Another trade missed... WTF

[Technically Fundamental]

I felt much more at liberty to cut my losers quickly, but also to let my winners run. Very liberating feeling. I still have a tendency to overtrade (for my account size) and make some classic blunders from time to time, but am still making progress, albeit slowly. It's still a piddling account by the standards of the big willy-wavers who hang around here, but sod them, it's enough for me to be going on with.

Good luck.

That's what I feel.

 

[Mr. Charts]

You are a real sweetie, Nicola

Sam, don't be such a "game mule"..........or you might get b*****ed

Aaron, having seen Nicola's thoughtful quotation, yes I'm happy to bury the hatchet (don't know where, maybe in the back of Gordon Brown).

 

[GammaJammer]

Nic's aiming to replace Geri Halliwell as the next UN peace ambassador thingy.....

Namechange on T2W to 'Trader-Spice' mooted..

 

[Technically Fundamental]

You're Blair Gamma

Arabian can be Boris

 

[Mr. Charts]

I've removed you from my ignore list, Aaron.
Have you seen the "Blair Witch Project"?
All about how Cherie bug***ed the country by inspiring Tony to bequeath us Gordon Brown......nasty.

 

[Black Swan]

Moving aside my prejudices; that accountants, lawyers, surgeons, teachers... struggle to trade and, for example, stoopid ex-professional sportsmen/women will always do much much better, I reckon (and I make no apologies for this sounding simplistic) you are going about 'all this' totally the wrong way.

IMHO you should only be trading off 4 hr TFs/charts and stop searching for one off slam dunk winners. Look for the bloody obvious trends, be patient in looking for the next one, (btw if you can't spot 'em stop trading...period as our Amercian cousins say...).

Anyone who has a full time job and treats trading as a 'hobby'/extra income generator is a mug to operate on lower TFs and expect to win consistently. Instead you should look upon the pairs you trade to potentially return a modest amount per day, measured over an extended period of time. Example, would you have been happy taking roughly 140 pips from EURO/GBP since October 2nd..? Of course you would...now consider adding more pairs..

Let's say you average out at making 30 pips per 24hrs per pair (or 46.7 ), but it's a lot less stressful... anyway just a bit of food for thinking, not going to write reams/do a mind dump, gotta go...

 

[robster970]

Agree. Two things made a big difference for me:

1. Drawing S&R on hourly and waiting for the market to reach these before trading breakouts. Means I'm now down to 1-3 trades per week. A lot more relaxed and a lot better qualified rather than being blown around on 5m noise, getting excited and skint.

2. Setting a target of 1pt per day average on E-mini instead of crippling, unrealistic money chasing targets not commensurate with the account size.

Summary, be patient, don't get greedy.

Get yourself a Sudoku puzzle book to pass the time instead of looking for non-existant poorly qualified opportunities or better still do some tax returns for your clients. Both ways should increase your wealth.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

I think that TB just jumped a sinking ship and moved on to greener pastures. Namely £12m a year consultancy fee's and a shot at the throne of Europe. Brown simply filled the vacuum and his oversized blind frame became firmly lodged in No10. Gonna take Cameron's and all of his corporate ex-rowing buddies to oar him out of that gaff. I've completely lost interest anyhow. Both parties are full of sh1t. I'm just awaiting the mud-slinging and pathetic policies that ignore the major issues. No more speed cameras!!!

 

[robster970]

I think we're going to move to Gibraltar.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

stop searching for one off slam dunk winners. Look for the bloody obvious trends, be patient in looking for the next one.

Trying to mate. Boredom gets the better of me sometimes. Something I have to deal with. Better waiting for a set-up and missing it than strangling the account by trying for what are basically non-trades.

 

[Paul71]

Trying to mate. Boredom gets the better of me sometimes. Something I have to deal with. Better waiting for a set-up and missing it than strangling the account by trying for what are basically non-trades.

Try using a fixed odds acc. only, like binaries etc. Get a Nintendo DS for the boredom, i'm addicted to the classic game pack, pool, darts, ten pin bowling and many more! Get gaming!

 

[Rossini]

Trying to mate. Boredom gets the better of me sometimes. Something I have to deal with. Better waiting for a set-up and missing it than strangling the account by trying for what are basically non-trades.

Cant you just wait for a set up? Obviously not, so instead open a demo account and trade that whenever the mood takes you. Hopefully you will lose on this account and it will reinforce why you must wait patently for your setups.

Then when you do get a set up, trade it with confidence on a live account, after all it's what you've been waiting for. This assumes of course that your setups are valid trading opportunities.

 

[Splitlink]

I think that TB just jumped a sinking ship and moved on to greener pastures. Namely £12m a year consultancy fee's and a shot at the throne of Europe. Brown simply filled the vacuum and his oversized blind frame became firmly lodged in No10. Gonna take Cameron's and all of his corporate ex-rowing buddies to oar him out of that gaff. I've completely lost interest anyhow. Both parties are full of sh1t. I'm just awaiting the mud-slinging and pathetic policies that ignore the major issues. No more speed cameras!!!

I agree with that, unfortunately, except that him changing to Catholic and all, I though I might see him on the balcony in St Peter's Square.

Never mind. You could be worse off. You could be here! I'm talking about the government, of course. The people are great.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

WTF Again...

Long cable 158001 on that small hourly pullback 12pm and said to myself I'm going to hold. Discipline building and all that. Anyway long story short I sh1t out when the second bar failed to make a new high even though it was before Yankee session start.

Dunno whether I cut trades and re-enter through boredom or because I can't deal with the emotion. Anyone else have this problem in the beginning? What did you do?

 

[glyder]

TF
Whats your trading plan going forward?
You've got heaps of great advice earlier in this thread.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Try to analyse each chart on it's own merit from a technical perspective and only pull out when I get a signal and/or a big announcement could compromise my plan. TBF I did actually do that. Got the two hourly bars at a prev minor swing and pulled out so kudos there I suppose.
I thought I could handle just simply taking the advice on board (esp what Rossini said) and trade more sensibly but I obviously need to work on certain aspects of my personality.

After looking at it again the the problem is this... My trade never worked out as I planned - I didn't take the structure of the trading day into consideration for my entry - so I just assumed I was completely wrong and shorted despite my expectations of an up move the highs of the pull back. Issues with having conviction in my own analysis again I suppose.

I'm going to demo and limiting live trades to one a day.

Thanks glyder. Provoked a nice bit of thought there

 

[glyder]

I'm going to demo and limiting live trades to one a day.

Thanks glyder. Provoked a nice bit of thought there

Glad to be of help TF, I didn't realise I'd prompt quite so much thought,.

How will you select the set up you actually take each day from those that
you demo?
When I was demoing I used to look at dailies and 4 hour charts, see if a trade set up appeared each time a new bar opened. My rule was to take each set up.....how could I know what would and would't work till I tried.?
I'd set a wide stop and had a target, then let them run.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Mate my set-ups are really coming along (longer term anyway) it's the sticking to the plan and TF where I'm failing. I think I get a bit excitable when I make a decent call but in the end wtf is a call worth if I can't profit from it?

 

[Black Swan]

Mate my set-ups are really coming along (longer term anyway) it's the sticking to the plan and TF where I'm failing. I think I get a bit excitable when I make a decent call but in the end wtf is a call worth if I can't profit from it?

Can your set ups "really be coming along", if you havn't nailed your preferred TFs? *


* disclaimer, this comes from a guy who, happy with swing trading, now keeps himself occupied throughout the day by playing with 3-4 pairs on 3 min TFs whilst his swing trades bubble away in the background....a bizarre form of 'hedging', or occupational therapy keeping insanity at bay? .

 

[Masquerade]

Are you not sticking to the plan because of the money? You aim for 100 pips, you see 50 pips and the money represents something so you go and bank it?