my journal 2

[Yamato]

Well, thank you for the feedback. You didn't divulge about your family but you shared with us that trick about poker. I know what you mean by self-discipline. Among the other problems, I can't resist impulses, especially lately. I have gotten so impatient that I can't even wait windows to reboot without getting irritated. Well, let's keep in touch on this journal - maybe you'll want to share more in the future. I do have problems, but don't forget my objective is automated trading right now (also that's what I wanted some of my dad's money for), so I am not worried about my failure as a discretionary trader. In fact in the past few months, I've tried to quit it altogether (ever since I started this journal), rather than trying to learn it. I've started this journal to learn what was wrong with me - and it worked. I didn't know I was a compulsive gambler until recently.

 

[brettus]

Well, thank you for the feedback. You didn't divulge about your family but you shared with us that trick about poker. I know what you mean by self-discipline. Among the other problems, I can't resist impulses, especially lately. I have gotten so impatient that I can't even wait windows to reboot without getting irritated. Well, let's keep in touch on this journal - maybe you'll want to share more in the future. I do have problems, but don't forget my objective is automated trading right now (also that's what I wanted some of my dad's money for), so I am not worried about my failure as a discretionary trader. In fact in the past few months, I've tried to quit it altogether (ever since I started this journal), rather than trying to learn it. I've started this journal to learn what was wrong with me - and it worked. I didn't know I was a compulsive gambler until recently.

Yea my goal is automated trading. I dont see the point in discretionary trading when im trading off pretty much a fixed idea, which could be automated, and the fact that for every trade i see i will be missing 5 similar trades. That can be a good thing though. One thing i do that helps me lose track of my winnings because i think sometimes you may be up like 2.3k for the month for example and you think that you only want to risk 300 max is stupid but does play on you alot. Know what you are up or down for the month can mess with your trading, so what i do is everytime i make a winning trade of say 500, i will take out 350 or any amount up to 500, and if i lose 500 i will add an amount up to 500 into my account. I try to lose track of whether i'm up or down for the day, week or month. No goals for the month of 10%, just trades that either win or lose. Your head will know if you're up for the month, but not how much. I generally find that i'm up and i dont feel the need to make the money back if i lose first day of the month. If my account is at 40k at the start of the month and i look at it in 2 weeks time and its 41.5k i wont know if i'm up 1.5k or not. I'll check in 3 months time to see how i'm doing, adding up the withdrawals, deposits, profits and losses. I play 10 tables at a time, if i lose my 20$ on one table i go to another table. I'll find that on one table i'll have 100$ on one table and lose on 3 tables. I feel like i'm not doing well but im up 40$. It's like cutting your losses short and running your profits. It works in poker too. You have your bad days though, when luck doesnt go your way. Look for tables with high average pot sizes, normally people calling with crap. You will lose sometimes but percentages win eventually.

 

[Yamato]

Yeah, I am a big fan of diversification as well. I know it should play in my favor, but the problem is that with a small capital you can't diversify, and you're encouraged to take bigger risks to get a bigger capital, and that way it never grows. That's what happened to me until here. Among the many causes of my gambling there was also an urge to increase my capital.

 

[brettus]

Yeah, I am a big fan of diversification as well. I know it should play in my favor, but the problem is that with a small capital you can't diversify, and you're encouraged to take bigger risks to get a bigger capital, and that way it never grows. That's what happened to me until here. Among the many causes of my gambling there was also an urge to increase my capital.

That's where you fail. Get some good capital together first. 20k minimum. If you cant then don't trade. I wouldnt recommend anyone else trading 20k to begin with probably like 2k max, but i think you're at the stage where you need this amount to progress.

 

[Yamato]

I've had a capital of 20k and even 30k before, and it often came from starting with a few thousands, but I still felt pressure to make more money and make it faster, and this lead to discretionary trading, and blowing out accounts.

You see, as I wrote before, my parents and everyone, even I, agree on the fact that to quit my job I'd need to have a capital of at least 500k, and then I would have to set it aside (not even invest it). And the more I dislike my job and the city I am living in, the more I have been rushing to that 500k, sometimes rushing things worked (I doubled my account for several months in a row), but inevitably, taking these huge risks, lead to blowing out my account once every few months. And this is just the good last 2 years I am talking about, thanks to automated trading, because, before automated trading, I was only trading discretionary (while developing the systems) and blowing out my account practically every month, continuously, ever since 1997, yet never seeing any doubling of capital: it was just going down from the start to the end. I just lost everything over and over again. Usually went from a few thousands to 0, over and over again.

Also, and I am again referring to the last two years, I could not take the systems' drawdown. When I came home and found a 1000 dollars loss by the systems, or even just 500 dollars, I'd engage in revenge trading to make it back. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't, and when it didn't, I got even more upset. I take losses personally. I take everything personally (it offended me when you wrote I have a "weak personality"), even a neighbour slamming the door, which he/she did right now. I get offended easily, and I am intolerant. I am a control freak. Ideally, I'd like to have the world under control and to be able to kill people I don't like and who bother me, or at least make them disappear. The first people on my list are the neighbours.

 

[brettus]

I've had a capital of 20k and even 30k before, and it often came from starting with a few thousands, but I still felt pressure to make more money and make it faster, and this lead to discretionary trading, and blowing out accounts.

You see, as I wrote before, my parents and everyone, even I, agree on the fact that to quit my job I'd need to have a capital of at least 500k, and then I would have to set it aside (not even invest it). And the more I dislike my job and the city I am living in, the more I have been rushing to that 500k, sometimes rushing things worked (I doubled my account for several months in a row), but inevitably, taking these huge risks, lead to blowing out my account once every few months. And this is just the good last 2 years I am talking about, thanks to automated trading, because, before automated trading, I was only trading discretionary (while developing the systems) and blowing out my account practically every month, continuously, ever since 1997, yet never seeing any doubling of capital: it was just going down from the start to the end. I just lost everything over and over again. Usually went from a few thousands to 0, over and over again.

Also, and I am again referring to the last two years, I could not take the systems' drawdown. When I came home and found a 1000 dollars loss by the systems, or even just 500 dollars, I'd engage in revenge trading to make it back. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't, and when it didn't, I got even more upset. I take losses personally. I take everything personally (it offended me when you wrote I have a "weak personality"), even a neighbour slamming the door, which he/she did right now. I get offended easily, and I am intolerant. I am a control freak. Ideally, I'd like to have the world under control and to be able to kill people I don't like and who bother me, or at least make them disappear. The first people on my list are the neighbours.

Where's the little voice in your head telling you not to revenge trade? That should grow everytime you do it. Mine does. Well there you have it, you need 500k to progress not 20k. What does that tell you? Get your automated system to work on a small amount? The goal isnt to make money but show you can make a return consistently. Dont even look at it like earning a living off it, but just a project? Then you can work out how to turn it into a hedge fund or get people to invest in you. Even i would if you could prove you make consistent returns.

 

[Adamus]

Travis is like Sissyphus, doomed to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he can reach the top of the hill, the rock will always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.

We try to tell him either not to roll the rock, or how he can roll it successfully, but up till now, no-one has managed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus#cite_note-1

 

[Yamato]

Where's the little voice in your head telling you not to revenge trade? That should grow everytime you do it. Mine does. Well there you have it, you need 500k to progress not 20k. What does that tell you? Get your automated system to work on a small amount? The goal isnt to make money but show you can make a return consistently. Dont even look at it like earning a living off it, but just a project? Then you can work out how to turn it into a hedge fund or get people to invest in you. Even i would if you could prove you make consistent returns.

Yes, thanks for the offer. As a matter of fact, right now that's exactly what's happening. I got in touch with someone else reading this journal, who's investing in my systems right now. I knew it from the start, and it's happened as I knew it would happened: while trading the systems with someone else's money, the urge to trade discretionary was much less, and I was able to resist it: the urge to be reliable/responsible and keep my word was much stronger than the urge to gamble. Interestingly, I was trading the same systems for someone else and, on another server, for my account. Two weeks ago, there was quite a bit of a drawdown in the managed caused by my systems (and by the unusual markets). In my account, instead, there could have been less of a drawdown because I second-guessed my systems from the start and entered at a better price, but instead of losing less, as was going to happen, I kept that same trade open longer and lost more. Then, because of that disappointment, I engaged in revenge trading... in short the managed account experienced a drawdown, and my account was blown out.

Regarding that little voice in my head, it never grew, I never heard any voice - if anything I heard a voice saying "**** them all". That's the sick side of me. There's something irrational and defective in my behaviour, just like in many other humans: some people drink themselves to death, others smoke... others abuse their children (like my dad)... the difference with trading is that it makes you realize faster that you are hurting yourself. You can't keep on saying that you trade to make money, if you're constantly losing money. Sooner or later you have to stop, even before understanding why you are doing it. I still don't know why I behaved the way I behaved: now I know there was some compulsion/compulsiveness elements to it. I thought I was trading to make money, or at least to learn to make money, but after 13 years, it's obviously not a good explanation, or at least not the whole explanation.

 

[brettus]

Travis is like Sissyphus, doomed to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he can reach the top of the hill, the rock will always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.

We try to tell him either not to roll the rock, or how he can roll it successfully, but up till now, no-one has managed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus#cite_note-1

The rock just gets bigger and bigger each year, if you don't continue to grow your balance. It's like world's strongest man when they pick up the atlas balls, if you dont get the last ball up first time then it becomes increasingly more difficult to pick it up. You need a reality check Travis. 1k a month is better than +2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2, -22. Risk 1%-2% per trade. You're not better than that. This is what most successful traders do. I'm sure alot of them have gone through the same stupidity as all of us risking more. How much can you make a month realistically using 1%-2% pre trade per month?

 

[Yamato]

Travis is like Sissyphus, doomed to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he can reach the top of the hill, the rock will always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.

We try to tell him either not to roll the rock, or how he can roll it successfully, but up till now, no-one has managed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus#cite_note-1

Yes, that's a very good point. So far I seem doomed to keep on making unrealistic and therefore self-defeating efforts. Thanks to this journal at least I am opening my eyes to what the **** is up with me. I definitely belong in the category of compulsive gamblers so far. At the same time, I am a very hard-working mechanical trader. But the gambling side of me has been overwhelming.

 

[Yamato]

The rock just gets bigger and bigger each year, if you don't continue to grow your balance. It's like world's strongest man when they pick up the atlas balls, if you dont get the last ball up first time then it becomes increasingly more difficult to pick it up. You need a reality check Travis. 1k a month is better than +2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2,+2, -22. Risk 1%-2% per trade. You're not better than that. This is what most successful traders do. I'm sure alot of them have gone through the same stupidity as all of us risking more. How much can you make a month realistically using 1%-2% pre trade per month?

Yeah, I am here to show how I am, and get criticized, just as you guys are doing - and force myself to open my eyes. And I agree with you. I can reason fine, as long as I don't have a TWS platform opened up in front of me, and I can see things clearly.

But when the markets are open, and TWS is running in front of my eyes, and I see prices moving and my own account has enough margin, I stop reasoning and I look like a drug addict. Now that my account has not enough margin to trade, I can run my systems in forward-testing and manage the other account (as I said, I don't gamble with other people's money) without any self-defeating urges.

You see, just as I wrote in my profile a year ago, it happens gradually. I wire the money, my systems trade. This happens for a week. Beware that i have to check on them at least once a day. But I check much more than that. I can't stop checking, because I am compulsive. Then, as I check on things, I see prices moving. Pretty soon I start looking at charts. By the third week, I spot an opportunity. By the fourth week, I try seizing an opportunity, to either end a trade sooner, or even start a brand new trade. Usually it works well, and I do help my systems. Then I get cocky, and pretty soon I make more trades, this time less reasonable. Within two weeks of my resumed discretionary trading, one of these trades goes wrong. Usually I don't take it well, and I double up on the losing trade, rather than closing it. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes I blow out my account because of it.

 

[Yamato]

What I was saying the other day was not just about my father not helping me out financially during my life. The biggest problem was emotional. He gave me all he could in terms of education, even more than I wanted. He then destroyed all the work he thought he did, by telling me relentlessly that I was worthless, regardless of how well I did. I was one of the top students in my class, but he kept on pushing me more and more, until I just gave up studying completely, and started skipping classes, two months worth of classes every year. Maybe he was sick - as I always say - or maybe he thought he would get me to do more by telling me that i was worthless in every field he could imagine of. Well, he definitely overdid it, and got me to feel chronically insecure, negative, depressed. So when I complain about him, I am mostly referring to the moral support I never had. He never even apologized to me once for how badly he treated me. I still resent him also because of this.

 

[Yamato]

interesting stuff: macau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Macau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_Joaquim_Rocha_Vieira
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_the_sovereignty_of_Macau

 

[Yamato]

"Error exporting report (20027). Unable to open clipboard."

Spending a whole day solving a Tradestation 2000i bug. Still not solved yet. The problem is that it won't export the strategy report (on excel).

http://www.google.it/search?q=error...tartPage=1&redir_esc=&ei=vaA5TKiuHZKmOOfStIoK

I suppose that many people had the same problem, but few talk about it on the web - actually only one person talks about it, and another person replies he's solved it and how (didn't work for me):
http://www.purebytes.com/archives/omega/2001/msg05024.html

Installed, uninstalled, done acronis, changed data, changed data names, changed .orw names, changed strategy, changed computer, installed updates, rebooted computers... I've tried everything I could think of in the past few hours and it still gives me that same error. The only thing left is to try and change today's date, artificially.

One thing that amazed me is that I didn't have this problem on the other computer, the two computers didn't exchange files, and now I have the same problem on the other computer.

Nope: even changing today's date won't solve the problem. The good thing is that now I can focus on just one computer since the other computer shows the same exact problem. I've had this problem before and solved it by reinstalling tradestation over itself, but this time it didn't work.

Since I only have to create another 10 systems and then I'll be done, I will probably just take snapshots of the performance reports, and then forget tradestation 2000i for the rest of my life. And either stop creating systems or use new programs, which are not 10 years old.

**** **** ****!

Just as I was editing this post, and adding above:

I suppose that many people had the same problem, but few talk about it on the web - actually only one person talks about it, and another person replies he's solved it and how (didn't work for me):
http://www.purebytes.com/archives/omega/2001/msg05024.html...

I double-checked the only method suggested by one person on the web, and guess what: it worked. So I actually solved the problem - after trying for hours - simply because, thanks to explaining the problem out loud here, I double-checked the solution suggested by the one person who helped the one person who's written about this problem. This is definitely the first time something like this happens.

So I opened up Internet Explorer, copied some text from this page and pasted it onto an excel sheet, and then tried using tradestation and exporting a report and it worked. Now I can finally go back to work. Thanks, Mats Bengtsson (a Swedish computer science professor):

...If you have some other applications, try cutting and pasting between them using the clipboard...

How could I ever imagine something like this would work? I don't know jack **** about how computers work. I had tried it earlier, but I didn't copy across applications: just from notepad to notepad, saw it worked, and yet that it didn't solve my tradestation problem. Always double-check things. That's one quality of compulsive people.

-----

Later edit:

In the meanwhile the mother ****ing problem has happened again and the solution suggested by Bengtsson is not working any more. So maybe it never had worked and it's something else that worked but I don't know what.

 

[Adamus]

You see, just as I wrote in my profile a year ago, it happens gradually. I wire the money, my systems trade. This happens for a week. Beware that i have to check on them at least once a day. But I check much more than that. I can't stop checking, because I am compulsive. Then, as I check on things, I see prices moving. Pretty soon I start looking at charts. By the third week, I spot an opportunity. By the fourth week, I try seizing an opportunity, to either end a trade sooner, or even start a brand new trade. Usually it works well, and I do help my systems. Then I get cocky, and pretty soon I make more trades, this time less reasonable.....

Travis,

I'm launching my Plan B: day trading. I'm not giving up on the system building, I just can't depend on it alone at this point since I haven't got anything I'm happy to trade yet.

I have a vague idea that your discretionary trading is bottom picking and you said at one point you were going to teach a friend of yours to trade. Obviously I've got a plan but it's not definite yet, and I'll be simulated trading for a while, so I figured I'd ask what you recommend, if you fancy sharing?

 

[Yamato]

Well, as I must have already explained, I cannot trade discretionary but I wanted my friend to learn so I could have him teach me or at least turn his ideas into systems. And in fact, even though he never turned profitable as a discretionary trader, he did give me enough ideas to build about 10 systems, such as the volatility breakout systems. Of course my plan was fair, in that I wanted to give him some money to trade, but I never got to that point. First because he never had 3 profitable months we agreed on, and second of all because I never had the spare 10k to give him.

So, recapitulating, neither he nor I are profitable discretionary traders, but I did build 10 profitable systems thanks to his ideas (volatility breakout systems and some other ideas).

So I cannot teach you discretionary trading, but I could give you some ideas from my back-testing experience.

As far as top and bottom picking you have to first of all wait for the right time and for the right amount of overstretchedness.

It would be advisable to follow all or at least 3 of these principles (but I could never follow them because I am too impatient):

1) wait until 22.00 CET
2) wait until the CL is oversold by about 300 ticks, or the EUR/GBP and other currencies by about 200 ticks.
3) go only LONG because that direction is the most likely direction (so only bottom-picking).
4) wait for support, in the form of pivots on the EUR, or 100s of ticks on everything else.

Make your overnight trade and hold it for 12 hours, or enter a takeprofit which is about one third of the day's range. Up to you: you will make money more often but will make less.

This method is profitable, for sure. The problem is that it happens very rarely, and it makes you so bored that you end up making other trades that blow out your account. At least that's been the case for me.

During the night, you're likely to have reversals. After a big fall, there tends to be rises. At support levels, there tends to be bounces. And prices tend to go up more than down.

So you can see why this system will work, besides being back-tested, which is actually how I found out some of the things I said above.

All my systems are like this - simple and not trading often and could be manually executed - but I am too impatient even to let the systems trade automated - it's a disaster. I am a very sick person.

Today I was frustrated about something and went to eat, and it reminded me that, during the week, that's exactly what I used to do: when I was frustrated about something and had a disturbing thought, I would go and place a trade. That's how ****ed up I am and that's why I could never make any money trading.

 

[Adamus]

That's really interesting, and surprising. That's really not how I think about trading, how I imagine I would day trade. Day trading is a bad term - I mean short term discretionary.

You say 'oversold' so you mean using an oscillator and you mean 300 ticks on CL below where it first becomes oversold, I figure?

I like the idea of going long only. I could definitely do that - in fact I split my trading systems into long & short trials when doing backtesting runs to separate out the trading direction completely. With forex that I've been concentrating on recently, with IB at least you just have to switch the pair around and you see the market from the other direction, so maybe it makes meaningless to say long only. At least apart from CL.

For discretionary trading though I figure I would always try to trade intuitively rather than technically because technical stuff would always make me think I could be programming it and I think it would be counter-productive to try to beat a computer at its own game. You though have made a fair few comments about overriding your systems to improve them. You're definitely coming from a different angle to me there.

Interesting stuff.

 

[Yamato]

Yeah, thank you.

Regarding your question: I don't mean using an oscillator: that is why I said 300 ticks and 200 ticks. Otherwise I would have said "use this oscillator and wait for this value...".

On forex, regarding the fact that it goes up and down equally you are right, but in fact the time cycles of forex are related to those of the stock indexes (they move in the same direction), so when I say 22.00 CET, that time is still more likely to be a long move rather than short - even for forex.

In the meanwhile that mother ****ing problem of tradestation (see two posts above) has happened again and the solution suggested on the web is not working any more. So maybe it never had worked and it's something else that worked but I don't know what.

 

[Adamus]

Regarding your question: I don't mean using an oscillator: that is why I said 300 ticks and 200 ticks. Otherwise I would have said "use this oscillator and wait for this value...".

I assumed you were talking about an oscillator to tell you when it's moved into oversold territory.

You could have meant 200 or 300 ticks from the level when the oscillator hit oversold.

Otherwise, how do you define it? Do you look at the bar chart and decide from that alone?

 

[Yamato]

Yeah, I look at when the day is down 300 ticks on the CL and 200 ticks on the EUR, GBP and the rest of them currencies.

However, I am an unprofitable discretionary trader, so feel free to ignore my little theories.