOU the poster or YOU the reader gets from it. So as far as I am concerned, you are all wrong as there is no absolutes to why people post here and/or read the posts here. The very first post of the thread explains what this thread is about.

 

I'm hoping to get back to posting more here in the future. I've been extremely busy, which Dinero can attest to.

 

So if you want to post in the thread, then post away. If you want to just lurk, lurk away. But exactly WHY you do what you do, is your business.

[Dinerotrader 10]

And knowing that a REAL treader makes 20K a day or losing 5K a day is helping your trading in what way?

 

My experience is that you learn the most from the REAL traders who don't publish their P&L nor do they divulge their trading method explicitly.

There are exceptions ofcourse but those are extremely rare.

 

Gabe

 

Well, I certainly learned a lot from those I mentioned. Seeing the variances of daily P/L helped give me more realistic expectations for my real trading. But hey, if you take a look at all the discussions on the 2009 thread and you find no value, this just isn't for you.

[Dinerotrader 10]

Maybe because of all of us "Sim" traders now. I think BFs intention was to show real traders real profits and now, we have a bunch of us "beginners" who are sim trading, thus not really giving an example of the profits, (or losses), that a real trader might be experiencing.

 

I'll hopefully be starting with real money on Monday. I'm biased but I think SIM results are great here as well.

For me, other's results lose the most value when they are infrequent. Taking a break like Brownsfan is fine but when you decide you want to post here, throw your results up everyday whether you have a loss or a profit.

 

I have a whole laundry list of ways that posting to this thread has helped me but in the end, like Brownsfan said, the point is to post to the thread to help your own trading.

[brownsfan019 17]

I'll hopefully be starting with real money on Monday. I'm biased but I think SIM results are great here as well.

For me, other's results lose the most value when they are infrequent. Taking a break like Brownsfan is fine but when you decide you want to post here, throw your results up everyday whether you have a loss or a profit.

 

I have a whole laundry list of ways that posting to this thread has helped me but in the end, like Brownsfan said, the point is to post to the thread to help your own trading.

 

There you go, DT got it.

[sappjason 10]

In light of the recent discussion (on this thread) about how it's gone down hill since last year, I hate saying what I'm about to say...... But, on Friday I actually interfered with my automated system and exited a trade manually.... I think (unfortunately) it had to do with my desire to post a profit on this darned thread (and on ET's P/L thread). So, in an effort to continue treating my trading as a viable business, I'm no longer going to be posting my daily P/L. I'm so sorry for bailing on you guys (especially you Dinero).

 

Jason

Edited March 29, 2010 by sappjason

[bathrobe 10]

I will start regular posting again but I do not really feel comfortable posting my account any longer (my brother has an acct. I trade for him with ~5k in it) I should have posted the mae and mfe in retrospect but the good that came from last years posts is I imagine is my posting made others realize it is possible.

 

 

 

Jason, as a side note, your auto system has inspired me to start working on other systems.

Edited March 29, 2010 by bathrobe

[sappjason 10]

Bathrobe,

Thanks. I'm glad that my system was able to inspire you in some way. That's way cool.....

 

 

Jason

 

 

I will start regular posting again but I do not really feel comfortable posting my account any longer, I should have posted the mae and mfe in retrospect but the good that came from last years posts is I imagine it made others realize it is possible.

 

Jason, as a side note, your auto system has inspired me to start working on other systems.

[Dinerotrader 10]

In light of the recent discussion (on this thread) about how it's gone down hill since last year, I hate saying what I'm about to say...... But, on Friday I actually interfered with my automated system and exited a trade manually.... I think (unfortunately) it had to do with my desire to post a profit on this darned thread (and on ET's P/L thread). So, in an effort to continue treating my trading as a viable business, I'm no longer going to be posting my daily P/L. I'm so sorry for bailing on you guys (especially you Dinero).

 

Jason

 

No problem Jason. You gotta do what helps you make money. It was good having you post here. Let that machine print the money day in day out! An automated system really highlights the reality that trading is all about playing your statistical advantage over and over again.

[Dinerotrader 10]

That ain't SIM!

Real Money

+$212

 

 

 

Cut the trading short because I wanted to start myself off with a profitable day on my first real money trading day of 2010. I tried trading a couple days in 2009 with real money just to get the feel and quickly went back to SIM to keep working on the methods.

I need to do some adjusting on my spreadsheet for presenting real money trades. I'll get to that today.

[sappjason 10]

Woo Hoo!!!! Congrats Dinero.

 

Jason

 

That ain't SIM!

Real Money

+$212

[daedalus 10]

Awesome job Dinero!!! Congrats on going live! Thats a huge step and a game changer for sure!

[momop 10]

Jason - You may remember me from another board..I recently came across this thread and started following religiously. Sorry to see you leave, but I understand. Your posts have been greatly motivating me to keep working on my trading system.

 

Dinero - Congrats on going live and all the best!

 

I have my sim trading mostly ready..Will start posting my results soon. I feel this thread is an awesome thread to see how seasoned traders do. Most importantly, watching their drawdowns and their losses and how they spring back with bigger gains is quite helpful.

[thalestrader 14]

That ain't SIM!

Real Money

+$212

 

Cut the trading short because I wanted to start myself off with a profitable day ...

 

Would you have been cutting your trading here if this were sim? Are you at least still sim trading for the balance of the day?

 

Bad habits, once started ...

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales