The Anti-GURU-itis report

Trading Discussion Trade Journals
21

Ended up taking a 3rd trade yesterday at london close which also turned out to be a winner. So yesterday’s results were, L W W

I browsed through Mark Douglas’ book looking for the relevant paragraphs that i referred to in yesterday’s post. As i looked through the things i had underlined as a beginner i found plenty that i agree with today and something that i had misunderstood as a beginner. However, I think the major difference on reading all those notes today as opposed to back then is the thought process behind my actual application of these ideas and not just the theory written in the book.

Up until yesterday what i had rememberd reading was something to the effect of “Don’t place too much emphasis on individul trades but on a series of trades”. This was written in respect to results and not getting emotional over a losing trade.

Again up until yesterday, my disagreement with this statement was… if you don’t place emphasis on the individual trade then you may execute it sloppily. You may end up with a series of sloppy trades. Even a few sloppy trade would negatively affect the outcome of the series.

When i trade now the trade i am about to take is the only trade that matters. [B]Before[/B] i take the trade i tell myself that this is an isolated moment, i dont have to take the trade and if i do take it i don’t care what happens to price once i am out of the trade. [B]Win or Lose when i’m out it’s over[/B]. Rinse and repeat.

Remember thats [B]before[/B] i take the trade, i then concentrate on execution of the trade to my predefined guidlines for that strategy.

While browsing my notes in the book i came across the following quote which i really like [B]“What separates the best traders is that they have trained their minds to believe in the uniqueness of each moment”.[/B]

As a beginner reading, “training your mind to believe in the uniqueness of each moment” didn’t help me at all. I highlighted it so i must have liked it or thought it important when i read it. How i came to implement it in my own trading had nothing to do with the book but through trial and error, gaining experience and searching for [B]practical[/B] solutions when things went wrong.

This just emphasises how important it is to re-read books and articles or watch trading videos again periodically as our experience level rises.

Close out the trading week well and have a great weekend guys!

22

Friday’s results = L W

So for the week Tue-Fri (I don’t trade on Mondays) the sequence was: WW/WL/LWW/LW

In yesterdays post with regards to individual trades i wrote, [B]“Win or Lose when i’m out it’s over”.
[/B]
Thinking about that it dawned on me that although correct and how i trade it doesn’t tell the whole story; and to a beginner it would probably be a nice line but not very helpful.

Someone said “Knowing what to do and being able to do it are not the same thing”. I think that’s quite obvious and true. The distance between where you are now and being able to execute that “move” is the exact level of skill that is missing and that you need to acquire.

When i started trading i thought i was being an aggressive trader but i was actually being a maniac trader so of course i would move stops to stop trades busting out, i would double, then triple up losing positions. I would revenge trade so 1 traded ended up being 3 or 4 etc. Basically i did many things right but could not deal with losses so when i did lose the loss was disproptionate.

How did “Win or lose when i’m out it’s over”, come about and how am i able to actually follow through on it?

Trading for me is technical skills, psychology and Practical skills. [B]Practical skills are physical, they are not in your head.[/B]

Through trial and error i came up with exercises that worked for me to improve my practical skills on the major points that were hurting my trading.

One that helped with loss in general was, i gave myself a 2 trade limit per day. So regardless what happened in the market i had 2 trades to take advantage of it. Another part of the challenge was that i couldn’t increase my stops during the trade. I later added that if i lost both trades on 2 consecutive days i had to take the 3rd day off, later still i added that i wasn’t allowed to lose more than 25% in a week of what i expected/hoped to make in a month.

So imagine, it’s 8am i’ve just busted out of a trade and am eager to dive into something i see on the screen…but i only have one trade left and hours of the trading day to go. So i began to hold back.

I did this exercise for 8 weeks, at that point i had it, but i still couldn’t throw away the structure i had built, took many months.

After you get your driving licence you are still a rubbish driver :slight_smile:

From there the thing about individual trades hit me. So at first i practised not looking at a chart for 30 mins after a trade had ended, win or lose. Of course i wanted to know what had happened to price, should i have set my stops differently? Should i have gone in again? But i just practised not looking at charts for 30 mins after a trade for a few weeks. I then started reducing the time period.

The post is getting long… but this is the type of thought process and physical work i had to do to increase my practical skill level to be able to execute trades the way i do know. There is still tons of room for improvement so i am by no means the finished article.

Over time your attitude to loss changes too. Some of the trades i value most are where i have not only taken a planned loss, but minimised it (part of trade management), where as a few years ago i would have stepped of the cliff and done myself some damage.

Most things written are about ,maximising, specifically profit. Even if its correct, without the practical skills i look at it as…“nice” but, [B]“I ain’t gonna get there”[/B], so i read it then file the knowledge away until i reach that stage in my development.

I think thats why alot of us struggle. The theory says do A,B,C in situation 7a or your trading wont work its the right way, but if under live conditions 7a i can’t do A… what is the point of me stressing over B and C?

As you improve your practical skills you can expand your moves or become more “text book”. Until then learn to lose well so that your next winning trade wipes out the losing trade you just made. Think defence before, during and after a loss and forget the maximising stuff…maximising losses sucks! You might not be “text book” yet, there may never be a need for you to be either,[B] but[/B] if you are making money and not taking huge losses who cares?

So as you see it’s a simple line…"[B]Win or lose when i’m out it’s ove[/B]r" BUT [B]there is a ton of work over a long period of time behind it.[/B]

23

What a brilliant post!
I like the idea of a self imposed trade limit, that would really make one focus on each trade. It is very tempting to continue a winning streak, or to try to win back a losing streak. Personally I stop trading when I hit my days profit target or maximum acceptable days loss

24

Hey eddieb,

When i started trading i did try the max loss per day and the daily profit target but in certain pressure situations i couldn’t consistently stick to either of them, it only took a charged or high pressure situation and boom…you know the rest. Shows how different we all are.

Anyway, i found by doing exercises or work arounds, as the one i described, to build up my practical skills it then allowed me to overcome the problem. It’s like say you want to follow a fitness routine and it says do 3 sets of 20 push ups twice a week but you cant even do 1. You have to find an easier alternative which will help you to build up your strenght so that you can achieve the 1 then 5 etc. The 20 will come later.

25

Results for this week: LL/B/WL (note:B= Break even)

The results for this week don’t tell the story but that’s not important. It’s easy to let your mind trick you into alot of nonsense about 1 pip and that trade would have been a winner or an announcement at such and such a time and… but it’s irrelevant.

What is relevant is, did i follow my plan to get into the trades? Did i execute entry well? Did i manage the trade well? Were there clues before and during the trade that the trade might run into trouble? Did i react to these things and minimise loss according to my trade management plan? Was i aware of these things during the trade? When reviewing the trade after it had closed what additional things became obvious?
How did i react to the loss?
Did it affect the next trade of the day?
Did i encounter and practice the things i know i have to work on?
Overall did i learn anything from that trade?
Do i have to go over any technical aspects, am i missing something?

The above is what is important about the losses, not the nearly this and nearly that :wink:

The good thing about this week is that i managed to get “alot” of study in, about 5hrs so far (I want to do 4hrs minimum per week).

I have also focused on my performance. It’s not enough to say, oh this week i did ok or this week felt better than last week, i feel i have to be able to measure performance and compare it to previous weeks. To do this i have a few metrics, like how many times did a particular situation occur, did i do the pre planned thing in that situation?
Nothing too fancy or cumbersome but it allows me to work at getting better in certain areas and to see how i’m doing, not result wise but process and performance wise.

In terms of results… last week was WW/WL/LWW/LW this week is LL/B/WL a big difference. Note, i took 9 trades last week when winning, this week whilst losing it’s only 5 and i’ve decided to use tomorrow as study day. It would be silly to trade more when you are losing and less when you are winning regardless of the reasons.

Ignoring or hiding losses from yourself is the worst thing you can do. It is very much a part of the game and how you view and react to them is probably the difference for some between making money and blowing accounts medium term.

Hope you have all had a good week and that you have had a few more W’s than L’s :wink:

Win or lose, when i’m out it’s over.

26

This week didn’t feel like a losing week, it wasn’t heavy and there was no real frustration. I think part of that was down to the amount of study i put in this week ([I]progression always feels good[/I]) and part of it was down to things outside of trading.

Of course i am a little disappointed about the figures, I think if i wasn’t then trading probably wouldn’t be right for me, afterall when all is said and done we trade to make money.

Of the 5 trades there was 1 that i shouldn’t have taken (missed some additional info) and 1 that i should have managed differently. The other were pretty standard. The trade i should have managed differently: I was aware of all the changing fators that were beginning to stack against it but felt that i missed the opportunity to get out cheaper at a support turned resistance level. In effect i played the defence correctly but didnt execute the loss minimisation move.

[B]A losing week follows a winning week[/B]

I will be doing a “mini project” over the next few weeks. Even at this stage I feel that i trade better when i am down, when i am losing. My trade criteria is tighter and i seem to execute and manage trades better. When i am winning and am happy with my equity i think i get a bit looser, maybe take a few more chances etc some consciously and maybe some subconsciously. I do think that you should let slices of your winning trades run a bit more aggressively when you are winning but thats something else.

So, in this mini project i will put in place limits which attempt to remove the equity factor from the quality of my trading. I will brainstorm this weekend and then play around with what i come up with next week and perhaps the following week too. I will then trade that way for 4-8 weeks. On the one hand this may effect my results negatively for the first few weeks but on the other hand a few weeks in the scheme of things is nothing if it solves the problem and/or improves my trading.

It is crazy that winning and success can cause issues in trading but that doesn’t make it less true. If you plan on winning alot you have to get good at trading well when winning lol

27

[B]Targets[/B]

In the past i haven’t really been a fan of profit targets specially the daily profit target. My experience was that i would hit the target say 10 days in a row and then the day i didn’t hit it or struggled to hit it things would get “lively” to put it mildly and an action adventure would ensue. There was also the theoretical issue of why limit your upside?

As part of the mini project i mentioned in the last post i am concentrating on removing the equity factor from the quality of my trading, trading well when i am winning in short. As part of this i will set not a daily target but a weekly target that in my experience is on the easier side of realistic. When i hit the target i will let the open trade play out and then shut down trading for the week regardless of how many trades it took. If on Thursday evenings i am within 9 pips of my target i will shut down for the week. Nothing ground breaking there but in combination with how i trade now it could make a significant difference.

[B]This should in theory expose me more to being in the situation i am trying to practice and get better at, trading well when up or winning.[/B]

I am not too worried about the drawdown side of things in this mini project. The first time i traded my way out of “serious” drawdown as opposed to gambling my way out of drawdown had a long lasting effect on my trading and could be part of the reason why i feel i trade better when i am losing. I will however shut down for the week if i take 4 losing trades in a row before hitting my target. This is not a drawdown exercise.

With regards to limiting upside: in theory it doesn’t make sense but in practice the averaging effect can hold value.

I am not revealing my weekly profit target as this is not an exercise in putting myself under pressure for appearances sake in a forum :wink:

Have a great day guys!

28

When you move or change 1 thing it doesnt just affect 1 thing, it can affect a few things, many things or even everything, anyway if a change affects something fundamental in a negative way…you are in trouble. It’s kind of like wanting to pull down a pillar in your loft appartment because it’s in the way. You get your tools out do do the job and your girlfriend says, “You better not do that.”
“Why?”, you reply.
“Because that pillar is holding the building up!”, she screams.

So last week i did the soft target thing with the aim of practising trading well when up. Not a good move. 80% of my focus was on the target the whole week so of course my trades were of lower quality technically, i traded more hours, didn’t do the other things i was supposed to do etc. A real mess.

The bigger problem however was that my trading plan didn’t do it’s job. I think a trading plan should be bullet proof and the goto resource under [B]any[/B] circumstance. A trading plan can’t just be words, no fluff allowed.

So last weekend i spent around 15-20hrs solid on my trading plan, ([I]i know get a life[/I]),changing things, adjusting things, adding things, getting rid of things etc. Procedures, procedures, procedures.

To make a really long and interesting story short and boring… it’s a good thing that “Target-gate” unearthed these weaknesses in my trading plan but it didn’t feel that way at the time.

I found that a better way to work on trading better when winning is to work on putting better procedures and routines in place for that situation and to practice using them. The target thing however soft focuses on 1 thing, results. You can take a perfect trade and lose or flip a coin and win, so focusing on results…waste of time for [B]me[/B].

This week i had a good week. I am very happy with how i took 2 trades technically in particular.
Of course 1 week post target-gate is nothing, could even be coincidence but now i have something which i feel is more suited to me and my trading to work on for the next 7-8 weeks or so. I also have a beefed up trading plan.

Lot’s of work to do next week.

29

I had 3 winning weeks in a row followed by a small losing week this week or should i say last week, depending how you look at it. I shut down trading for the month on Thursday evening, giving me a low double figure percentage gain for the month. I managed to get into a sort of routine and work flow which is why i haven’t posted here for a while. When it’s flowing, let it flow!

From Fri 27th up until April 1st i have been in and will continue to be in assessment mode. I will go over all my trades from March again as well as all the other data i have on my performance and other issues and look at whats worked well and how to do more of it, what needs improving, getting rid of or adjusting and equally as important, how to make any changes. Once all of that is done i can put march to bed and then take on the task of April. I think one of the most wasteful things a trader can do is be in possession of a lot of data and not use it, businesses do it all the time and then wonder why they are struggling… could the answers be in the data??? Making the same mistakes again and again and again…

I read a post in the newbie section that stuck in my head, i was going to write a reply but the usual suspects had already given pretty good advice. What stuck in my head was not really the guys problem but how “fake” this industry is in some respects. People make things look so easy in order to get customers so for a newbie stepping into forex of course all he/she has to go on are the “sales material”. Then when things are not working out they think they have to “try harder”. When a trader turns the corner and becomes profitable it’s then assumed that they are more intelligent or have some extra edge etc. Nobody really talks about how much work you have to put in on a daily basis, work which is structured to get you from a to b to c etc and even then all the setbacks and wrong turns and corrections you have to make.

To any newbies reading this… no one tells you about the amount of work you have to put in to become a break even trader let alone a winning trader. Once you become a winning trader the work doesn’t stop and it doesn’t become easy. Be honest with yourself, how many hours did you study this month? Did you journal all of your trades? Did you write down all the issues that came up during the month? Have you worked on February’s issues? Was how you would work on them in your trading plan? Have you updated your trading plan? Stuck to your plan??? It goes on and on lol

I’m not being negative but just trying to be honest, it’s not about trying harder doing the wrong things or sticking it out and hoping for the best…it’s about putting in alot of work everyday, constantly learning, correcting and building a bespoke plan with procedures that cover virtually every situation imaginable and practicing until you can execute it. Then when you become “consistent” you find new problems lol

If you enjoy it it’s all worth it though. Anyway that’s enough honesty for today:32:
Hope you all had a good week/month. Good luck in April.