Optiontimer's Project

[optiontimer 10]

The following trades were signalled for tomorrow's session:

 

...August LIVE CATTLE (LE), long entry signalled @ 111.875, stop @ 108.675, risk $1282 (taken)

 

Alain

 

Long? Is that a typo? August? Live Cattle? Could you post your chart, because I am not seeing what you are seeing?

 

Thank You,

 

-OT

[optiontimer 10]

Yesterday I tried an equity trade using the same ideas we are working on here, So, I shorted AMCC ( Applied Micro Circuits Corp ) after checking its compeditors and earnings history...

 

Continues in your favor today, I see ...

 

Good Luck!

 

-OT

[optiontimer 10]

Both Crude and Coffee did not trigger short entries. In fact, each rallied to new recovery highs. These show why we do not enter simply because and over bought or oversold condition exists. Price action, not the indicators, will pull us into a trade.

 

I dropped the ball following up on Coffee, partly due to the timng during what for me was a holiday week, coupled with nearly two weeks wandering in the technological wasteland that my former computer had become.

 

Coffee set up a sell signal noted above, which was not triggered, as it rallied to a new high. However, that new high was followed immediatley by a new sell signal. Coffee would now be short two units - first unit from approximatley 263-265, and the second unit from 240-242, though, strictly speaking, price failed to retrace back to the 21 ema.

 

Coffee is a tough one to trade responsibly with a small account. Every penny is $375, and its 10 day ATR is a hair above 6 pennies. The narrowing range the last few days implies a big move soon. Based on our system, that move should be to the downside. But, nothing is certain, and an upside reversal cannot be ruled out. That is why we trade this system with a stop loss.

 

Here is the back adjusted coffee chart:

 

 

-optiontimer

[optiontimer 10]

Wheat is a short for tomorrow ...

 

 

-optiontimer

[un$ane 10]

I'm following along as best I can this week - will post when I have something to contribute. Enjoying the input from others ... thank you all.

 

Next week should be better. Keep up the good work

 

Ingot

 

Ingot54 is that your real photo/avatar? Prove it by posting more pics of that Beard!

[russellhq 10]

Barchart.com appears off the mark with Wheat but Oats is showing a signal today. Although with Oat's High high of yesterday, our stop would put the risk up in the $2000 territory.

[Avarice 10]

Long? Is that a typo? August? Live Cattle? Could you post your chart, because I am not seeing what you are seeing?

 

Thank You,

 

-OT

 

Sure here goes, remember I use MOM8 instead of stochRSI.

 

A

[Ingot54 13]

Wheat is a short for tomorrow ...

 

 

-optiontimer

Thanks for the heads-up Optiontimer. I can see that you can take trades that are not on the underside of the 21EMA - just so long as the trend is determined, and the pull-back is clear. And the 7sRSI is also clearly signalling the short entry. I was only looking for trades earlier that are actually now UNDER both EMA's for shorts, but now see the beauty of this strategy. It is not an "exact" science as much as it is an alignment of required factors, plus application of experience and common sense.

 

I would like to post one of my "lucky" trades taken a week ago, and closed 2 days ago prematurely. The chart explains it mostly.

 

I would like to point out the " W " pattern on the 7sRSI that developed after entry. many times when I take a short entry, the 7sRSI will be dropping, but after an hour or two, price will rally again, and the indicator will rise back up to be flat again. That's what happened in this case. But I stayed in, preferring to manage the draw-down and keep a SL tight.

 

After a few days, you can see where the indicator developed the " W " shape, and this was beginning to bother me. When price spiked down on 27th July, I thought it had run too far - too quickly, and I closed the trade as price was rallying and clawing back pips!

 

Again, that was too early, as I ended with +93 pips, when another 200+ might have been available in that trade. I have beeen successful using the premature entry (taking the first movement of the 7sRSI instead of waiting for the indicator to CLOSE in that position. But this has not only caused anxiety, it has also caused me to feel like exiting at the first opportunity too.

 

I guess all trades are different, and had the EURAUD "behaved" differently at the time of that spike down, I might have remained with the trade. This is also another good reason to wait until the candle (bar) closes before making such decisions.

 

Thanks for indulging me this example.

 

Can anyone else see what happened here, and make a comment? I am thinking the better entry would have been to wait until things were clear, and take the entry at the break of the low of the previous day, on 26th July, short at 1.3245.

 

Best wishes

 

Ingot

[optiontimer 10]

Sure here goes, remember I use MOM8 instead of stochRSI.

 

A

 

What MA's are you using?

 

I have two different data sources, and neither show what you are showing using the 21 ema and 65 ema.

 

-OT

[NeoTrader 10]

I thought I would post another chart that makes me upset I didn't come across this method at the beginning of the year. :crap: Take a look at USD/CHF since February. Picture perfect decline with tons of places to pyramid your position.

 

I'm sure OT caught this and is still riding it down...

[russellhq 10]

The 10 year not long has been stuck in the mud, and the EURUSD is now short as price broke the 7/27 1.4339 low. There have been a number of nice forex entries this week.

 

-OT

 

Looks like the 10 Year note is starting to move! Getting close to the 1 year high back on July 12th.

[PWP 10]

Here's an update on my trades:

 

Eur/Gbp Long - I closed out for +8 pips due to better opportunity in the below trades

Eur/Chf Short from 1.1670 Stop still at 1.1920

Gbp/Chf Short from 1.3260 Stop still at 1.3450

 

I only have enough equity for a few trades at a time but that is rapidly growing. Therefore when I looked at the angle of the ema's on the Chf pairs vs the Eur/Gbp chart I felt that they had more potential for a trend continuation. Eur/Gbp seemed flat or range bound.

 

I have never had +300 pip gains on any trade in my career - that being said I haven't closed these trades yet. Thanks OT!

 

Oh - I also took a Eur/Cad short and was stopped out for -140 pips - full disclosure...

 

Ingot - One of my favorite aspects of this trade plan is there is no emotion - I have one time a day when I make my trade decisions. That's it. If I think of making a trade at other times during the day it is usually some momentum play that I would typically loose on anyway. Therefore - One time per day for me. I'll look at my trades out of curiosity but won't let myself react. For instance: Both of the above trades today were up 340+ pips early morning then swiftly they rebounded - my thoughts were to close them out before i loose all that was gained - however If I would have done that it would have been at the precise time they again continued their downward trend. Murphy's law effects my trades greatly.

 

Take Care all - Great trading! Thanks OT

[optiontimer 10]

...I have never had +300 pip gains on any trade in my career - that being said I haven't closed these trades yet. Thanks OT!

 

Oh - I also took a Eur/Cad short and was stopped out for -140 pips - full disclosure...

 

Nice trading, PWP.

 

The EURJPY short has cooperated, while the EURCAD was as whipsaw as it gets. As I said from the beginning, losses will happen. All we can do is control their size, barring unusual slippage and gaps.

 

One of my favorite aspects of this trade plan is there is no emotion - I have one time a day when I make my trade decisions. That's it. If I think of making a trade at other times during the day it is usually some momentum play that I would typically loose on anyway. Therefore - One time per day for me.

 

Take Care all - Great trading! Thanks OT

 

That is key - sitting on your hands and letting price follow the path of least resistance. I have a friend I taught this to a while back. He and I were talking tonight, and he said that he has could have all the profits he cut short by caving in to his curiosity, that they would likely be greater than his total actual stop outs. I know I still fight myself at times to stay the course. Sometimes nice profits evaporate, but that is the risk you need to take to get those Kroll-like returns. However, and though I do not want unduly to influence anyone here with respect to the stop loss ... but I will remind you all that even Kroll advised against allowing a substantial profit to turn into a loss. Allow the trade to breathe, but do not allow it so much wild life that it comes back to slit your throat.

 

Thank you for updating us on your progress. I find reading these posts and PMs telling of success and progress very gratifying indeed. So thank you, PWP.

 

-optiontimer

[optiontimer 10]

Looks like the 10 Year note is starting to move! Getting close to the 1 year high back on July 12th.

 

Yes, it finally came unstuck today, and sitting on an open profit of about $1400. It could be gone before the pit opens on MOnday, but without patience to endure its waffling about, I wouldn't have had the chance to be along for the ride.

 

 

Wheat triggered short today, but I did not take it in this account.

 

I'll check the charts and post potential trades, if any, over the weekend.

 

-optiontimer

[SIUYA 11]

When price spiked down on 27th July, I thought it had run too far - too quickly, and I closed the trade as price was rallying and clawing back pips!

 

Again, that was too early, as I ended with +93 pips, when another 200+ might have been available in that trade. I have beeen successful using the premature entry (taking the first movement of the 7sRSI instead of waiting for the indicator to CLOSE in that position. But this has not only caused anxiety, it has also caused me to feel like exiting at the first opportunity too.

 

Can anyone else see what happened here, and make a comment? I am thinking the better entry would have been to wait until things were clear, and take the entry at the break of the low of the previous day, on 26th July, short at 1.3245.

 

comment as requested ----

you only did one thing wrong, and you know what it is and you know why you did it. Yet you are questioning the wrong part of the process.

 

You went early (nothing wrong in that, at least you are guaranteed to not miss a trade),

This anxiety of hanging on while it chops is normal and natural - so nothing wrong with that again

You took the trade off as a result of this natural anxiety - understandably so.....BUT here is where you went wrong IMHO.

 

"When price spiked down on 27th July, I thought it had run too far - too quickly"

 

So the price is moving in your direction, you were right, you wanted to get on the trend and let it run, you had done the hard yards, all you had to do was not think and sit on your hands.....:crap:

 

I use them and I hate that I do, but the words and thoughts ---, too quickly, overbought, oversold, over done, its due for a reversal are largely meaningless.....

 

Point is - dont focus on making a better entry, as while yes it might have been better to have waited and had a better timed entry....you only know this through hindsight, the issue here and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed....its like locking the barn door after the horse has bolted and feeling better about it.

[optiontimer 10]

...BUT here is where you went wrong IMHO.

 

"When price spiked down on 27th July, I thought it had run too far - too quickly"

 

So the price is moving in your direction, you were right, you wanted to get on the trend and let it run, you had done the hard yards, all you had to do was not think and sit on your hands.....:crap:

 

I use them and I hate that I do, but the words and thoughts ---, too quickly, overbought, oversold, over done, its due for a reversal are largely meaningless.....

 

Point is - dont focus on making a better entry, as while yes it might have been better to have waited and had a better timed entry....you only know this through hindsight, the issue here and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed....its like locking the barn door after the horse has bolted and feeling better about it.

 

Someone earlier in the thread asked why this thread was in the Psycholgy section, and not in the technical analysis section. SIUYA has shown beautifully why I chose this section of the traderslaboratory forums.

 

Ingot exits early. I would bet this is not a new problem for him. He needs to work on this. I know from my own experience that this is a very common problem. It is called "cutting your profits short," and it will cause failure if not put in check.

 

PWP tells us that he likes this system because it takes the emotion out of trading since he only needs to look at his charts and make his decisions once each day. I would argue that this system helps you to control your emotions with respect to trading. It does not eliminate them. PWP is doing what Ingot has to do: Control your anxiety by trusting in the system and disciplioning yourself to make your decisions once each day based upon the systemand then letting the market do its thing.

 

I had a PM thursday from a reader who asked me about a "time stop" on my 10 Yr Note trade, since it wasn't going anywhere. That would be me decising, rather than the market.

 

The title I gave to this thread is Optiontimer’s Project: Using Trend, Momentum, & Timing with Strategy, Patience, & Discipline to Trade Well

 

Coming up with a technical system, whether indicator based on price action based, is the easy part. The hard part is self control and self-discipline. Most never accept this, however, and instead blame the system, the indicator, the market, the FED, the politicians, the economy, etc & so on.

 

Thank you SIUYA for yet another invaluable contribution to the welfare of our project.

 

-optiontimer

 

"...the issue here, and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed..." - SIUYA

[optiontimer 10]

Yesterday I tried an equity trade using the same ideas we are working on here, So, I shorted AMCC ( Applied Micro Circuits Corp ) ...I shorted 500 shares at 8.37 ... I decided to choose a 9.00 stop ... So, risk is 9 - 8.37 or 0.63 x 500 shares or 315 plus transaction costs of 10.00 round turn. All told its 325.00 at risk. Now for the good news, it fell this morning and I'm up marginally.

 

Well, mrcsidney, if you managed to sit on your hands and stay in it, you are up better than marginally, given the 18% drop in this stock's share price on Friday!

 

Nice trade, especially if you were still short into that gap down. (I inadvertently put a 20 ema on instead of a 21 ema on this chart, though I doubt it would make any difference over time).

 

 

-optiontimer

"...the issue here, and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed..." - SIUYA

[optiontimer 10]

... many times when I take a short entry, the 7sRSI will be dropping, but after an hour or two, price will rally again, and the indicator will rise back up to be flat again. That's what happened in this case.

 

"After an hour or two?" After an hour or two? Cheese & crackers, Ingot! An hour or two?

 

My friend, please follow PWP's example. Set your orders and go to your day job. Trust me, you are not going to outsmart the market. I've tried myself and she dealt me nothing but endless heartache and heartbreak. I have been much happier since I accepted the fact that she, like my wife, is always right. Always. And if you do not believe me, just ask your wife.

 

Ingot, please do yourself a favor ... better yet, do me a favor:

 

1) Take the little quote from SIUYA that I have used as a sort of signature quote today, and write it on two post-it notes" "...the issue here, and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed..." - SIUYA

 

2) Stick one of those post-it notes to your trading terminal, to remind you that prematurely ejecting yourself from a trade can be as ruinous to your success as over trading or over leveraging yourself.

 

3) Stick the other to your forehead, so that everyone you meet will ask you about it, and you will therefore drill this lesson into your very being due to the sheer repetition of having to explain to everyone you meet why you are walking around with a post-it stuck to your forehead.

 

I know. It sounds extreme. But this is important. I have no problem with a breakeven stop on a 200-300 pip open profit. But what you are doing is going to prevent you from achieving what I think you'd like to achieve.

 

So remember: two post-it notes, one for your computer, one for your noggin. If you disagree, explain this to your wife. She'll agree with me, I'm sure. And we'd all appreciate it if you'd post us a picture of yourself modeling your new head gear;)

 

You can do this, Ingot. But, as a friend of mine likes to say, "You must first humble yourself to the market." This means that you can only decide what it is you want to get out of the market. Butshe gets to decide when you'll get it.

 

Use the system, set your stop loss, and give it 24 hours, not an hour or two. Then, adjust your stop loss if necessary, and wait another 24 hours. Let her decide on a trade by trade basis what she is willing to give you. Because just when you second guess her and get ou early, that will be the moment before she decides to give you a windfall like she gave to mrcsidney.

 

Stick with us, Ingot, and we'll stick with you!

 

-optiontimer

[optiontimer 10]

1) I can see that you can take trades that are not on the underside of the 21EMA - just so long as the trend is determined, and the pull-back is clear. And the 7sRSI is also clearly signalling the short entry. I was only looking for trades earlier that are actually now UNDER both EMA's for shorts...

 

2) I would like to point out the " W " pattern on the 7sRSI that developed after entry...you can see where the indicator developed the " W " shape, and this was beginning to bother me.

 

This was a very instructive post Ingot. Anyone follwoing along would do well to post as Ingot has done, because it might be the only way you will catch yourself misapplying some apsoect of the system we are using.

 

1) Read page one, post #8 of this thread where I lay out the system. I never place any restriction upon price in realtion to the EMA's. The EMA's determine our trade direction based upon their relationshipto one another. There will be times where a short entry is signalled with price above the 65 ema becasue the 21 ema is below the 65 ema, and vice versa for longs.

 

2) Again, read page one post #8. Use the indicators as they are intended. I make no mention of "W" patterns, or any other pattern.

 

Here is our system. I would think it should need very little tweaking. I have tried to make it easy and clear to follow. Please, if you have questions, and if anything seems unclear to you, let me know here. As I said in the previous poll threads, I have two goals with this project - 1) Not to lose too much, and 2) to keep it simple, very, very simple.

 

When the 21 EMA is above the 65 EMA, we do not want to be short, and we may be looking for a long entry signal. Only oversold readings of the stochRSI are relevant, and they are relevant if and only if price has retraced back to a level between the EMA's or even slightly below. A long entry is signaled when stochRSI has turned up on a closing basis, and entry is made the next day if price makes a higher high than the prior day.

 

When the 21 EMA is below the 65 EMA, we do not want to be long, and we may be looking for a short entry. Only overbought readings of the stochRSI are relevant, and they are relevant if and only if price has retraced back to a level between the EMA's or even slightly above. A short entry is signaled when stochRSI has turned down on a closing basis, and entry is made the next day if price makes a lower low than the prior day.

 

Those few lines are all you need to understand and apply. You should write them out by hand, and you should read them daily. Several times each day. You think too much. You see so much that is not there.

 

And, when you "see" something that bothers you, such as various manifestations of the alphabet, say to yourself, "Hmmm, I wonder what OT has to say about this indicator pattern?" Then you will read your own hand written copy of the system, and you'll say to yourself, "OT doesn't mention "W" patterns. Therefore, it is not a part of this system. Therefore it is meaningless and nothing upon which to base a decision."

 

Great post, Ingot. Please keep them coming. It will help you and I keep you to the straight and narrow.

 

-OT

[optiontimer 10]

Hi Optiontimer

 

After a mixed week, I am coming around to the discipline of following the strategy more closely. I was fortunate to be watching in time to close my EURAUD position before it ran to loss (after the EURO news on Greece).There is more to be gained through simply following a simple strategy, than breaking ranks and second-guessing entries.

 

You win some and you lose some, but at the end of the day, why change a strategy that works...

 

Hi Ingot,

 

Between traveling, for both business and pleasure, and my technical issues, I have not paid as much attention to my own trading during July as I would have liked, and the same applies to this thread as well. So I am spending some time going back to see what I missed. I found this surprising post from you, Ingot.

 

You say here that you were fortunate to be watching in time to close your EURAUD (presumably short) position before it ran to a loss.

 

Well, I looked at both CSIData and Interactivebrokers, and in each case, a properly placed stop loss would not have been triggered. Perhaps, if you are with a real scoundrel of a bucket shop, your stop loss would have been tripped, but if that is the case, you need either to adjust for your bucket shop's spreads, or go with a Interactivebrokers.

 

Now, there was nothing "fortunate" about your watching. Your problem is not with entres, Ingot. Your problem is with exits. You are cutting out entirely too soon. You are afraid of any and all losses. You want only to win.

 

It cannot be done, my friend. You must discipline yourself to stay away from the "submit order" button but for once each day. You must trade at a size where one loss will matter not at all, and where a series of fourteen or fifteen losses in a row will leave with still sufficient margin to stay in the game and recover.

 

Yes, a string of losses can and will take its toll, pschologically and emotionally. But as long as its financial toll is minimized, you will eventually be able to see yourself clear to trade out of the drawdown by maintainiing your discipline.

 

But that string of losses will be far less harmful to your long-term success than a never ending string of stunted profits.

 

Here are three different charts for the EURUSD - OANDA demo account, CSIData, and Interactivebrokers. None of them show that an EURAUD short initiated when you did so would have been stopped out on 7/22 with a properly placed stop loss.

 

 

 

 

Even if you would have been stopped for a loss, there was nothing "fortunate" in your early exit, because it will have done nothing but reinforce your bad habit of watching intraday action to decide on early exits. You are doing nothing more than mixing time frames. We are trading from daily charts. Base your decisions on a day's worth of price action, not a snippet from within it.

 

Lots for you to think about this weekend, Ingot!

 

Best to your trading,

 

-OT

[mrcsidney 10]

Ingot, if it is any consolation on Friday I bought to close 300 of the 500 short shares of AMCC at $6.08. Like you I reasoned that it had run too far too fast and I didn't want to exit the whole of my position. We will see how this works out but I think that taking the profit was the wise course so I did. Events may prove me wrong.

I am still in the EUR/CHF trade. That trade is by far the best Fx trade I have ever been in. It just seems to go and go. The last book I've studied ( read it twice ) is Covel's Trend Following. WOW are all those guys right! It is the best way to go and I find it easy to select trades now as I have rules to satisfy. Now I need to decide on the exit strategy to complete my package.

mrcsidney

[Ingot54 13]

comment as requested ----

You only did one thing wrong, and you know what it is and you know why you did it. Yet you are questioning the wrong part of the process.

 

You took the trade off as a result of this natural anxiety - understandably so.....BUT here is where you went wrong IMHO.

 

"When price spiked down on 27th July, I thought it had run too far - too quickly"

 

So the price is moving in your direction, you were right, you wanted to get on the trend and let it run, you had done the hard yards, all you had to do was not think and sit on your hands.....:crap:

 

... you only know this through hindsight, the issue here and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed....its like locking the barn door after the horse has bolted and feeling better about it.

Thank you for that very constructive feedback Siuya. I take it all on board - including the bit about early exit. Had I simply been watching the trade at EOD, I may not have closed the trade at all - and at close of trading this week, the position - although losing about 160 pips from its "best gains", would still be about 50 pips to the better.

 

I moved lock in profits, but violated the terms of the rules - "make decisions at the EOD candle." I am fast coming around to the conclusion that trading experience counts for little when mechanical trading. Had the trade reversed far above the point where I locked in my profits, I might have been congratulating myself for getting out at a great exit.

 

Adhering to the rules in that case, may have turned the winning trade into a losing trade. Still - that's more a function of using a trailing SL judiciously, and at least getting the trade to break-even. At the end of the day, the trader needs to decide if he wants to be in for those 800-pip trades, or scalp the dailies! I prefer the former, so have to be prepared to take the loss of positive pips in order to achieve that.

 

Some trades are diamonds ... some trades are stones! (With apologies to John Denver!)

 

At the end of the day I need to conform to the rules of the mechanical system, and I can not defend closing that trade, other than to say that I was happy with the trade to that point, but mindful (anxious) of the risks of leaving the trade open over the weekend, when a decision by the US Congress was possible on their debt ceiling yada yada.

 

To not assess that risk and act accordingly would, to my mind, have been foolish. It would have been less foolish to set a trailing stop!

 

I have the pips in my pocket and will move to the next trade.

 

Cheers - and thank you Siuya - always appreciative of your advice.

[Ingot54 13]

"After an hour or two?" After an hour or two? Cheese & crackers, Ingot! An hour or two?

 

My friend, please follow PWP's example. Set your orders and go to your day job. Trust me, you are not going to outsmart the market. I've tried myself and she dealt me nothing but endless heartache and heartbreak. I have been much happier since I accepted the fact that she, like my wife, is always right. Always. And if you do not believe me, just ask your wife.

 

Ingot, please do yourself a favor ... better yet, do me a favor:

 

1) Take the little quote from SIUYA that I have used as a sort of signature quote today, and write it on two post-it notes" "...the issue here, and IMHO the mistake was in the premature exit based on trying to eliminate anxiety after the worst part of the anxiety had passed..." - SIUYA

 

2) Stick one of those post-it notes to your trading terminal, to remind you that prematurely ejecting yourself from a trade can be as ruinous to your success as over trading or over leveraging yourself.

 

3) Stick the other to your forehead, so that everyone you meet will ask you about it, and you will therefore drill this lesson into your very being due to the sheer repetition of having to explain to everyone you meet why you are walking around with a post-it stuck to your forehead.

 

I know. It sounds extreme. But this is important. I have no problem with a breakeven stop on a 200-300 pip open profit. But what you are doing is going to prevent you from achieving what I think you'd like to achieve.

 

So remember: two post-it notes, one for your computer, one for your noggin. If you disagree, explain this to your wife. She'll agree with me, I'm sure. And we'd all appreciate it if you'd post us a picture of yourself modeling your new head gear;)

 

You can do this, Ingot. But, as a friend of mine likes to say, "You must first humble yourself to the market." This means that you can only decide what it is you want to get out of the market. Butshe gets to decide when you'll get it.

 

Use the system, set your stop loss, and give it 24 hours, not an hour or two. Then, adjust your stop loss if necessary, and wait another 24 hours. Let her decide on a trade by trade basis what she is willing to give you. Because just when you second guess her and get ou early, that will be the moment before she decides to give you a windfall like she gave to mrcsidney.

 

Stick with us, Ingot, and we'll stick with you!

 

-optiontimer

Thanks Optiontimer -You may have misunderstood my post - I really meant to highlight the negatives I have found through my taking "too-early" positions, when the rules say to "wait until the indicator has closed in the correct position ... AND ... the price has moved PAST the previous high / low."

 

The "after an hour-or-two" bit was to highlight what can happen when jumping in early.

 

In any case, I deserve the dunce's cap for not following the rules, and my posts of my experiences may serve as a record of how not to apply your strategy.

 

I have always been a bit unorthodox, and you can substitute the word "rebellious" for that with probably a similar meaning. This might take one some distance in life, or not, but it gets you little advantage in trading. I am fast becoming a conformist - at least to your strategy - it is unparalleled.

 

I do not mind exposing my activities (trading only, for the voyeurs!) if it means advancing the positive outcome of this thread. I am hopeful my self-disclosure will help others who struggle with their approach too.

 

We have a new week, and a new attitude. I am certain my trading will tighten up - and I will continue to post my experiences.

 

Best wishes

 

Ingot

 

PS - I am off to buy some post-its in the morning!

 

I am truly grateful for your advice Optiontimer (and Siuya and others) - and I take away nothing negative at all from any chastisement. I am not in this for brownie-points, but to develop a serious and mature trading approach that can help me to achieve my goals of more than 7 years persistence now. That goal is almost there - but I accept there is still a little more pain to be endured, to smooth-out the rough spots that linger!

[phantom 16]

Yes, optiontimer, I did ask why you posted this thread in the psych dept.

 

Not to dis you, but using your reasoning, just about every thread on the site would land in the psych dept!

 

 

Luv,

Phantom

[Ingot54 13]

Hi Ingot, I found this surprising post from you ...

 

You say here that you were fortunate to be watching in time to close your EURAUD (presumably short) position before it ran to a loss.

 

Now, there was nothing "fortunate" about your watching. Your problem is not with entries, Ingot. Your problem is with exits. You are cutting out entirely too soon. You are afraid of any and all losses. You want only to win.

 

It cannot be done, my friend. You must discipline yourself to stay away from the "submit order" button but for once each day. You must trade at a size where one loss will matter not at all, and where a series of fourteen or fifteen losses in a row will leave with still sufficient margin to stay in the game and recover.

 

Yes, a string of losses can and will take its toll, psychologically and emotionally. But as long as its financial toll is minimized, you will eventually be able to see yourself clear to trade out of the drawdown by maintaining your discipline.

 

But that string of losses will be far less harmful to your long-term success than a never ending string of stunted profits.

 

Even if you would have been stopped for a loss, there was nothing "fortunate" in your early exit, because it will have done nothing but reinforce your bad habit of watching intraday action to decide on early exits. You are doing nothing more than mixing time frames. We are trading from daily charts. Base your decisions on a day's worth of price action, not a snippet from within it.

 

Lots for you to think about this weekend, Ingot!

 

Best to your trading,

 

-OT

Thank you again Optiontimer.

 

I can see that by my moving to limit losses, I may have had a reason to be thankful that I didn't give profits back to the market.

 

This was wrong thinking, and ultimately would be defeating my goals of staying in for those very large trends that deliver water-falls of pips.

 

I do not want that.

 

I do not want to be stuck on the treadmill of grabbing 80 pips here and there, but missing the 600's here and there. Further, I do not want the anxiety of watching trades through the day, while a simple EOD perusal of the situation would calm the nerves and deliver the goods.

 

I am not saying I will get it right straight away, but trust me, I WILL get it right.

 

I have not learned nothing over my years in this business, but in some respects I still have quite a lot to learn.

 

And I will.

 

Kind regards

 

Ingot