Trading Naked - Part 2

[Bloodhound]

Hi Owain,

Just a thought, but have you had a look at using a blog as the basis for your journal? You can keep this as a completely unpublished private record of your trading and I personally found that a blog is an incredibly user-friendly way of setting down one's thoughts, charts etc.

All the best

Rob

 

[HawkTrader]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the suggestion! And yes, that is what I'm doing. Inspired by your blog actually! Did you notice that when you started your blog, you win/loss ratio was approx 60% and then as you updated, noticed mistakes, etc your win/loss came up to about 70%?
I created a blog at blogspot about a month ago, but as I said never thoroughly updated it. At the moment it is completed private and I don't see any reason to publish it as I doubt anyone will learn much!
I'm going to keep everything I write in word documents too, incase of a server crash, etc, to avoid losing all my charts and notes. Some traders recommend writing your journal with a pen and paper, so that you move away from the screen and take a step back with perhaps clearer thoughts... not sure how you get your charts onto paper unless you print them though!!

Rob, do you keep all your charts on your PC too? I'm going to have a big folder called "2010 Trading Journal" with each quarter, month and trading week with their own folder, and then inside will be the trading days with a "Traded" folder for trades I've made and an "Analysis" folder for general education.

 

[Vaco]

The benefit of a writen journal with printed charts is that you can write your notes directly on to the chart or just below it, then at the end of the week you can sit with a nice cup of tea away from the screen and read through your folder.

imho much easier then trying to go through the same info on the pc.

 

[timsk]

For anyone who day trades, I found this tool absolutely invaluable: Digital Voice Recorder
Making written notes while a trade is live is a tough gig, IMO. This is the perfect solution - and a cheap one too. I have the one I've linked to and it cost about £25.00 two years ago on Amazon, so it ought to be even cheaper now. Listening to one's mumblings in the cold light of the following day can be a shocking and chastening experience! The expression 'you can't argue with the tape' doesn't just apply to time & sales . . !
Treat yourselves to a New Year's pressie - you'll be glad you did.
Tim.

 

[HawkTrader]

The benefit of a writen journal with printed charts is that you can write your notes directly on to the chart or just below it, then at the end of the week you can sit with a nice cup of tea away from the screen and read through your folder.

imho much easier then trying to go through the same info on the pc.

I see what you mean here, I'm sure that when one looks at the same chart but from a different physical position they are likely to see things differently. A computer is quite formal, sitting up straight, desk, so perhaps when one is curled up somewhere with a cup of tea in hand they will have more spontaneity.

For anyone who day trades, I found this tool absolutely invaluable: Digital Voice Recorder
Making written notes while a trade is live is a tough gig, IMO. This is the perfect solution - and a cheap one too. I have the one I've linked to and it cost about £25.00 two years ago on Amazon, so it ought to be even cheaper now. Listening to one's mumblings in the cold light of the following day can be a shocking and chastening experience! The expression 'you can't argue with the tape' doesn't just apply to time & sales . . !
Treat yourselves to a New Year's pressie - you'll be glad you did.
Tim.

Bloody good idea there Tim!

Also on one of the T2W articles Dr Gary Dayton wrote that doing a live video recording (screen capture) of your trading, with a voice over later on can be beneficial. Perhaps that is the answer for scalpers?

 

[Bloodhound]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the suggestion! And yes, that is what I'm doing. Inspired by your blog actually! Did you notice that when you started your blog, you win/loss ratio was approx 60% and then as you updated, noticed mistakes, etc your win/loss came up to about 70%?
I created a blog at blogspot about a month ago, but as I said never thoroughly updated it. At the moment it is completed private and I don't see any reason to publish it as I doubt anyone will learn much!
I'm going to keep everything I write in word documents too, incase of a server crash, etc, to avoid losing all my charts and notes. Some traders recommend writing your journal with a pen and paper, so that you move away from the screen and take a step back with perhaps clearer thoughts... not sure how you get your charts onto paper unless you print them though!!

Rob, do you keep all your charts on your PC too? I'm going to have a big folder called "2010 Trading Journal" with each quarter, month and trading week with their own folder, and then inside will be the trading days with a "Traded" folder for trades I've made and an "Analysis" folder for general education.

I wouldn't hold much sway by my blog and improved win / loss ratio. The reason that improved was mainly due to my realising that I didn't need to trade every day to achieve the results from cable that I was looking for. Incidentally, and probably incorrectly, I count my b/e trades as winners. If I were to count them as losers then my win / loss drops to about 30%. I'd caveat that by saying that a review of all my M5 cable trades over the Xmas periods has highlighted some huge 'howlers' in terms of shoe-horned trades, non-existant set-ups, missed set-ups etc!!

With regards to archiving of charts, I do keep an archive which is filed on one of my pc's as follows:

Month
Instrument
Date of trade / initial set-up

I then have screenshots showing the following for each trade:

Higher tf overview (if applicable)
Entry tf set-up
Screenshot for each time I trail, take profit, add or even think of doing something
Final closing of positions

All the above may seem laborious but I find that keeping good records highlights mistakes but also stops me from messing around with trades so much when I'm in them - a bit like a reformed smoker needing something to do with their hands!!

HTH

 

[HawkTrader]

I wouldn't hold much sway by my blog and improved win / loss ratio. The reason that improved was mainly due to my realising that I didn't need to trade every day to achieve the results from cable that I was looking for. Incidentally, and probably incorrectly, I count my b/e trades as winners. If I were to count them as losers then my win / loss drops to about 30%. I'd caveat that by saying that a review of all my M5 cable trades over the Xmas periods has highlighted some huge 'howlers' in terms of shoe-horned trades, non-existant set-ups, missed set-ups etc!!

With regards to archiving of charts, I do keep an archive which is filed on one of my pc's as follows:

Month
Instrument
Date of trade / initial set-up

I then have screenshots showing the following for each trade:

Higher tf overview (if applicable)
Entry tf set-up
Screenshot for each time I trail, take profit, add or even think of doing something
Final closing of positions

All the above may seem laborious but I find that keeping good records highlights mistakes but also stops me from messing around with trades so much when I'm in them - a bit like a reformed smoker needing something to do with their hands!!

HTH

I plan on doing the same, with screenshots of before and after trades. I find it easier to look back at the trade when there were no candles to the right to notice early warning signs for the future. I'm also going to do it for the intraday timeframes, such at H1 or 15m taking the first screenshot at about 7am and one towards the end of the London session as I pack up!

Any reason why you only keep folders of the month and not weeks too?

 

[Bloodhound]

Any reason why you only keep folders of the month and not weeks too?

I used to keep weekly folders but decided it just added another layer of filing!

 

[HawkTrader]

Makes sense, but I want to do weekly reviews of performance.

 

[Bloodhound]

A few thoughts

Happy New Year everyone!!

Still without internet in my office so borrowing someone's wifi to have a quick look at what's going on and seen a few ideas...

Break up to go long or LrH off level for short?


Retest of b/o level to go short?


Retest of b/o and HrL to go long?


HrL of level to go long


LrH off level to go short or break of level to go long


I'll try and get back online later to see how these did.

Bye for now

Rob

 

[Vaco]

office?

u not trading from home anymore or u mean u don't have internet in the new house yet??

 

[Bloodhound]

Office at home and still no internet. In fact not even any telephone line yet!!

BT meant to be coming this morning but the weather doesn't seem to be on my side!!

 

[Bloodhound]

Update:

EURGBP could be a long instead and GBPCHF short on break of level

 

[Vaco]

BT!!

u poor thing, i'll take cable over BT any day.

 

[Bloodhound]

One more for the melting pot...

 

[Bloodhound]

Update for anyone who's interested:

EURGBP and GBPCHF not looking great to me any more they are boucning around the levels and not respecting them precisely enough for me - just my take BTW

EURJPY - flown to far to be of immediate interest but may look out for a 1-2-3

GBPUSD - flown too far as well for the moment

Focusing on AUDUSD and USDCHF as these look the most promising at the moment

 

[Bloodhound]

Hmmm....

 

[Bloodhound]

Update:

EURGBP could be a long instead and GBPCHF short on break of level

Update:





TP's would / should be at first obvious S/R levels / zones

 

[HawkTrader]

Hi Rob,

It's funny that we have the exact same level on every pair. I've been watching this AUDUSD one since last week. Not the green line (same as your chart) but around 0.9100 as a H4 S/R.

 

[Bloodhound]

Hi Rob,

It's funny that we have the exact same level on every pair. I've been watching this AUDUSD one since last week. Not the green line (same as your chart) but around 0.9100 as a H4 S/R.

Haha - I guess you're probably looking at this as well?