What is the Single Largest Roadblock Standing in the Way to Your Trading Success?

[TheDude 10]

For me there is anxiety in my trading.. likely due to small account.. I say "likely" because when I traded with more I still had the same feelings... Last 2 weeks have been the worst.. I pick trades VERY well and I mean very well.. Today I got NQ at 1851 and change.. Gap fill and ES at 1100 were the reasons.. at that point it was a VERY quick break-even trade with a first target of 1975 or so.. 60 seconds later, I am out at 57 and change.. I have a log requiring 30 minutes minimum hold but I ignore it as soon as the trade is on.

 

Fine to be scalper but I know my system generates a lot more than scalps.. YET EVERY time once I am in the trade I am someone else.. Someone that simply refuses to accept the possible loss required to make profits.. I am almost in more agony when in profit than loss... I seriously need help.. I have all the books, I should meditate.. etc.. My only solution may be to have someone else that is aware of my exit rules manage my trades.. Easily 200 to 300 NQ points squandered when there was no heat at all...

 

Seems so simple to simply force myself to hold for 30 mins no matter what (worst I lose 3pts).. do that for a week and slowly build up from there,, but one or two stop outs and I immediately revert to micromanaging and mentally thinking.. "see that's why this market must be watched all the time"

 

Have you tried walking out the room when you get the entry fill? When you get a fill, put your stop in the market and get out the office. Take a walk for 30mins. Force yourself to take that break. I'm sure if you do this, it may seem odd at first, perhaps a bit unnerving, but remind yourself that you're the one in control, not the market.

 

Just my

[Attila 10]

Have you tried walking out the room when you get the entry fill? When you get a fill, put your stop in the market and get out the office. Take a walk for 30mins. Force yourself to take that break. I'm sure if you do this, it may seem odd at first, perhaps a bit unnerving, but remind yourself that you're the one in control, not the market.

 

Just my

 

Have tried it a bit but I don't get far:) I think I will keep an errand list handy and take off.. I am sure the results will be significantly better.. Douglas has this 20 trade exercise in his Trading in The Zone book where you do this exact setup 20 times without fail as a way to break a habit like mine.. Plus one can never really know how good a system really is until it is used consistently.. Funny thing is my wife is the absolute opposite.. She'll hold a trade to eternity until wiped out and believes we have different views on the meaning of money. Higher volatility definitely doesn't help.

 

Will try the 20 trade run with a key rule of no manual exiting a trade first 30 mins and report back here..

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Attila -- I was actually going to suggest that from Mark Douglas -- while I realize it's not "real" money sometimes you have to trail the proper reflexes. Like an athlete, over and over you have to practice until it becomes reflex. See if you can force yourself to stock to the rules 20 - 25 times in a row perfectly -- regardless of winner or loser and until you do, refuse to allow yourself to trade real money.

 

While things will be different with real dough on the line, if you can't even demo it and stick to them no sense risking the real stuff.

 

Is there a way you could have some "exit" automation built for your platform? Meaning you put on the trade but then activate a plugin, ELD, EA, etc... that will handle the exit per your rules and literally you walk away.

 

I can tell you something I do that helps me psychologically, I force myself to turn off the monitor or I will literally look back at the screen a thousand times in 5 minutes even if I'm telling myself to let it go.

 

A few suggestions for you....

[MidKnight 12]

Hi Attila,

 

A highly personal and non-rhetorical question for you, but have you considered that the 30m hold approach you are trying to instill just does not suit your personality? It may be easier and less painful to trade in a manner that suits your personality - regardless if it is less profitable than another approach you would like to trade.

 

Some food for thought

 

With kind regards,

MK

Edited May 19, 2010 by MidKnight

[Head2k 10]

Attila,

do you put your stop at breakeven after some time / confirmation? If you don't, perhaps you should consider it. Then you wouldn't risk a loss any more (except for rare cases) and it is much easier to let the trade run then.

It is even easier to let the trade run if you have already some realized profit. Perhaps you could scale-out at a nearer target and let the rest run. Examine how much points / money you have troubles returning.

[Attila 10]

Attila -- I was actually going to suggest that from Mark Douglas -- while I realize it's not "real" money sometimes you have to trail the proper reflexes. Like an athlete, over and over you have to practice until it becomes reflex. See if you can force yourself to stock to the rules 20 - 25 times in a row perfectly -- regardless of winner or loser and until you do, refuse to allow yourself to trade real money.

 

While things will be different with real dough on the line, if you can't even demo it and stick to them no sense risking the real stuff.

 

Is there a way you could have some "exit" automation built for your platform? Meaning you put on the trade but then activate a plugin, ELD, EA, etc... that will handle the exit per your rules and literally you walk away.

 

I can tell you something I do that helps me psychologically, I force myself to turn off the monitor or I will literally look back at the screen a thousand times in 5 minutes even if I'm telling myself to let it go.

 

A few suggestions for you....

 

MMS..

 

Unfortunately I can barely stay awake if money is not risked.... Automating exits.. didn't think that could be automated as it would have to consider volatility as a fixed 10pt target in March is a 25pt target in NQ now..

 

I think until the trader changes he or she will override whatever the safeguard is, short of a remote, broker controls.. and if a trader needs that he/she should go do something else..

 

Good monitor trick.. good to hear I am not alone..

 

Thanks..

[Attila 10]

Hi Attila,

 

A highly personal and non-rhetorical question for you, but have you considered that the 30m hold approach you are trying to instill just does not suit your personality? It may be easier and less painful to trade in a manner that suits your personality - regardless if it is less profitable than another approach you would like to trade.

 

Some food for thought

 

With kind regards,

MK

 

Very good question as I did quite well as a swing trader and got into futures probably the wrong way, thinking daytrading is the only way to go... I will return to swing trading as soon as I can comfortably do so but I love a challenge..

[Attila 10]

Attila,

do you put your stop at breakeven after some time / confirmation? If you don't, perhaps you should consider it. Then you wouldn't risk a loss any more (except for rare cases) and it is much easier to let the trade run then.

It is even easier to let the trade run if you have already some realized profit. Perhaps you could scale-out at a nearer target and let the rest run. Examine how much points / money you have troubles returning.

 

My stop are trailing (B/E at 5pts) and automatic so completely out of my hands and therefore my risk is known.. My current risk level prevents me from going past 1 unit but I know scaling out some to satisfy my greed and keeping a runner is an excellent solution.

[AgeKay 10]

It's funny, though, I'm AWESOME exiting trades. I can nail the extreme of a movement when I'm in a winning trade. It's my entries that suck.

 

Same here. I thought about why that is and I came to the conclusion that it's probably because we are a lot more focused/concentrated when already in a trade because our money is on the line. Every little change counts. Entries are different because we are not in a position yet so we seem to have less focus.

[OsbourneCox 10]

For me, I just feel like when I'm in a winning trade, I'm able to be fully open to the information that the market is giving me. And I can just feel the price action and know when it's bottoming/topping.

 

When I'm looking to enter a trade, there's the urgency of doing something and the fear of missing a move. Also, since I don't trade a single instrument like the e-minis but instead trade individual stocks, my attention is fragmented. It also doesn't help that I trade over the shoulder of working at real job at home. (The ideal way to learn to day trade, though, so I have every incentive to make it work.)

 

I will tell you one thing that has helped my patience enormously in the past two weeks: I use TOS and discovered the ability to pull current prices into Excel via DDE. So I have a list of potential trades with stops and targets and I can watch as the risk goes up or down for a score of possible positions. I use conditional coloring to highlight the important info so I just need to glance at the spreadsheet to get an idea of the state of my trade ideas.

 

Personally, alerts never did it for me. Watchlists require you to go through each entry one by one and I find I rarely do that during the day. And I'm not keen on just setting a stop entry at a low risk entry point because I want to evaluate a possible trade one last time before pulling the trigger. If the price action starts to really go opposite of the direction you want it to go, it will nail your entry stop and go straight on through to your exit stop. That's just wasted money. It might work for some people but that's not my style.

 

So now I'm focused on entering trades with low risk and all sense of impatience and urgency is gone. Completely. I just calmly look at a list of trades and until I start seeing some green in the Risk column, I don't care. And my results these past two weeks have been stellar. No overtrading and the best gains in 2010. I can do my homework at night, come up with a list of potential trades, put them into my spreadsheet and be ready the next day.

 

It's funny how such a small change can make a huge difference.

[SIUYA 11]

Osbourne - check out JonBigs04 thread - similar conclusion.

 

So often traders can look at entries in a one dimension way. Entries need to be chopped up in a few different manners and once this is done then sometimes they become less an issue. Until then, the entry holy grail will be searched for.

As a start (by all means not comprehensive or complete)

entries need to be defined by

1) individual pattern setup

2) market context for the pattern

3) market sentiment for the instrument and the pattern

4) reference to trade management and risk reward

5) final entry trigger

6) initial response - ie; should I expect this to suddenly accelerate with momentum or not

7) .....

[OsbourneCox 10]

As a start (by all means not comprehensive or complete) entries need to be defined by

1) individual pattern setup

2) market context for the pattern

3) market sentiment for the instrument and the pattern

4) reference to trade management and risk reward

5) final entry trigger

6) initial response - ie; should I expect this to suddenly accelerate with momentum or not

7) .....

 

I like that list, especially 2 and 3. When I started out, I would often just focus on the individual stock. It took me a while to understand that a great short setup when the market is strongly bullish is worthless.

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Definitely agree with the above. Context means so much.

 

Many times someone asks me "what do you think of......(fill in the blank on your favorite market....."

 

Then I immediately ask them -- day trade? Swing Trade? 2 point target? 10 point target trade?

 

Those answers completely change what I think of that market. What's happening on a big timeframe certainly does influence the smaller ones but not in total -- just because a daily chart is bullish doesn't mean I won't short on a quick daytrade and vice versa.

 

Understanding the context and objective of your trade is a key point as stated nicely in the posts above.

[AmCan1 10]

I agree with MadMarketScientist about the 65% win rate, give or take. That seems to be the sweetspot and a realistic expectation. One of my biggest hurdles is wanting to trade too many opportunities. It has taken some time to learn this but it is better to trade one or two markets perfectly (or well, since perfect is pretty intangible) than it is to trade 3, 4 or 5 markets with mistakes. Finding the balance of markets and timeframes to trade, where you can trade your method accurately with consistency, and gain a level of diversification can be tricky.

 

I find that a faster moving market (I too grow impatient) combined with a slower market and timeframe for daytrading, and then combined with some swing trading, is a good combination. But I still have a hard time when I see the opportunities on other markets and timeframes. I just want to trade them all. So then, staying disciplined becomes an issue that must be controlled too. lol..

[gandalf33 10]

What I'm experiencing in the past days, is that a day-trading system has going to generate an overwhelming amount of losses if the trading is done 100% according the plan, when the system is purely mechanical. Although profitable at the end of the month, these profits are gained by oscillating around the profit with many, many trades.

 

It seems to me, like the signal from indicators should also be accompanied by a non-programmable setup (take these words as an illustration, I don't trade automatic systems). Perhaps the signal should also have a double top/bottom, maybe a breakout, or a divergence between the price and one of the indicators, or something else present AT THE TIME when the clear signal from the indicators is visible?

 

The result of such a system, trading setups not just mere signals, might be the desired 65% win ratio, and a psychologically much better win-loss distribution than a pure mechanical system.

 

This might be the hardest roadblock for me. Can anybody confirm this experience please?

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Gandalf you bring up some good points.

 

One thing I like to do is have a very rules based approach to trading. If I don't then I can literally get paralyzed with indecision and then of course blame and self doubt when the trades don't work out. I do better following a set of rules that I trust, and then try to just let the trade do what it has to do.

 

At the same time, I'm not a believer in total 100% mechanical. I like to think about 10% of it has to be some subjectivity or art of trading. Art sounds nicer so let's call it that. To me that includes sometimes overriding rules -- there are days where the trading is amazing and everything is moving great where I might continue trading when normally my rules would have me quit. Or, I get to 90% of target in a massive struggle and I more aggressively exit or move my stop due to the context of the market that day. Or my mechanical entry seems to be right on a round number or just below a failure point from an hour earlier - I might choose to make adjustments around those.

 

To me you can add 10% onto your win/loss by learning and implementing some of this art on top of the usual mechanical rules and ideally it helps smooth out some of the rollercoaster you mention. Of course not all since anytime I'm trading actively I'm coming into and out of various states of drawdown. Hard to accept but reality. I always remind myself that every single trade I ever put on is always down at some point anyway - just the nature of trading. Not many enter and never hit the "red" for at least a bit.

[Justaguy 10]

Personally, I don't know where the 65% win rate was pulled from. Win rate by itself is meaningless and really oversimplifies the branches that make up a winning tree. So much more goes into "knowing" how your system will perform over time.

 

To the question.....

 

I do well already but could do much better. How? Bigger returns. Now, surely many people would love that. The problem may lie in how we all approach return. Some may say that 15% per year is a great return. Those would be the people who have their money managed by some financial advisor looking for a bonus or simply the mgmt fee.

What keeps people from going after the bigger returns is the drawdowns you must face. Risking 35 pips and going for 1-2-300 pips is a great return for money invested in that trade. What comes with that is up 200 and retrace for 100. Some, I hazard that most, traders do not have the stomach to handle that.

 

Which brings me to my final verdict......my roadblock is the greed/fear factor. Sometimes, I have no problem letting it run...my largest trade was 1021 pip trade in the GJ (risk was 50 on liftoff). I didn't cut that off. Others, I will be up 100 or so, see a discretionary pattern...and shut it down. I sometimes take the same trade in a demo account and simply let it play out. That just feeds my "let it run" mantra even more. I will get there. I have to put the drawdown in the trade into perspective and learn to tolerate it knowing that greater rewards lay over it.

 

BTW..I am new here. Great forum. Pro questions.

[gandalf33 10]

Justaguy, for traders on the crowded side of the barricade, psychology plays a role more important than the system, where 65% win ratio could make a world of difference to trading results, as compared to, let's say, 35% win ratio. Why? A long story. I myself am playing with the great DD technique in my options trading, where an approach accompanying impressive drawdowns also brings by far the most money in, over the long haul..

 

MadMarketScientist, you nailed it absolutely exactly. Before I wrote that post of mine, I even used the same words for myself (reading about discretionary elements in mechanical trading led me to think "Aha! So this is where trading becomes an art..."). Thanks for the insights, from your post, it seems to me, that the artistic part of 'overriding the rules' as you describe it, stems only from sheer experience / screen time... which is the bad news Nevertheless I believe it's worth pursuing.

 

If there's any kind of what you think is an effective resource on the topic which you can point me to, can you please PM me about it - or perhaps post it here, hoping that it won't be off-topic that much.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Justaguy 10]

gandalf33, don't get me wrong about win rate. In the context of pure "roadblock" and psychology, I agree that traders that see a higher win rate will have a little more "ease" than those seeing some large in trade drawdowns. My point however maybe wasn't as clear on the forum as it was in my head. Even with a 65% win rate, trades can still be slowly bleeding their account. I submit that a trader who is in the 65% range and keeps the focus on rate but over time is seeing an overall account drawdown will drive him/herself nuts trying to figure out the problem. Like I said, win rate as a standalone factor is meaningless. Van Tharp has excellent writings on this topic. In the end though, psychology by itself doesn't pay the bills.

 

I think it is great that you understand that taking part in the drawdowns can bring in results far superior to in/out. A lot of traders I am sure want the large gains but get "psyched out" when the retrace starts and that paper total is slipping away. It's like that saying where the greatest rewards lay with those that go places nobody else wants to.

[SIUYA 11]

Basically - its called letting the winners run.

or

having a trade setup that ensures the take profit levels are are greater than the stop loss levels, if you can get that AND get a good win loss ratio then magic.

[TheDude 10]

Not many enter and never hit the "red" for at least a bit.

 

Hi MMS,

 

This is an interesting point in this last sentence. Do you (or any other day traders) have any stats on the number of trades that never, ever, never, ever see red?

 

This was my first profitable electronic method years back when I traded EuroFX. Sick to the stomach with losing, I realised if I just whacked the stop in at entry after each trade, I'd scratch on 90%, take a small loss on those that just reverse, but 5% would win. Half of these wins were small but would cover trading costs, the other half would be my pay. These were the trades that shoot off and never look back - I'd just stay in managing on bigger time frames as it progressed. I'd like trade for a week sometimes before seeing any pay. Those were the days, but I learnt a lot!!!

 

Eventually it became less fruitful as everyone started trading the contract. That meant more rotations and only 2% making anything at all. All good things come to an end.

 

Less liquidity can be a good thing for a junior. I'd trade corn or something if I was starting out now, not ES etc where they all get killed.

[Attila 10]

NOT LETTING WINNERS RUN... On a seeming daily basis, I am in a trade in the right direction and immediately I am planning the exit rather that getting to B/E, THEN thinking exit. Since most of my trades achieve 50% or more of current volatility I simply don't get it any more.. A child would manage trades better than I.

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Gandalf,

 

Was trying to think about your question below -- as to where to go to learn more about the "Art of Trading" -- I would definitely agree that a huge portion of it is screen time and experience. I really do feel that 10% of what I do daily is not mechanical, but I have in my mind I think made it fairly rules based over the years of experience. I really feel that it is the difference maker for me between losing/scratching and being profitable. To this day I still have yet to meet a consistently profitable trader who is 100% mechanical. I keep waiting but have yet to meet one.

 

I can tell you a few bits of advice that could help. The first is to never back-test automatically. Back testing with a computer doing the work is a waste of time if you want to learn trading. Yes, it can give you a push button verdict of the potential for success/failure but more than likely you optimized the inputs anyway and that gets you nowhere. I can't tell you how often I would do just a little optimization, the results would look amazing in May, then come June it would be horrendous.

 

You should do all the backtesting manually - trade by trade. One by one. Painful? Sometimes but it's amazing how much you learn - even better if you force yourself to click bar by bar and make the decisions like it was real-time.

 

For me this was a breakthrough doing this.

 

Next, the main things I do manually are this. I adjust entries around key numbers, usuall the round number or the levels that tend to find some support/resistance as long as those are not big adjustments. For example, if I have an entry on the Russell e-mini at 599.90 I'm going to adjust it to 600.10 or 600.20. Or 585.40 I'll push the buy to 585.60. Next, I'll look at the chart, and clear cut recent swing high or low that is within a few ticks of my entry, that is close I will make sure I hurdle that BEFORE entering.

 

The same at times goes for my stops and my targets -- I do respect the chart. I try to not over-adjust, and won't obsess over every swing or every key level but almost on every trade I am making at least one adjustment to the entry or the stop as a result of these levels.

 

From there it is learning time of day -- there are good times and really crappy times to trade all markets. I try to focus on what has been the most active and reliable and leave the rest of the day to everyone else.

 

Well, getting a little long-winded here but hopefully that helps a bit.

 

 

 

Justaguy, for traders on the crowded side of the barricade, psychology plays a role more important than the system, where 65% win ratio could make a world of difference to trading results, as compared to, let's say, 35% win ratio. Why? A long story. I myself am playing with the great DD technique in my options trading, where an approach accompanying impressive drawdowns also brings by far the most money in, over the long haul..

 

MadMarketScientist, you nailed it absolutely exactly. Before I wrote that post of mine, I even used the same words for myself (reading about discretionary elements in mechanical trading led me to think "Aha! So this is where trading becomes an art..."). Thanks for the insights, from your post, it seems to me, that the artistic part of 'overriding the rules' as you describe it, stems only from sheer experience / screen time... which is the bad news Nevertheless I believe it's worth pursuing.

 

If there's any kind of what you think is an effective resource on the topic which you can point me to, can you please PM me about it - or perhaps post it here, hoping that it won't be off-topic that much.

 

Thanks in advance.

[MidKnight 12]

Personally, I don't know where the 65% win rate was pulled from. Win rate by itself is meaningless and really oversimplifies the branches that make up a winning tree. So much more goes into "knowing" how your system will perform over time.

 

To the question.....

 

I do well already but could do much better. How? Bigger returns. Now, surely many people would love that. The problem may lie in how we all approach return. Some may say that 15% per year is a great return. Those would be the people who have their money managed by some financial advisor looking for a bonus or simply the mgmt fee.

What keeps people from going after the bigger returns is the drawdowns you must face. Risking 35 pips and going for 1-2-300 pips is a great return for money invested in that trade. What comes with that is up 200 and retrace for 100. Some, I hazard that most, traders do not have the stomach to handle that.

 

Which brings me to my final verdict......my roadblock is the greed/fear factor. Sometimes, I have no problem letting it run...my largest trade was 1021 pip trade in the GJ (risk was 50 on liftoff). I didn't cut that off. Others, I will be up 100 or so, see a discretionary pattern...and shut it down. I sometimes take the same trade in a demo account and simply let it play out. That just feeds my "let it run" mantra even more. I will get there. I have to put the drawdown in the trade into perspective and learn to tolerate it knowing that greater rewards lay over it.

 

BTW..I am new here. Great forum. Pro questions.

 

Good post and I agree totally. I also have this as a problem. Especially strong when the trade takes off immediately putting me up 40-50 pips with no heat and now comes back to test my entry area. I virtually always take the BE result and swear a little as I continue to track how the trade would have done had I just left the stop at a structural location. Then I swear some more as the structure prevails

 

Just like you, I will get there.

 

With kind regards,

MK

[gandalf33 10]

MadMarketScientist,

 

a very valuable post, valuable information. Thanks for that.

 

You mention that 10% of your trading is not mechanical, and that you're yet to meet a consistently profitable mechanical trader. Seems that the 10% makes all the difference then! Perhaps another reason for me to imply the artistic approach to trading - we will see over time, as I have traded more.

 

My comments to your advices:

- backtesting; couldn't agree with you more. While testing a simple idea that can be programmed to see whether it has perspective or not is where automatic testing can have a certain value I think (although I have never done that), I absolutely agree that manual backtesting is a must. I have done many thousands of trades of many systems on historical data, thousands using the 'unleashing the historical chart bar after bar' method, where the 'historical future' is not seen, and thousands where I see the whole chart and just look for entries. Manual backtesting and 1000s of trades develop a feel for what the market can do; which is something you reap the fruit from later on, during live trading. I've actually backtested so much that I've developed a certain manual backtesting system that mentally prepares the trader's psyche for success, a method I've never seen anywhere before. Too long to describe but I can PM it to you if you'd be interested, although obviously you don't need it anymore.

 

- adjusting entries around round numbers; I think I will put a note how my trades would have went if I was adjusting them using this rule, and then observe the long-term effect. I noticed that the market often bounces off exactly from round numbers on YM which I'm trading, and felt like I can put something discretional in place around those round numbers, but I didn't yet know what. Not sure how you do it, but you've nailed it again...

 

- clear-cutting recent swings; I sincerely have no idea what this means. Can you shortly elaborate please..

 

Thanks again for the concrete & sound advices, and regards.