Only What Works

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
21

How do you apply (5) mode in all weathers?

Lets go BIG and by that i mean big picture, lets zoom out.

If you look at a company report where they show way above average gains for the decade you often find there were 2 or 3 excellent years and the rest were just standard “ups” sprinkled with some standard “downs”. The bulk of the decade is nothing to shout about but when you do the averages thing the percentages look fantastic.

It’s the same with a traders results, often you see the bulk of the profits were made in 3 or 4 really good months, the rest were just standard ups and downs.

If we knew which years were going to be great we wouldn’t even have to bother with the rest. If we knew which months of the year would be those 30+ % months, again, why bother with rest?

[B]Nomination for obvious statement of the year[/B]…The entry reads as follows, “We don’t know which months or years are going to be great in advance… solution, we trade them all”.

[B]Expectation[/B]

How much money or how many pips do you expect to make this month?

“Well based on blah blah blah this month it will be about blah blabady blah blah give or take a blah” he says trying to look sincere.:55:

[B]What?!?[/B]

[B]Reality[/B]

The market is going to do what it’s going to do. The number of set ups per month is not fixed. The way price moves after you go in is not fixed either. How can our expectation be fixed or even in a range?

Now lets zoom in to trading day.

How does the way you trade today fit in with the big picture above?

[B]Example[/B], You hit a"big"winner early on today, you are happy with yourself…it’s 9am so you think “cool that’s me done for the day time to relax”.

If today is one of those excellent days, which forms part of one of those excellent months, which make your year, is quitting at 9am the right thing to do?

[B]Conversely[/B], If a trade busts out, you go in again and that busts out too… If today is one of those lean days, which forms part of a lean month; [I]or even a good month for that matte[/I]r, which forms the choppy part of your year. Should you be going into battle for 12hrs straight without stopping to eat lunch or dinner while putting your “skills” and capital to the test; on a day that has nothing to give you? How can you feel robbed on such a day?

[B]It’s impossible to know what type of day it’s going to be in advance[/B] so we have to be prepared for everything.

We want take full advantage of those sunny days, to do that we have to [B]recognise and accept the rainy ones[/B] and when they hit find a nice dry, warm place to relax and let it rain.

22

Afternoon Win,

It seems alot of the crap slingers are on vacation or dont hang at BabyPips as often as years past. There are some brutal folks here. Ive got beatn several times, but then again, Id expect that when Im tryin to do something that most say is impossible. Alot of the flamin helped, but alot was unnecessary.

When at the end of the day, we are ALL tryn to make money.

You have Trolls, scammers, and traders here… I grew up in this hood, lol…

Good day Bro,

23

Absolutly…

When your hot, your hot, and you just proved that your intune and focused on the task. Thats the time to press, and maybe even some overtime and milk it for everything she got.

If your taking signals evolved for your system, there is no such thing as over trading. This is why I say, getting caught up in percentages of this system or that system is weak, because you need to take EVERY signal to get the systems percentages correctly.

24

Hey Money!

Yeah you are right, it seems to be better in here now. Not a big fan of brutality myself lol

The guys that gave you a hard time probably gave up on forex Money, guess that’s a win :wink:

I’m still looking forward to your journal with anticipation.

Happy trading dude!

25

Then , you have those, OMG days. Is it greed? Currently this morning, Im up 36% for the DAY… Its only 9:13AM, est. I still have 3 hours of my trading day left. I like to be out by 12:00PM, Noon.

26

Keep going money,… don’t finish up the day with less than 20% though.

27

Im GIVING IT ALL SHE GOT CAPTAIN, ( Ace Ventura voice ))

lol,

Currently 39% daily gain,

You trading today WinPsych? No news days are awesome, lol…

28

Picked the wrong horse on the retail sales, went short eur usd but no follow through (trade still open)…of course the bottom drops out of gbp usd instead lol

Will look for some london close action…maybe some gbp usd retrace if its on the cards

29

Hey Win, best of luck for the rest of the day, Im done.

46.6% gain today,
8 wins,
0 loses,

Cheers!!

30

Congrats Money!

Rinse and Repeat :wink:

31

This trading week has been quite uneventful for me. The opportunities have come mostly towards the latter part of the day and and with ATR’s being lower I haven’t taken some of the trades i usually would have taken.

Of course i could have made more adjustments but when you make too many adjustments you find that you are not trading your system at all but “flying solo”. There were opportunities outside of my system to make money and i’m sure a lot of people did but for me they would have been illegitimate trades and thus not measurable.

At this stage in my trading i look at a week like this as one of those you have to go through to get to the good ones, believe me it wasn’t always that way. It’s important that you don’t try to BS yourself about how you feel after these types of weeks because you will just store the frustration for later until eventually you explode. I’ll leave it there for now, but I will write a post on “Psych Sunday” about [B]the value of honesty[/B].

However much i enjoy the challenges and the finer points of trading at times; the fact is that for me it’s work and not entertainment. The “action” and entertainment, the need to express various emotions etc has to come from outside of trading.

I only trade the news on Fridays so i’ll take a look at the USD PPI at 13:30 Gmt and the Univ of Michigan sentiment thingy at 15:00 to see if we get some movement. Apart from that it’s a day off, no study, no gym or any of the usual stuff. Recovery mode.

It’s been raining here and is grey and miserable outside, we are just not used to this here in the U.K:18: A few chores and then a movie, trade the news and by that time the rest of the world should be getting off work. If you have any Movie recommendations you have an hour and a half to post them below :slight_smile:

Have a great day guys, happy trading!

32

Hey Win, Missed the movie vote, lol…

You see Wolf Of Wallstreet? Its a tad nasty tho, so heads up.

Rain and Gray? I love that weather. I like Fall. Dont like the heat. I Like Snow. LOL, and I like Mondays, hummm.

Cant wait till it rains here. I just watered all my outside plants and garden, sopposed to be 87 today, and tomorrow, and sunday, AND monday. In USA, Pennsylvania.

Im downright tired of the Sun… Dont think its rained in a month, or anything to dance about anyways, lol…

slo day for me, havent got really going yet.

3.33% thus far.

Have a great Weekend Bro,

33

Hey Money!

Sorry you missed the vote lol

I was a bit rushed for time after my chores and ended up watching a random old movie on youtube called “Cellular” starring Kim Basinger& Jason Statham. It’s a crime/thriller with a dash of comedy @times. Nothing special but an acceptable way to zone out for a couple of hrs.

Yep have seen the Wolf On Wall Street… the guy lived pretty fast lol, he had some time to slow down in prison though :33:

Can’t believe you are tired of the sun:o

For a guy that does 40%+ days i guess 3.33% feels slow lol. You would probably be asleep if you traded the way i do then:24:

Take advantage of that great weather this weekend dude, your favourite day Monday will be waiting for you on the other side.

34

lol, yeah, 3.33 is slow for me, lol, funny to say it,

Right now im up 8.4% today. Might have time to get 1 more trade in, be nice to break 10%.

Jason Statham is my favorite actor. Kinda upset that the new Transporter movie has someone else as the lead role, wont watch it now.

I like crappy weather, lol,

Ok, Win!!

35

Yesterday (Fri) i spent 58 mins and 35 secs recording what i felt about the trading week that had just passed. I feel that every week has it’s lessons, some weeks you have to look harder for them than others; but they are usually there.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, the week was pretty uneventful for me. In short what i took from the week was :

  1. Make the process even simpler, so you don’t waste time unnecessarily on days when “it” is not there.

  2. You don’t control the weather.

  3. You have to assume and be prepared for the possibility that next week the conditions will be great for your system.

After i finish writing this post my task is to take a single sheet of A4 paper and draw 2 lines splitting the page into thirds. One third will be for Psychology, one third for my Strategies, and the remaining third will be for “practical” trade execution considerations.

Using just a single sheet of paper means that only the essentials will make it onto the page, it will have to be very simple. The sheet is not a replacement for my trading plan, it’s a way to get ultra focused.

[B]Light bulb moment[/B]

The day after recording my thoughts i often tend have a “light bulb” moment. This morning it was, [B]“Don’t try too hard”[/B], that’s self explanatory isn’t it really!?! :wink:

I’ll end with a reminder to self: We are not doing this to try to win trades, we are doing it to make money, there is a huge difference.

Enjoy the weekend guys!

36

[B]Psych Sunday[/B]

In my office at home where i trade; on the wall to the left of me i have block diagrams of my system and things to remember, the wall to my right is what i call the “RED WALL!”

On the red wall i have printout’s of my absolute worst days “so far” in Forex, the crazy ones, the kind of days which end "careers"before they have really started.

The Red wall consists of account statements, the trades i took [I]and their size[/I] as well as a description of the “how i lost my mind” process. The description was written at my lowest point in forex.

Any family member or friend who walks into my office can see the red wall, it’ not hidden in any way, and those who have seen it all have a very different view of forex than many of the brand newbians that post in this forum because of it.

[B]Why are my failures on display? [/B]It’s about honesty, not the moral kind which is prominent in everyday life but the functional kind.

Will the red wall stop me from acting like a complete fool on the next day from hell?

By itself, of course not, but its another layer of many that the negative emotions we all experience at times, will have to get through, and it can be the difference between a bad day where you say “i shouldn’t have done that”, and the type of day that where you say, "What the fcuk have i done? ".

[B]Moral honesty v Functional honesty[/B]

Who doesn’t want to be thought of as a good person?

Generally we would like people to be nice to us and by being nice to them we get the “niceness” all dialed up and flowing. Honesty is generally thought of as a component of a good person.

At the same time though you can be accused of being too honest. If you walk into the restaurant and tell Lisa that she looks like sh*t today she’s not going to thank you, or if you tell Frank that you made a mistake and slept with his wife… are you trying to ease your own conscience or are you trying to help Frank? Again, if you are honest about some things like love or religion people may see you as being naive, gullible or stupid and no one wants that.

[B]Functional honesty is very different as it has an effect on your actions.[/B]

People have a tendency to want to keep their weird sh*t hidden and when it’s hidden the “taboo nature” of what’s going on causes it to escalate.

[B]Example[/B]: Garfield a middle aged company manager married to Sue for 15 years with 2 kids, Verity and Jake, likes to go to the bar on Fridays after work for a beer with the rest of the office. He thinks that it will upset Sue that he doesn’t go straight home to spend time with her and the kids so he make up excuses as to why he’s late. Fast forward a few months Garfield now smokes crack regularly with Mary from accounts and has an underwear drawer at her place.

[B]WHAT?!?[/B] How did we get here???

In Garfields case his reaction to his dishonesty was extreme. He felt bad about wanting to spend time on Fridays with the guys from the office, he also felt bad about how Sue and the kids would react. He still went for that drink though, and that made him feel bad too, and then he felt bad for lying about it when he got home late.

Soooooo, all these bad feelings, one Friday there was Mary from accounts in here pink top telling him she had something at home that would cheer him up…BOOM, for a minute Garfield felt relief puffing on that crack pipe lol

In trading it’s easy to find yourself in denial. It’s not difficult to sweep the losses under the rug as it were and to focus on “doing better from now on.” No one has to know about your failures and why would you want them to?

However, there is a functional value in honesty, it affects your behaviour, keeps you humble, keeps things real, out in the open.

The red wall is proof that i am not a Forex genius in possession of powers that others don’t have, i am not something special and market is not going to treat me any differently to anyone else. Forex “itself” is nothing special, it’s a way to make a living enjoyable or not. We all have to make a living.

Honesty has value.

37

Hi WinPsych, long time no chat. Nice narrative you have going here. Hope your disaster was not too bad. Its quite infuriating if you think - as you stated - that you could have stayed on holiday for another 2 weeks and still been ahead. Anyway - over and done - recover and progress!!

38

Hey Blue!

Glad to see you are still in the game.

The stupid post holiday loss was around equal to the profit i made the previous month. I think i have a much better understanding of what happened now, and why, than i did immediately after. We’ll see in a few months time when Christmas comes around if my understanding and adjustments are correct.

Take care mate.

39

Well here we are, a new trading week and all the potential that implies. I feel well prepped, now the market just has to do it’s part :slight_smile:

I was thinking about progress and the stages you go through in trading. At the beginning it’s all about entries and winning trades, you hear people say that the entry isn’t really that important and that trying to win as many trades as possible isn’t important either. When someone explains why that’s the case it makes sense but you don’t really feel it or believe it at that stage.

As you progress your focus shifts. You know that psychology is important but you don’t understand why so you use it to try and do things that don’t stand much chance of working out from the get go.

You progress.Light bulb moments, you figure out what you [B]do and don’t have control over[/B] and where the psychology can make a difference, what it’s for. You practice, you progress.

Water always finds the holes, you try to make your ship water tight, you progress.

Whatever stage you are at now; in 6 months or a years time you will have gone further. Your focus will change as you progress. You will think about how right you were about some things in the past and what a fool you were about others.

Don’t be closed to being wrong today or get married to being wrong either, it stops progression.

41

I traded the GBP CPI yesterday (Tue), the Gbp/Usd did exactly what i expected it to on the good figures and i executed well adding to the trade 3 times and staying aggressive above 15700. That old saying…make hay when the sun shines.

Day trading is not for everyone but one of the good things about it is that you get to see a lot of setups live and make a fair number of trades per month. As a result you gain a lot of experience quickly seeing variations of the same thing again and again and again, which helps with knowing what to expect when a trade performs in textbook mode and how to exploit it when it does.

I also use visualisation as a tool to help with trade execution and management. I have recordings of various scenarios eg: one is how i enter a trade. I play it back with my eyes closed as if it’s happening. I do this a couple of times per day and when i take a real trade i try to do it taking the same steps as in the recording. It’s good practice and my trade execution and trade management continues to benefit from it.

Lets see if the sun keeps shining today.

Happy trading guys