How often

[scose-no-doubt]

Gamma is long gone or (and I very much doubt it) an extremely lulzy multinic but Martinghoul whips his towel off as soon as someone posts something rates related. Just that no1 trades rates on here... that in itself says a lot if you ask me. Not to detract from the other traders like but as far as I'm concerned one should expect a massive (i.e. easily >50%) amount of rates traders in any seriuzz cross section of the trading community.

 

[DionysusToast]

Probability has nothing to do with this phenomena because we are not discussing random trades. I can't be the only one that screw up trade entries sometimes.

Take for instance one of my most common errors. Not setting the quantity.

Not only am I able to do this, I am able to watch a trade in progress and completely miss that I have done it. No-one is perfect.

I did it here : http://www.trade2win.com/boards/general-trading-chat/139318-trade-century.html

One share of ebay

Every time I do this, the actual call turns out being right. I have never done this & it saved me money because the call was incorrect.

Of course, if you win 70% of the time, then 30% of your mistakes of this nature should save you money. As it is, 0% of them save me money and 100% of them lose me money.

 

[Shakone]

Ok, I think you're being a superstitious girl and thinking the market is just sitting around waiting for ''the DionysusToast mistake'' so it can turn the market and laugh at your losses.

But since you're saying this phenomenon exists, and works when you've entered wrongly, or oversized, and doesn't when you've entered undersized, then one could only guess that there is a part of you that knows you've made a mistake on the entry, even though you're not conscious of it, and is so risk averse that it is subsequently reacting in a way that is causing losses to that trade.

The alternative is that the market itself is doing something to you that makes you enter wrongly.

 

[DionysusToast]

Well Shak - you have outlined some but not all possibilities.

The market 'appears' unforgiving at times, although as BB pointed out, this may merely be perception. It may be skew because of the small sample size.

It may also be a psychological glitch that sees you more likely to make mistakes in the face of a better opportunity.

Of course, the market may well be out to get me.

 

[Shakone]

'The market appears unforgiving'...

'the market may well be out to get me...'

It's YOU that isn't forgiving yourself. The mistake and the cost comes down to you, the market carries on regardless, why would the market need to forgive you, have you wronged the market? No, you've wronged yourself, and not forgiving yourself, and it's a lot more likely that you are out to get you, than the market is.

I know you're just using these words 'unforgiving', to express an idea that you feel, but it's really an idea about you, and not about the market.


.....

Ugh, too deep for a Saturday morning.

 

[kimo'sabby]

Probability has nothing to do with this phenomena because we are not discussing random trades.


So your mistakes are not random...?

 

[the hare]

Probability has nothing to do with this phenomena because we are not discussing random trades.

I was of course, as my method is based on random entries.

 

[kimo'sabby]

Well Shak - you have outlined some but not all possibilities.

The market 'appears' unforgiving at times, although as BB pointed out, this may merely be perception. It may be skew because of the small sample size.

It may also be a psychological glitch that sees you more likely to make mistakes in the face of a better opportunity.

Of course, the market may well be out to get me.

If you have absolute gameplay rules, are all mistakes captured within these rules? If not, why should your gameplay statistics apply to your mistakes vice versa?

If you have a 70:30 w:l ratio, this has no bearing on a mistake outside of your gameplay rules.

So if you buy when the rules said sell, you can't apply the 70:30 to this.

 

[morgan_edge]

nobody's gonna hold a candle to GammerJammer in terms of knowledge (possible exception of Martinghoul). The rest of us aren't on the same level, although some kid themselves and pretend they are witholding pearls. Gammers gone and Martinghoul hardly posts. That should tell you something....

Agreed, although You forgot ''counterviolent''. He's the only other person I can think of who seems to genuinely make a lot of consistent money from trading.

Where is he at? Not seen him posting in quite a while???

 

[The Leopard]

Agreed, although You forgot ''counterviolent''. He's the only other person I can think of who seems to genuinely make a lot of consistent money from trading.

Where is he at? Not seen him posting in quite a while???

He's still a mod I think.

 

[DionysusToast]

'The market appears unforgiving'...

'the market may well be out to get me...'

It's YOU that isn't forgiving yourself. The mistake and the cost comes down to you, the market carries on regardless, why would the market need to forgive you, have you wronged the market? No, you've wronged yourself, and not forgiving yourself, and it's a lot more likely that you are out to get you, than the market is.

I know you're just using these words 'unforgiving', to express an idea that you feel, but it's really an idea about you, and not about the market.


.....

Ugh, too deep for a Saturday morning.

lol - indeed.

Fact is - I think you should be able to 'get away' with stuff more often than you do.

Late entry/chasing a trade is something I do now & again and if you look at it from a probability POV, it should work out something like this:

Any trade - let's say stop 10 units, target 10 units.

Spread 1 unit puts you off side the moment you enter if @ market. Target 10 units really means you need 11 to get to your goal.

So - let's call it 10:11 - chance of win:loss, right?

Well - in my experience that is dead wrong. If you chase a trade you have a much, much higher chance of getting stopped out. Whilst a coin to$$er would say that it's just over 50% chance of getting stopped out @ this point, the fact you are entering at a point a short term correction is imminent will work against you the majority of the time ESPECIALLY if your analysis is correct.

If you are entering at random, you won't suffer from this.

 

[DionysusToast]

Probability has nothing to do with this phenomena because we are not discussing random trades.


So your mistakes are not random...?

Well - that is another issue.

It depends on the mistake.

I would say that chasing a trade is a mistake but not random.

In terms of size errors, I have never once gone in too large, only too small. I seem to only do this when I'm a bit certain and feeling good about the trade. Maybe a bit of hubris.

Some of it is random, some of it might not be.

 

[DionysusToast]

If you have absolute gameplay rules, are all mistakes captured within these rules? If not, why should your gameplay statistics apply to your mistakes vice versa?

If you have a 70:30 w:l ratio, this has no bearing on a mistake outside of your gameplay rules.

So if you buy when the rules said sell, you can't apply the 70:30 to this.

I am a discretionary trader, so my rules are somewhat fuzzy.

A size error is within the rules for entry but outside the rules for sizing. A chasing error is outside the rules for entry but within the rules for sizing.

I agree with you - I just feel butthurt sometimes that the market can't reward me for an error now & again. Unless this is purely a cognitive bias at play.

Am I the only one here that makes mistakes? Do the rest of you get equally rewarded & punished for yours?

 

[DionysusToast]

He's still a mod I think.

Our own Red Adair?

Perhaps he has greater fires to put out than those on T2W...

 

[piggybridges]

I can only really think of a few 'mistakes' I've made in the last few years.

One was a trade very late at night when I'd got back from a skin-full at the pub. I just took a complete drunk punt on a trade; One I wouldn't have usually took, and woke up to a fairly large loss.
There were a few other nondescript ones which were probably 50/50 in terms of rewarding/punishing me.
However, most recently, only a few months ago, I accidentally put the wrong order size on an oil trade. About 20 times my usual stake! The best bit is that I also didn't even realise my mistake until It hit my profit target!
So, due to that trade, i'm 'up' overall on my mistakes (so far)

 

[kimo'sabby]

I am a discretionary trader, so my rules are somewhat fuzzy.

Well, they're not that fuzzy, mate. Everytime you make a mistake you lose money. So at the moment, you are more likely to make money by sticking to the fuzzy rules. The fuzzy rules are a progression/evolution, if they are fuzzy now, what were they before?

I'm sure there's a moral to this thread.

 

[Shakone]

I am a discretionary trader, so my rules are somewhat fuzzy.

A size error is within the rules for entry but outside the rules for sizing. A chasing error is outside the rules for entry but within the rules for sizing.

I agree with you - I just feel butthurt sometimes that the market can't reward me for an error now & again. Unless this is purely a cognitive bias at play.

Am I the only one here that makes mistakes? Do the rest of you get equally rewarded & punished for yours?

I am punished more for my mistakes than I'm rewarded, but occasionally I am rewarded. And some of those I'm punished on, in truth could probably be managed much better, but I'm uncomfortable being in a mistaken trade, and I don't trade very well when uncomfortable.

Your other observation about chasing and losses...well yeah. If I chase I lose almost all the time. If I'm emotional in my decisions making, I can pick bottoms and tops superbly, just trading the wrong way round, it's miraculous. This is a very interesting phenomenon.

 

[scose-no-doubt]

If I'm emotional in my decisions making, I can pick bottoms and tops superbly, just trading the wrong way round, it's miraculous. This is a very interesting phenomenon.

Oh Em Gee happens to someone else too. Shocking innit. I'm deadly serious that if I started a Fade Teh Scose signal service I could net a killing for the subscribers.

 

[DionysusToast]

I am punished more for my mistakes than I'm rewarded, but occasionally I am rewarded. And some of those I'm punished on, in truth could probably be managed much better, but I'm uncomfortable being in a mistaken trade, and I don't trade very well when uncomfortable.

Your other observation about chasing and losses...well yeah. If I chase I lose almost all the time. If I'm emotional in my decisions making, I can pick bottoms and tops superbly, just trading the wrong way round, it's miraculous. This is a very interesting phenomenon.

I am sure everyone goes through that.

The growing fear of missing out as it goes one way leads you to jump on the move at the exact moment it ends.

 

[bootsyjam]

I had my first piece of luck this week. Went long eurusd for 125k, took half profit at approx 2.5:1 risk reward, moved stop to break even. So 62.5k left on (don't get too het up-is $6.25 per pip). Unfortunately, I didn't notice that the stop did not automatically correspond with the half position that I still had on the markets.
So I went out, came back 2 hours later and the price had reversed, the other half of my original trade had closed at break even, but becasue the sell stop limit was at 100% of my original trade size (125k), it also opened a short at this level at 62.5k. I came back to see I was in the market, with no orders attached, but luckily was approx $240 in profit. I say luckily, I just panicked and closed the position I was so freaked. Shame I did, would have made me even more if I had left it open as Eurusd has continued to drop!
Thing is, I got lucky because I'm gettinmg better at identifying key levels/reversal points. Having said that, I now have an alarm on my phone set for 5pm each day with the message to check all orders in the market before I leave...