Staying In My Lane - A Read-Only Journ(al/ey)

Opened this trade just to get over my anxiety/fear of NYClose.

I got kicked royally with this last trade yesterday. It was a bad idea to address my anxiety towards NY close but felt it was necessary for my psyche to overcome. That long trade never recovered and kept on holding for a bounce and that never happened either. Long story short, I ended the day in loss and tried to recover during Asian and London but NQ was soo slow in moving, I did not even attempt.
At the crossroads now, should I continue with my second day of live (manual) trading or absorb this loss and get back to algo trading like I have been doing with one live day a month in the past. I am losing faith in the time it will take to complete my algo development journey especially if I cannot develop the confidence I need with tick-based testing. Plus, interacting with Nick on the raw edge discovery of signal via RR has made me realize that is the RIGHT thing to do. Let me explain why the change of heart.

Throughout the futures journey (actually even before I stepped into the futures world), my primary goal was "Is trading a worthwhile endeavor for me to generate income on a consistent basis during retirement"? I felt and still feel it is the right place for me. NExt question was how much? I used the same formula I used with FX, my current income potential and converted that into atleast a 100T / day for 10 contracts to set the goal of 300K / yr or 1M in 3 yrs before I could retire and/or go fulltime. That was my criteria... from $1.5K to $5K/day.

Now comes the reality check... I tried (for the first time) with 3 contracts yesterday keeping this goal in mind. 3*$15=$1500/day, I felt it was doable and almost reached the $1200 but felt pressured into doing a little bit more and lost all of it. Was I weak(?), whs I greedy? was I competing with the market? or is my goal unrealistic? With the current poor volatility state, 100T is hard to squeeze everyday. Also, most of my tests were done in jan-feb when I was coming up with this plan. then came march and then april was a reality. pretty much all my divergent algos were failed in Apri making me turn to reversion techniques or what I call "inland navigation". I am never a fan of reversion. it is too slow paced for who I am (mentally). I easily lose interest, patience, get distracted and frustrated waiting and waiting... I am not a "WAIT"er. I like speed, I like motion, I embrace volatility, I like fast and furious actions etc etc... that is why I have historically traded only events (and yesterday's fed funds rate) was a complete dud move causing more pain that I need to somehow overcome. I understand market is not a race. I know all that shit that gurus keep telling freely over the net.

Anyways, back to my crossroads. my basic framework towards algo was designed with the first and foremost question... can i generate daily/weeky/monthly income regardless of drawdowns or risk parameters? I felt and provided proof of my test results that it is most certainly doable. then came the question... am I comfortable with the risk I was taken to make my targetted goal. Absolutely not for the first 6 months but after that was just fine. My modeling was also based on a $100K inital capital which is what I want to go with eventually if I am able to survive the inital $10K round of "investment". If I bust $10K, this journey ends for me and time to explore another career for me or something other than NQ for sure (again all this was pre-determined before coming to Futures.. I only follow my plan and never diverge from it)
Back to Nick's recommendation. If I focus on individual trade RR, all my algos thus far are going to go in the bin as I am a believer in sum of all parts of strategy and not just quality of signal but there is a lot of value in what Nick is proposing when it comes to scaling up with reduced risk. With the daily settlement nature of futures, it is critical component that I was trying to bypass (by throwing more capital and/or carryover overnight positions if I have to)

...got to hop on a call at work... will continue

I need to add something other than Price to my algo... either some fundamental analysis or orderflow/volume stuff. Anyone knows how to answer this question? I grew up in the high tech industry so trading NQ without factoring stock market analysis seems like a ridiculous thing to do

Decision Made: I won't be posting any of my trade outcomes or charts or daily performance. Only weekly. The last thing I want is all eyes on me on how I am doing tick by tick.

Trading today... I want my money back b*tches lol

your problem is how much time to spend in the market you are over trading and thats when the fear greed emotions get the best of you

also you must follow a trading system rules. if no opportunity avail itself, dont trade

why not. do you think people who read this thread is any better than you.

fuck them man.

Look, personally i think being transparent HELPS a lot. It gives you a bit of perspective when you read the posts later and say, "wow, what a fucking moron i was taking those trades. I need to learn not to screw up as much". When you see these types of posts, it starts to grip you by the balls a bit and it forces you to address your issues.

But back to your post:

First of all, stop putting that monetary goal on the market. The market doesn't give a shit about your retirement plans. You're essentially forcing yourself onto the market. Just get consistent for 1 year, learn to avoid tilt or at least minimze the effect (public daily pnl posting reallys helps imo)

Also, reversion trading has its place. It's not always slow, in fact, it's usually a quick shot. When it's slow reaching your target, it usually tells you something.

Anyway, keep up the grind man..i'm right there with ya.

whatever one is more comfortable with.
for one, i think that a weekly update is more than enough.; maybe add here and there some noteworthy intraday things.
i will likely check out this thread, no matter daily or weekly the update.

Right, it's when they stop updating is when you know ..oh shit..he broke his account lol

Remember V, as in any small business; the hard truth is; don't expect to be profitable in the first year.

In other words; it is ok to breakeven or lose in the first year of trading; be it discretionary or automated.

busy at work so keeping this brief. 1000% agree. This has been my nemesis for over a decade! I have no idea how to tackle this other than
1) quit trading until I retire
2) block random spots on my calendar and trade whenever I can in between - this is shitty way to trade
3) get aggressive with my scalps and make the best use of my "free time" - I did this route in FX by trading events... but still a shitty way to trade
4) trade only asian - shitty market condition
5) trade only london - shitty for my health
6) go the algo route.... this is where I am

I have said this repeatedly, when I take a day off, kick off all the distractions, I can trade beautifully in the zone. otherwise my life is filled with distractions and my mind is like a magnet to get distracted easily. algo is the only route available for me imo. best window during NYSE is either during noon-1pm ET or 3pm-4pm ET. I purposely tried the last hour with a lot of thought going into this yesterday (it wasn't a random but I could have done more studies and I did not and have not yet) I try the manual route first (like I have been doing one day a month... for such specific reasons)

Timing is key and I AM forcing myself on the market based on my availability.... ofc I am going to fail. there is no doubt about that. I am aware of this stupid shit for over a decade and I still to this date cannot figure out what the best route for me to take.... other than algo ( and I am sure my algo will also fail a dozen times before it succeeds!) I am at a crossroads as I said and don't know where to go from here on. This $10K was my travel budget for my 3rd vacation trip. Travel is my only goal to be trading... perhaps, I should screw the retirement goal or any other goal for that matter and just take it slow with coffee/lunch money one day at a time. Maybe, but then I do not want to look back 6 months and repent making only pennies on a dime with all the work/effort/stress that goes into trading. Trading has to be for a BIGGER reason for me. Bigger and better than what I can achieve elsewhere for income/growth/business potential. Atleast that is how I view things in my mindset.

Absolutely, that is the NUMBER ONE reason why folks stop posting their results in their trading journals. I am no different :-) Losing is hard, exposing losses is even harder and allowing people to comment on your losses is bat shit insanely hard thing to so. I gain inspiration from what you are doing for no other reason than this one alone.

I still have NO proven working strategy for NQ! My manual attempts are all based on trial and error using my own experience on what I need to try first before spending months developing algos etc. I am bound to have winning trades and a whole lot of losing trades. That is the only thing I am very sure of.

yep.. my problem is. I see opportunities everywhere when I am running in profit to the point of becoming careless/carefree. translation: I don't have a plan yet!

vee maybe this will help maybe not kenny rodgers said it best know when to hold them know when to fold them

I will take all the help I can get :-(

i know you like taking profits to make more profits BUT keeping profits for 1 day they belong to you let that sink in

I am really trying to get help here and desperately trying to see if I am completely offbase in my thinking and approach to markets. I understand the importance of daily income. I understand the importance of stop trading. I understand the importance of trading less to make more and keep more...
So answer this for me please... if probability of next trade has no relevance to your realized or unrealized profits (or losses), why do I have to stop trading based on how much profits I have made? the next trade, be it today or tomorrow, will have the same win/loss probability and same outcome. Am I wrong?

OR tell me if I am offbase with my design to curtail DD and explode equity. Let's assume every trade possibility is 1R and 50% win/loss as the next tick is unpredictable

WARNING: I am sharing my algo here so probably too much for your simplistic approach but perhaps for others to comment on

TP=LimitDD: If this is enabled,

1. exit trade when floating profitable ticks = realized ticks*2 when account is running in profit for the day - This will explode profits exponentially
2. exit trade when floating profitable ticks = realized ticks/2 when account is running in loss for the day - this will reduce/recover from DD
3. Exit trade when Floating profits goes up and up, when in profit for the day and floating pnl drops 10% of realized profits.... this will protect floating profits.
4. Exit when daily profit goal in Ticks is reached or realized+floating ticks in profit = x% of daily/session range is me

TP=Drawdow: if this is enabled.... equally complex rules

SL = LimitDD.... similar rule-based logic when account is in drawdown and floating loss example: if daily loss is 50 Ticks already, next trade will exit at 50*20% or whatever, you get the idea... it is slowing down the bleeding process when trade is not profitable and helps in recovery when trade is going in profit... all in tandem and hands-free

and same principle for GrowEquity setting... during stacking/adding positions to running trades in profits

though every trade is essentially a gamble we dont treat as a gamble but a way to score money. Take a job that yeilds say 100 an hour if i work 8 hours i make 800 if i work 16 hours i make 1600 if i work 24 hours a day i make 2400 a day and be dead in 72 hours enough to bury you. One thing you have discovered as day goes on the market seems to change from hour to hour. Trading is about accumulating money you were up 1100 yesterday why continue? Greed says i can make more. i am just sharing how i approach the market its totally up to you on how your going to approach the market or you"ll just quit you need a plan then trade the plan