my journal 2

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Nice question. Well, I like writing journals, so I cannot keep myself from writing about my life - I am just open, sincere, and talkative. I yearn to write. I also am passionate about watching movies and music, so I post that stuff as well.

Regarding the trading part, the reason I don't write much about that (if you call 33% of the posts "not much") is that I do automated trading, so, other than the daily work I do on excel, there is nothing to discuss about. It's not like I am ever looking at the markets and trying to guess where they'll go (luckily I have stopped that a few months ago, after blowing out accounts for over 10 years). I don't do any trading basically. I build systems that trade, but I don't trade.

That is why on these two journals ("my journal" and "my journal 2") you will only find one third about trading and two thirds about my daily life (mostly complaining, and movies and music posts).

In fact, I must add something else. There is more details about my automated trading, and every little aspect of my trading career in this journal, than you will ever find in anyone else's journal. The reason you felt different about this is that you noticed that I also talk about my personal life. And that may bother you, like it's bothered other people before. It bothers people that I speak about things that are not related to trading.

But that should not distract you from noticing that i am writing a whole lot about my trading. How can I do both? By writing 4000 long posts. Obviously, there is enough posts to write about everything in detail.

Therefore it is not a problem of me NOT writing about trading. It is rather a problem of me writing also about other things, that bothers some people. While other people appreciate it very much, so that is why I keep doing it. If no one appreciated it, I would still do it, because it makes me feel good. I've heard someone say "better to be right alone, than to be wrong together". I feel that writing about my thoughts is good, only good, and nothing but good, so I should do it no matter what. I believe in sincerity. And besides, everything is related to trading, and I make it clear all the time how I could escape my frustrating life by making money with trading, and that is why I took up trading to begin with.

And finally, it is pretty clear that my journal is ten times better than those journals that just say "entered long at this price at this time, set stoploss at this price". Those journals are as fascinating as the white pages. Like a long list of names and phone numbers.

It's like comparing a guy who plays the violin in an orchestra and this guy:


I am a songwriter. I am not playing the violin in an orchestra. I want to be able to write whatever I want, whatever is on my mind. That is how i write "my journal". Not like a long list of trades. I feel you should write journals by being just the way you are, and not go changing to try and please you...

 
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back at the office, doing nothing

With all the earthquakes brought by ace and its "kaizen - continuous improvement" team, I am now totally idle. They've taken all my work to do it their way - since I was refusing to do so, my boss took my work of 4 years, and destroyed it and said he'll do it himself from now on. It's not like there was anything wrong with my work: it's just that this team came to our office and since they had to "improve" something, regardless of whether it was working or not, regardless of whether they had the competence to improve things, they simply destroyed everything, and my idiot boss helped them do it. The consequences will be disastrous and apparent in a few weeks, but right now it looks like they've made us so efficient that we've got nothing to do anymore. It makes me laugh. It's as if you you've got a problem with your maid, such as her buying something she was told NOT to buy - like my maid did last week - so I fire her... then of course I will solve that specific problem of unwanted food in the house. Then in a week I will notice I am running out of toilet paper and shirts and underwear... that is exactly what will happen to our office. We're about to sink, and they're all (the ace team alone) happy because they feel they've made us "more efficient".

In my case for example, they got rid of 60 columns, that were feeding 10 pivot tables. Now the pivot tables do not work anymore, and when someone will need that data, the data will not be available. But the Ace idiots will be long gone, and my boss will have to take all the blame, since I have warned him plenty.

In my case, my boss took my statistics and said he will take care of them (for half of the work that I used to do - the remaining half will still be my duty). Since he's an idiot, it will be a disaster. But until now, neither he nor the ace team has noticed this, because they're idiots themselves, and because the quarter hasn't ended yet. Then, at the end of June, all the data will be needed, and they'll be in trouble. But the ace team won't care, because their work with us ends at the end of June.
 
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back at home, trying to fall asleep

I've done great work today as well. I want to dedicate another song to myself and to my genius. I need to find the right one. Ok, here it is:

 
lisa ono is a good musician

yeah, i am listening to lisa ono right now.

Today i was talking to my dad, trying to get some compliments out of him, as usual. He's been getting better lately. In the first two decades of our relationship, he only managed to give me harsh criticism for anything i did. Then a decade of no criticism, nor compliments/encouragement - just evil thoughts but unspoken. In the last few years he has paid some rare compliments to me, such as that I understand politics, I am logical, and now with trading, today. Yeah, today he said to me... what if he gave me some money to invest?

It would have been my dream just a few years ago, even until a few months ago. Now that things are taking off, and I don't need his help, he offers it. Damn. But maybe I do need it. I don't know.

I have told him that I need to work not just with some capital, but with some people who monitor me and know what we are doing. If I am alone with a bunch of money, then I am doomed because I will lose control and get high on my own supply. So I said, I should stick with the investors and let them monitor me closely, since they know what I am doing. But in truth, if this guy just gave me his money, I'd be happy. But the problem is that between his offer and my acceptance, there's always going to be a moment where he expects me to bow and beg or something similar. He's not just going to wire it overnight. It's like... he tests me to see if I am interested and then if I am, he's going to make it a lot harder for me to actually get his money. So I pretty much declined or rather i said that it's best if I don't get just the money, but I also get some auditing along with the capital, and I can't get that from him, because he doesn't know what this stuff is about.

But I do need something from him, and if I asked him, he would not give it to me for sure, because he only offers something when I don't need it. He's a sick son of a bitch, trust me.

So what i need is his blessing to quit my job, and his support in case anything goes wrong. The two things are connected. Can I quit my job, try to live off trading and count on him in case anything goes wrong? Certainly, he would say "no". But then he offers money, but only because he knows I won't accept it. I remember when I asked for money years ago, he made me wait for over a year and gave me 5000 euros. Good, actually, because I lost it pretty quickly. But support, moral support: that he never gave me, in my entire life.

But then again, he's letting me use all the houses across italy, not that many, but a few. So this means I can ride a cab to work instead of living under the bridge, because with my salary at the bank I couldn't even afford to... and also I don't have to kiss up to anyone at work, precisely because I am counting on him. So i think he's already doing a lot for me. Yes, he could just hand me 100k, sure. And it'd be great. But, compared to average people, I can't complain.

Besides, the investors are teaching me the value of money, with their approach of meticulous dosage of capital. They don't just pour it all over my systems, but dose it drop by drop, like water in the desert. They count the cents. They make me sweat for it. This is as good to my money management and to my systems as body building is to muscles. That's precisely what i needed: some stingy investors. It's the exact reverse of my gambling. It's a cure, or at least a good example to moderate my compulsive gambling. The facts speak clearly: whereas I am constantly feeling that I am being held back, when I wasn't being held back i was blowing out accounts at the rate of once a month, and now this account has only grown instead.


Now I'll go to sleep.

My conscience is clean. I've almost finished the new systems. Just another 6 hours of work and they're done.

Then some debugging, and then all the focus will shift on scaling up.
 
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Brain teaser

New word for me: "brain teaser":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_teaser
A brain teaser is a form of puzzle that requires thought to solve. It often requires thinking in unconventional ways with given constraints in mind; sometimes it also involves lateral thinking. Logic puzzles and riddles are specific types of brain teasers.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had to learn how to say "rompicapo" in English, because I have one right now.

I have 120 systems, right? Then I have 120 trading schedules, right? Then those systems and schedules are different depending on the symbols those systems trade, and the day of the week, the intraday margin cutoff time. Basically I have to make it all come together to find out, depending on the systems I am trading (and the contracts allocated), on a table what kind of "max theoretical margin" I will need at all times of a week. This is not easy, almost overwhelming, but if I take it one problem at a time, I should be able to create such a table.

Now, the first problem should be to divide the week into many trading time zones, with as many time sections as i have systems entries. It is a simple and menial task (the division in sections) but I have to make it work out in theory before I start anything else. This task is needed to detect how much margin I need in every single one of those sections.

1) create time zones, divided by the different entries of the systems - A LOT OF WORK BUT EASY
2) in each time zone place a cell that sums the margin costs of all traded systems - HARD, BRAIN TEASER

How do I build this extremely complex formula that sums up all the margins from all 120 systems?

Well well...

Rather than creating an array formula, it might be easier to go about it in a mechanical and stupid way. Columns go as far as 256.

I could create 120 columns with all the systems.

Then I create, vertically, as many rows/sections as there are time sections in the 5 days of the week.

Each day there's about 120 systems trading or with positions open. This means about 240 sections in one day. Multiply this by 5 days and you have about 1250 rows.

Each row could have a total at the end (on the right), saying how much margin is required in that specific time section with that margin (IB's latest margin, retrieved via an excel web query) with those contracts enabled. This is perfect: brain teaser SOLVED.

I will add the contracts on a table somewhere, and the margins on another table... better yet... two cells will retrieve on the very page of the huge table those two values of symbol's margin and contracts traded. Those values will be retrieved from two other tables where I will manage the settings.

But there's a problem left.

How do I go about dividing the day in sub-sections? No, wait: that is done.

How do I go about telling the huge table if a system is trading in that section or not? I cannot go and do it cell by cell.

Each section, on column A, will have a reference/title, which will be a numerical combination of day of the week (1 to 7, monday to sunday) PLUS time of the day (0 to 1). Monday at noon will be 1.5, and so on.

Then I'll have yet another table which will translate the potential trading time zones of each system into such 1.0 to 7.99 numbers.

Then each of those time section cells, for each system, will check the table and see if that time zone is potentially traded by the specific system. This way I don't have to fill out 1250*120 cells one by one. If it is (potentially) traded, a value of 1 will be returned, otherwise a zero.

Such 0/1 value will be multiplied by the number of contracts and the margin required (which will depend on the time of the day, just like the system's potential trading status), and this way I will come up, automatically, with the margin required per system in each time section.

Then, once I have the total margin required per time section (according to systems/contracts traded), I will do a chart of that, which will represent the whole week in terms of "maximum theoretical margin" required. This is going to be beautiful.
 
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Almost done on gigantic task of automating the latest 50 plus systems. Almost done. Another 7 systems or so. Then some debugging awaits me.
 
all done... two months of work

I am all done. It all started here, on April 2nd:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/85510-my-journal-2-a-219.html#post1496418

Now I will need to do a few days of debugging and double-checking and organizing and ordering and classifying. But the 120 systems are all ready to be forward-tested and even traded.

And while I was doing this huge task at the average rate of 1 system per working day, I was also battling the "ace kaizen - continuous improvement" dicks and the idiot boss at work.

I think I survived. Provided I don't have a heart attack in the next few days, I made it.

This calls for a celebration. I will dedicate a song to myself.

 
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Damn. As if it weren't enough, I spent the last hour double checking everything, and everything is just perfect. The only error I found was a system that was exiting twice (but it didn't cause any problems, because if the position is closed the exiting doesn't take place).
 
tired

All this work is keeping me up even when I am supposed to sleep. I dream of cells, formulas and so on. I am having excel nightmares almost every night. But at least I don't dream trading. Automated traders do not dream trading, they dream the automated systems they're building. I haven't done any trading in months. It feels better like this. I feel as unhealthy as a junkie when I trade discretionary. I feel bad about doing it, whether I make money with it or not. I feel like I am dealing drugs. Yeah, a trader has the dignity of a drug dealer often. We should all be ashamed. But automated trading makes it a scientific endeavour, like taking man to the moon, so I feel like a rocket scientist instead of a criminal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCmUhYSr-e4

I can't do what ten people tell me to do, but I'll keep trying. Everyone is pushing me harder. I have surrounded myself with people who push me harder and harder, and I have achieved more thanks to it, but I have to tell them to take a break now. Luckily at least at work there's an idiot boss who has actually... not just stopped pushing me but he has taken my burdens onto himself. I just hope when he realizes what a messy job he's doing he won't ask me to take them all back and fix them.

The first person who pushed me harder and harder is my dad, but he's done it to such an extent that i just rebelled and did the opposite, failing school and similar stuff. My dad has exaggerated so much that if he told me to not jump out of the window, I might have actually jumped. Asshole. Sick maniac. He achieved a lot in life, but never enjoyed it. He always kept complaining no matter what he achieved. Me, I just want some money, retiring and being left alone. My ambition is not to exterminate the human race, but just to keep them away from me.

But people sometimes are useful, so I want to be able to rent people's company. I hope to have enough money to rent friends, prostitutes and everything else. Then when the time is up, I either pay more or let them go. No obligation from either side. What the heck - how are you supposed to marry and stuff like that? Have children? What if you don't like it? You're stuck with it, wife and children. Much better to rent a child for a few hours, a wife-prostitute... you humans don't make any sense. A guy wants to have sex so he marries a woman, and then he doesn't get any, so he cheats on her. That's humans. I say let's rent everything. I don't even buy a car. Rent a cab, rent a friend... all that way. I keep myself light. No obligations. Friends cannot expect anything of me: I pay for the meals... it's a way of renting them. A child? You kidding me? Screaming all day long, a house where everyone yells, maybe the wife would yell at me... a total disaster, maybe the child would touch my computer... terrible.

Yeah, I just want to sit on the dock of the bay, wasting time, with no one bothering me. I can't wait to quit my job and move to the island, so I can sit on my favorite rock and watch the waves.

I want to have things under control, like in a computer. I want to be able to put people in the trash, or at least in the appropriate folders. People should stay in their own worksheet, in the assigned cell, away from where I am. I want power to keep people under control. I want to be left alone at least, if I cannot achieve control... or I will achieve control by going away. I need to go away. I need to go away fast. I can't take this repetitive job any more. I was tired after just 6 months of this bank in rome, and yet I've kept doing it for 7 years already. How much more of this can I take? Maybe I should have accepted my dad's offer to give me some money to invest. But he'd take it back... and anyway I am afraid of losing money... when i have money i lose control. Money gets to my head.

What i'd need from my dad and mom is their blessing to say "it's ok to quit your job and we'll help you if you need". But instead they say "you can't quit your job until regular retirement age" and "it's not safe to quit your job". But then why the hell did I start trading to begin with? I did it because I don't like to have ANY jobs. I don't want to work. Everyone around me, relatives, friends, they all say it is not safe nowadays to quit a job with a steady paycheck. They all recommend to keep trading as a hobby. Obviously I disagree, but they definitely make me think twice about quitting my job, also because i'd have to ask them for money in case it was a mistake, and I don't want to ask for money. Especially not from those I'd disappoint by quitting my job. They definitely have a point.

The thing is that... maybe I should try to increase my part-time schedule even further and leave the office at 14. But they never will let me do it. They might even take back what i have been allowed so far. The ideal thing would be some medical cause of retirement. A tumor like the one I had before. A nervous breakdown, but that's unlikely. A tumor i don't want to have that, but if it has to happen, it should happen quickly to give me a reason to quit my job again, like I did last time (but then had to come back because i failed at trading). I need another excuse to quit my job again and try to make a living with trading. They just won't fire me. That's impossible.

It was fun writing freely for a while in here. This is my only place where I am really free. I can't kill the neighbour bitch, i can't quit my job, I can't do anything. I can only write my mind in here. This is all I have. My excel, my computers and my journal. These are the only places where I have complete control of everything and complete freedom.

I am like this. I am used to having my way. No wonder i was in conflict with my boss: he actually wanted to have his way, that delusional moron. Doesn't he know that i take orders from no one? You have to convince me and pray to me to do things. You can't just say or think and I execute. And if you're an idiot, nothing you'll say will convince me so... there you go. That's where all the problems came from. He expected that by merely being the boss I'd do... well, I ultimately let him have his way. But he gave me a nervous breakdown. And since he's an idiot, I could not give him one.

Going to bed now.
 
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overjoyed

Dude, the systems are making money like crazy. I am overjoyed and yet worried. Usual unmentionable concerns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1_SZ5CmPJQ

As I mentioned last weekend I will not post my equity line anymore, because it's getting too good and it will just mean showing off at this point. There's no need for self-pats on the back. I am satisfied by simply seeing the capital grow. But let's say that we couldn't be doing better.
 
Re: overjoyed

Hi Mate

I disagree that posting the equity line/analysis etc would be bragging. Anyone who has read your journal, both this one and the original and been a keen observer of your progress to this point, would I(am sure, not view at as such, particularly as you havbe been so honest about the drawdowns and demons etc. Indeed I for one and many others I am sure am interested to see the story through to you achieving your goals, warts and all..please re-consider.

Thanks

Best as always,

BBmac.

travis said:
As I mentioned last weekend I will not post my equity line anymore, because it's getting too good and it will just mean showing off at this point. There's no need for self-pats on the back. I am satisfied by simply seeing the capital grow. But let's say that we couldn't be doing better.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the precious feedback.

Hmm, ok, I will post it from time to time. It's just amazing. I don't want to glorify myself. I feel that somehow one can discuss failures, but should be quiet about success. Maybe I could send it privately to those asking for it. I mean, if it just keeps going up... what sense does it make to post it? Anyway, probably I'll wait for a drawdown and then post it, so at once it feels better for me (to complain, as I do all the time) and it also is less about bragging, because I am actually showing a drawdown.
 
Lol, Thanks, look forward to it and you can almost guarantee there will be drawdowns such is the 'cycle' and character of your equity curve to date although I am sure it's nature may change as different systems are added/taken away.

G/L

travis said:
Thanks for the precious feedback.

Hmm, ok, I will post it from time to time. It's just amazing. I don't want to glorify myself. I feel that somehow one can discuss failures, but should be quiet about success. Maybe I could send it privately to those asking for it. I mean, if it just keeps going up... what sense does it make to post it? Anyway, probably I'll wait for a drawdown and then post it, so at once it feels better for me (to complain, as I do all the time) and it also is less about bragging, because I am actually showing a drawdown.
Click to expand...
 
Yes, it's impossible not to have a drawdown, because even just one loss means a drawdown. However, what I meant by it is a drawdown that lasts over 2 weeks. Once that happens, I will be back here, telling about how depressed I am, so I can also show the equity line to those who are interested.
 
No equity line this weekend either, because it was an excellent week and no drawdown at all.

I have finally finished all new systems, and devised a complex margin spreadsheet which will enable us to find out at all times of the day (and day of the week) how much margin is needed for the systems we want to trade.

If I weren't in a team right now, I would feel overwhelmed by happiness. Instead I am in a team, and I have my hands tied, so I am overwhelmed all right, but there's no damage I can do. This is a very precious thing. In other recent times, I was alone, I went all the way up to 30k of capital, starting with just 4k or so, and each time I lost it all, because by the time I got to 30k i was ecstatc, euphoric... unable to reason, and I wasn't even entirely automated so this state of mind affected my trading, and... well, here's my equity lines of those years:

year_1.jpg

year_2.jpg

I won't specify the years to keep some privacy, but it's quite recent.

 
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yeah, you guess right: today no work

Yeah. Today was saturday and I did (almost) no work on the systems. Except pasting the trades from IB's reports to my registry of trades.

I got woken up as usual by the neighbouring bitch slamming her door, after only 7 hours of sleep. Then I was in a coma all day long, watching movies and all that.



Damage done to this song... by these two guys above, and it has to be fixed by the two guys below:



I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When I came to the UK for two weeks in 1988 and was supposed to learn English, that is when I discovered... they made me discover at the same time the beatles and simon and garfunkel in that english class, as a way to learn english. One of the songs was "eleanor rigby" and another one was homeward bound:


I wish I could find that teacher from decades ago and thank her.


If you think about it, Simon and Garfunkel is one of those rare cases where quality achieved mainstream success.


You know it's not always like this. For example, madonna is a huge success yet no quality. Other obvious example of non-quality reaching mainstream success: brad pitt, tom cruise, nicole kidman, steven spielberg, and the list goes on and on...

So let us rejoice about the beatles and simon and garfunkel. But especially Queen, even more than the beatles. There's no comparison. Beatles are to Queen like a plumber to a violinist. Yes, good plumbers. I might even like the beatles better than queen, but "love me do"... that crap.. you know what I mean. Queen certainly didn't do any "love me do" crap.


Yeah, I'd do her. Any time. As long as she doesn't sing it.


There she goes and destroys another song.


Yeah, but you'll say: "of course, he wrote it"... true, but just the lyrics. Because...


That's right. The French, once again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comme_D'habitude

They were there first, on those notes. Just like for this other song:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Sea_(song)
 
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frustrated

I am frustrated about some issues I cannot mention. Other than this, that hostess we met last Sunday is sick and asked me to tell her some hospital so today I might go with her to the hospital. Yeah, pretty sad. She didn't call me to get it on, but to take her to the hospital. Actually she didn't call me but wrote me an email.

Yeah, so today it might be quite an unpleasant. On the other hand, if I go to the hospital with her, then I'll stay away from the computer screen, which is always a good thing.

But since she's not calling me, then it's time to watch another movie. Or at least I'll start it and then walk around the house in my underwear as usual, until something interesting comes up in the movie.

I just found a new web site for watching online movies:
http://www.youtube.com/movies

Watching this one now:
http://veehd.com/video/4289422_Fast-Food-Nation-2006
 
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