my journal 2

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You're right. I am hoping that I will learn how to be profitable. It's not like I decided "starting today I will be profitable". I definitely will keep on trying. But I've often been wrong in my appraisal in how hard this thing would be.
 
Do you use any calming techniques whilst your in a trade to try and alleviate the build up in anxiety? Your problems seem to be focused towards the sense of pressure and need to perform when a trade has been placed. Getting yourself into a calmer state when trading could have quite a significant impact on your results. A bit out there I know but I have a very 'chilled out' radio station playing in the back ground during a day when I'm trading. Definitely keeps me in a calmer state than I otherwise would be.

Still out off all trades however EURUSD looks like it might be ready for a another leg down.
Daily Chart Bearish
Test of near term support 13800 - failed to get above this level today
Price rallied to 20 MA and bounced off today
Next support around 13100
Seriously considering entering short for a slightly longer term trade if price breaks lows established today.
Very Tempting
 
Yes, thanks for your advice. It might be the case that I need to focus on my serenity as I trade. I am doing a lot of that while playing the chart game, and writing down how my emotional balance changes as I trade (win, lose, and so on). With the present state of mind, I can handle one trade per day. More than that, and I get nervous, irrational.

As far as the EUR, I see it quite oversold right now, but my opinion doesn't count because I am LONG on it, so I don't know what I am seeing and what I am hoping for.
 
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Market Wizards

Quote by Paul Tudor Jones:

...I have always been a swing trader, meaning that I believe the very best money is to be made at the market turns. Everyone says you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all the money by catching the trends in the middle. Well, for twelve years, I have often been missing the meat in the middle, but I have caught a lot of bottoms and tops.
If you are a trend follower trying to catch the profits in the middle of a move, you have to use very wide stops. I'm not comfortable doing that. Also, markets trend only about 15 percent of the time; the rest of the time they move sideways.
 
Re: Market Wizards

Interesting view.. and lets be honest - the very best out there did not make money doing what all the rest did..

Will be interesting to see which way the EURUSD goes.. good luck!
 
If you log onto the secret journal you can read my secret strategy, which rarely fails, but which I am not patient enough to follow!

Ask the other fellow on the blog if you don't believe me.

Such strategy predicts an overnight reversal. Of course I started my LONG way too early. As usual. And now I am losing money.
 
If you log onto the secret journal you can read my secret strategy, which rarely fails, but which I am not patient enough to follow!

Ask the other fellow on the blog if you don't believe me.

Such strategy predicts an overnight reversal. Of course I started my LONG way too early. As usual. And now I am losing money.

Thanks T - will take a look. Headed out to dinner with the missus in about half an hour so will be a late read.
 
There! I've lasted for 50 trades with the usual (see a few posts above) strategy: 10 percent stoploss and 20 percent takeprofit. Making the 4 types of trades that I've mentioned: LONG ABOVE S/R, and SHORT below S/R.

http://www.chartgame.com/trackrecord.cgi?8hgd2b-15,56

Then after 50 trades I got pissed off for a loss, and started screwing around. I guess the same happens with real trading, but usually after less than 5 trades.

If I ever want to make it as a discretionary trader, I'll need lots and lots of practice.
 
Good. 10 trades, all within the rules. 10% loss and 20% takeprofit. Didn't go too well, but I am satisfied because I followed all the rules. Right now I will keep going 10 trades at a time because that's really all I can take mentally. If i go any further i start skipping stoplosses.

Snap1.jpg

http://www.chartgame.com/trackrecord.cgi?8hgd2b-18,11

I should do another 200 runs like this one, trying to get better a little bit a time. But always keeping my trades down to 10 at a time. So I can keep on improving my accuracy. If I try to improve everything at once, I just end up screwing around. Instead, I'll keep trades fixed at 10, so I can work on accuracy and on getting used to discipline. I am still so far away from being able to trade with real money profitably... so far I just can't see.

 
Done it again. This time I made money: 30% return on the 10k.

5 wins and 5 losses, but the wins are 20% and the losses were 10%. I am pretty satisfied. It'd be great if I got so good and it became so mechanical that I could make 10 trades and always end up with a profitable outcome. But right now it'd still be a miracle if:

1) I kept practicing this method for a few days without changing it again
2) I kept using it as it is, applying all the rules I create and creating only rules I apply

I find a hard time applying my strict rules because markets are so irregular.

Anyway, here's the ten trades:

Snap1.jpg

http://www.chartgame.com/trackrecord.cgi?8hgd2b-19,10

There will be a huge difference if I can make this system of ten trades with mechanical rules work. Because a few weeks ago I did get 10k to become 100k within a few trades, and even got 10k to 50k with less than 10 trades. However I also got so many bad runs where I blew out my account and had to start all over again. I sometimes doubled my account and then got back to zero because I lost 90% on just one trade. I'd trade very happily those amazing records with tranquillity, stability and regularity. Being able to make always money on any 10 trades is far better than getting 10k to 100k one time (and with great stress and efforts) and blowing out my account the next time. Compounding takes care of everything, if you can first of all achieve a regular profit.
 
show the other cheek

Anyway, my secret method is not that big a secret. I will state it once more on my journal to clarify my ideas.

The method that works almost always on the futures I trade (and I suppose on all futures) is this:

1) at 3 PM CST (central standard time, chicago)
2) look for a highly oversold/overbought future
3) bet it will bounce and go the other way
4) close your position about 12 hours later, at 3 AM CST, or earlier as it stalls or stops going where you expected it to go

There is only one problem with this method. Do I wait until 3 PM CST? Nope. Each time, I get home from work at 9 AM CST, and place my trade almost immediately. Will I ever have the discipline required to profit from this method? I don't know.

The method requires that I trade once a day, at 3 PM CST (and close that trade 12 hours later, regardless of any stoploss: not necessary). Will I do what it takes to make money?

Do I really give a damn about making money or do i care more about venting out my frustration by doing impulse trades? I will see.

I never thought I'd be so impulsive: I am not impulsive in anything, except the markets. Maybe that's exactly because I was educated to repress my own impulses and thoughts that I can't resist them when I trade. I was taught that I cannot swear, I cannot have dirty thoughts, I cannot be violent... and at the same I have to take all this crap from everyone else: show the other cheek, that's right. That's how I was brought up. This is an explosive mix for a trader and for any individual: it will make you very frustrated.

Of course now I am atheist but that type of education, whereby everything is pretty much a sin, totally interfered with my serenity and peace of mind. And this is the part of education that came from my mom. Because from my dad I got a different and just as frustrating education: that i had to be perfect, and that anything less was a real shame, and yet there was no reward for perfection. Kind of like the father in The Great Santini (movie with Robert Duvall). It's as if I had been brought up by a colonel and a nun. This ****ed up childhood and upbringing is what haunts me today and for the past 12 years as a trader (besides giving me insomnia), and even my automated trading wasn't immune from this ****ed up mind of mine, because I interfered with it.

No wonder after such a ****ed up life and upbringing, my hero was taxi driver's travis bickle, because he just goes out and shoots everyone which is actually a strong drive I'm feeling within myself. I'd love to wake up one day and shoot a few people, authors of a long list of abuses I've had to put up with. Right, because I was never confrontational, but that doesn't rule out killing. Right, I was never the kind of guy who bull****s: I am not going to threaten you, because I will definitely not punch you. But I would be ok with killing people. I am against violence, but not against disappearance. Drowning someone is not that violent. Nor is poisoning. I guess my mom would be ok with it, too.

Anyway, don't alert the police because I won't kill anyone. What I'll do is, if I have enough money, get a lawyer and sue everyone, or live on an island and get rid of all the people i don't like. Or rather, look for a place where there's nice people, like vegetarians and similar people. Somewhere like Norway, that has the lowest homicide rate in Europe.

I wouldn't be surprised if all these people whose favorite movie is taxi driver were brought up with "show the other cheek".
 
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new mother ****ing system

I am sick and tired of losing money because I don't use a stoploss and because I make bad entries by entering early. Yesterday I lost another 1000 dollars because of my wrong entry.

I will still not use a stoploss - only a time exit - but here's my new system, from here (3k) to 10k (then my systems will start trading again):

1) at 3 PM CST, enter the DX in the opposite direction of where we've gone all day (if it doesn't look good, you can stay flat)
2) place a takeprofit of one third the previous move (just in case it goes my way and then comes back)
3) if it didn't get executed during the night (European night), exit right before going to work, at about 1 AM CST.

I believe this system will make me about 200 dollars a day. Lose a little bit once a week. Overall I'll make 600 dollars per week. No point in doing other things since I am positive this thing will work.

In alternative I can use it on the ZN, if it looks better. That's all. It's pretty much automated actually, but I can't build yet another system: I've 42 of them, the excel workbook is heavy enough as it is. I am done with building any more systems. Even though this is entirely automated. I don't care: the point is making money, not working on excel. If it'll work, then i'll automate later or have someone else do it for me.

Now, back to my tests on the chart game.
 
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Lost 5% but not out of control, just like in the past 10 games. One loss went one extra week because I was distracted by the tv and clicked too fast.

http://www.chartgame.com/trackrecord.cgi?8hgd2b-24,9

The worst I should do is about minus 66%, because, with 10 losses, I should have this capital decrease:

90%
81%
73%
66%
59%
53%
48%
43%
39%
35%

I'll keep on playing and if my capital never goes below 33%, it will mean that I am being disciplined. The objective is not only this but also that I'll learn to have just profitable 10 trade series. I'll keep on doing 10 trades at a time so I can measure my improvements.
 
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Still only 5 wins out of 10 trade, but since the wins are bigger, I made 10%.

http://www.chartgame.com/trackrecord.cgi?8hgd2b-25,10

What is very important is that I am getting used to the stoploss. Have made already dozens of trades and I am not feeling tired. Overall I am profitable. If I can keep going like this, ultimately I'll be able to do hundreds of trades at a time, with almost a guarantee that I will be profitable every 10 trades, so my capital with this method could grow endlessly. I am at the same time trying to define univocally my entries, which are these usual 4 types:

LONG above s/r
SHORT below s/r
 
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