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Steviet's Live Trades!

  • #1,781
  • May 11, 2007 11:55am May 11, 2007 11:55am
woord up stevie!

was my first time to take fast peak on your journal and seems it hitted on bad moment. but never the less hang on there its never as bad as it seems. after letting it go, its allready out of the memory!

keep it going. and wish you all good!

ps. world is a cruel place. what remainds us more often in small doses or rarely in big hits .)
  • #1,782
  • May 11, 2007 12:07pm May 11, 2007 12:07pm
Quoting Mother
woord up stevie!

was my first time to take fast peak on your journal and seems it hitted on bad moment. but never the less hang on there its never as bad as it seems. after letting it go, its allready out of the memory!

keep it going. and wish you all good!

ps. world is a cruel place. what remainds us more often in small doses or rarely in big hits .)
LOL,

Yup, you've hit upon my journal just as things are getting little nasty

I'll get through it, learn some more and pip will start coming my way again soon.

Kind Regards
Steve
  • #1,783
  • May 11, 2007 12:29pm May 11, 2007 12:29pm
I think if you are shorting pound & kiwi etc. you should be fine in the long run (no idea how long ).

actually i got the market correctly but my stops are triggered and missed the 300 pip ride up, what a pity.
  • #1,784
  • May 11, 2007 12:34pm May 11, 2007 12:34pm
Quoting amylase
I think if you are shorting pound & kiwi etc. you should be fine in the long run (no idea how long ).

actually i got the market correctly but my stops are triggered and missed the 300 pip ride up, what a pity.
Yup, we'll see - sorry about your stops being hit - unfortunately it comes with the territory.

Kind regards
Steve
  • #1,785
  • May 11, 2007 12:37pm May 11, 2007 12:37pm
hang in there bud, weekend time...drink a few(by a few I mean many) cold ones



Best,
Mike
  • #1,786
  • May 11, 2007 12:40pm May 11, 2007 12:40pm
Quoting amylase

actually i got the market correctly but my stops are triggered and missed the 300 pip ride up, what a pity.
Me too. My stops got triggered before going to the direction I think it would go. This has happened in most of my trade for the past few weeks.

Going to study how to place a good stop this weekend.

Enjoy your weekend.
  • #1,787
  • May 11, 2007 12:45pm May 11, 2007 12:45pm
Quoting mbqb11
hang in there bud, weekend time...drink a few(by a few I mean many) cold ones



Best,
Mike
Hi there Mike,

Hmm, sounds tempting after the last few days - and things were going so well lol.

Got work tomorrow morning then cricket in the afternoon weather permitting - I'll have to find time to sink a pint or ten sometime though haha.

One good thing, none of my stop losses have been hit yet - if it reverses again Monday I'll be a happier chappy.

Have a great w/e

Kind Regards
Steve
  • #1,788
  • May 11, 2007 12:54pm May 11, 2007 12:54pm
Hi Steve

You will have gained so much experience through these six months that it certainly hasn't been a waste of time mate.

Enjoy the weekend
FXP

Quoting steviet

This is the first time in six months I've been in this position and it hurts - it feels like six months hard work gone down the drain.

Kind Regards
Steve
  • #1,789
  • May 11, 2007 1:09pm May 11, 2007 1:09pm
Hey steve,how does this compare with the largest drawdown in backtesting?
  • #1,790
  • May 11, 2007 1:12pm May 11, 2007 1:12pm
Quoting fxprocessor
Hi Steve

You will have gained so much experience through these six months that it certainly hasn't been a waste of time mate.

Enjoy the weekend
FXP
You're right there FXP

I've certainly gained a wealth of experience without losing a single cent so far. Along with that I've learned a lot about myself and how to keep looking at the big picture when things aren't going so well.

Added to that I'm now in correspondence with a few pro traders who still reckon I'm doing OK as a relative newbie which is comforting to know.

I'll be a 'full-time' trader within the next 5 years - full-time in the sense that it will be my sole source of income. The aim is to be able to trade my method or something very similar which will still give me the free time to do what I want when I want.

It may have started off as a pipe dream but I'm now convinced I can do this business and do it well.

Thanks for the kind words

Kind Regards
Steve
  • #1,791
  • May 11, 2007 1:37pm May 11, 2007 1:37pm
Quoting steviet
This is the first time in six months I've been in this position and it hurts - it feels like six months hard work gone down the drain.

Kind Regards
Steve

Why does this sound familiar?

Don't take it so hard old chap

BTW, not to be too cheeky, but you COULD compare these last 6 months to simply playing ONLY pin bars on your 3 favorite pairs and using your own stop logic with them(or slightly modified, these things need 1-5 days to "move out" sometimes), just as something to pass the time with, perhaps?
Daily timeframe, of course, but you could also look at weekly and monthly if you're feeling like it ;0


Take care,

SeekingLight
Trust price. Know yourself.
  • #1,792
  • Edited 2:33pm May 11, 2007 2:10pm | Edited 2:33pm
Quoting Don4
Hey steve,how does this compare with the largest drawdown in backtesting?
Hey Don,

I backtested the original 5 pairs independently so it's a little difficult to tell. Also, I've never understood the full meaning of drawdown.....

What I can tell you is that so far in live trading, my balance has never fallen below my original capital and I'm still overall in profit on my main system. I look at my balance on a monthly basis - since I hit my balance high at the end of January, my overall balance has reduced by just under 20%.

One would hope that this is about as bad as it gets but of course live trading is so different from backtesting. Backtesting is useful for getting an idea if your system has some merit - live testing is a whole different ball game as I'm sure you know.

I've just had a really good chat with a good friend of mine who has been tracking my progress since the beginning. After this I realise that I've got to get back to basics instead of too much fiddling.

From Monday it's back to basics, keeping the original main method but also keeping what has generally worked so far.

1. Stop losses will go back to 10 pips above/below the high or low of the previous day's bar (GBPJPY 20 pips). I've recently added the spread to this but s/l has still been hit on every occasion so the result has been more pips lost.

2. These last few weeks I've been closing trades if in profit each night and then opening a new trade straight away. The problem with this is that

i) the market is often pretty volatile at 10pm so on a few occasions I've lost a few pips by closing & then opening a few minutes later eg I my close a GBPJPY long at 230.00 and before I can get in again it's jumped to 230.15.

ii) if I'm closing and re-opening most nights, I'm paying the spread each time.

So, I'm going back to keeping the trades going until they are naturally stopped out - sometimes this may be over a week later. This means less decisions to be made, less stress and less spread paid.

iii) the moving of s/l to break even when a trade moves to plus 100 on GBPUSD, GBPJPY & USDJPY (plus 70 on the NZD & AUD pairs) will stay. It's sensible to prevent big winners turning into losers and locking in profit at 70/100 pip intervals.

3. I'm continuing with the complimentary trades as I believe these will ultimately lessen the effects of choppy periods as well as keping me in a trend despite corrections along the way. I've only traded these complimentary trades for a few weeks - I'll give it until the end of the testing period to assess feasibility.

4. Lessons learned.

i) I must stick to my rules to the letter - last night, my AUDUSD was stopped out for minus 40 pips at 0.8250. For the first time ever I decided to jump in with a counter trade and went short - it's currently minus 64 pips - doh! Under my rules I would've been out of the market for the rest of the day - OK, I'd have missed the upward move but I wouldn't be sitting on a loser now either. My complimentary trade on this pair is a long I took out earlier this week - currently plus 20 pips - that's how it's supposed to work - cushion the losses.

ii) Don't change pairs midtest. After 5 months and a frustrating 5 months it was trading a choppy USDCAD, I decided to change some pairs. I was barely in profit on this pair so I looked to the greener pastures of AUDUSD, NZDUSD & GBPJPY. Of course we all know how USDCAD has tanked this last month and my method would have taken most of the move. Even worse, NZD & AUD were just coming to the end of their big push up and I've had the pleasure of trading the pairs whilst they decide where they are heading to next! April, I'd have posted a profit instead of a largish loss!

So, from Monday it's back to basics - trading should be boring, method should be simple and profits will come. My money management has kept me in profit despite some crappy trades so here's to a successful rest of the year.

Kind Regards
Steve
  • #1,793
  • May 11, 2007 3:06pm May 11, 2007 3:06pm
Quoting SeekingLight
Why does this sound familiar?

Don't take it so hard old chap

BTW, not to be too cheeky, but you COULD compare these last 6 months to simply playing ONLY pin bars on your 3 favorite pairs and using your own stop logic with them(or slightly modified, these things need 1-5 days to "move out" sometimes), just as something to pass the time with, perhaps?
Daily timeframe, of course, but you could also look at weekly and monthly if you're feeling like it ;0


Take care,

SeekingLight
Hi SeekingLight,

You cheeky so and so you

Thanks for the link bro - I'll check out those pdf's in that thread.

You have yourself a great weekend

Kind Regards
Steve
  • #1,794
  • Edited 8:19pm May 11, 2007 8:06pm | Edited 8:19pm
Hi Stevie

A couple of observations on your situation and your thoughts:

1) Trading shouldn't be boring at all. Trading should be fun! If you don't have fun trading, then it could never become your sole source of income.

When I say FUN, I don't mean it should be like gambling to get an adrenaline rush...I simply intend that you should enjoy what you are doing at any time.

2) Following your journal, I believe that you've been overtrading. Too many pairs and too many trades. My feeling is that you have to work on your stoploss management a little better. You seem to get pickpocketed way too often and this forces you to close many trades as losers only to re-enter the next day in the same direction.

Have you ever considered giving your positions more room with a bigger stoploss that is less subject to noise and news announcements? This could tremendously help you with diminishing the number of losers and would keep you from overtrading.

I believe many beginners are too concerned about risk/reward ratios. I know you are very proud about your high risk/reward ratio and I know that almost every trading book stresses the importance of keeping losses small and letting profits run, but trust me these things only exist in books.

The moment you place a stoploss order, it's there for anyone to see and to pickpocket. If you really wanna have a stoploss in place just in case something weird happen, just place it 500 pips above/below your entry level and let the market tell you when you are wrong. If you are good at reading charts, you'd certainly be good at reading when your position is wrong. At that point, just exit or reverse it.

How many times are highs/lows taken out only to produce a shadow?

Please do me a favor and check all of your losers and tell me how many of them were pickpocketed during news or market noise. You'd be surprised to see how many pips you gave the mkts as early Christmas gifts.

If you want trading to become your full-time job, you need to start spending more time on understanding how markets behave and move. the day you figure out the market flow and patterns, you'd be a step ahead of competition.

Today was my 27th consecutive profitable day as a daytrader. This is my longest winning streak and every day I begin the day convinced my streak will end. I've never been so consistent with my trading. I would usually turn up a profit for the week, but no way day in day out. Considering that I average between 3 to 7-8 trades per day, the sample size is well over 100 trades since day 1 of my winning streak, so although I've had some luck sometimes, I consider it no fluke whatsoever.

I mentioned this because if there is one thing worth mentioning of my recent success is that I got rid of stoploss orders. I know it may sound insane, but this forced me to focus on price action alone without being scared of being pickpocketed. I let closing prices tell me when I am wrong, not price spikes or noise. Yes, my losers are a little bigger than what they used to be and my risk/reward ratio wouldn't make it in any of the trading books out there...however, trading is not only about numbers but rather about understanding the markets, position sizing and trade management.

Just picture yourself during the day at work checking on your positions. Instead of being concerned of whether your stoploss has been hit, you just sit back, relax and see where your position is at. At the end of the day you'll evaluate things again. Do you have any idea of how much frustration you'd get rid of when a day's high/low is taken out and instead of being out with a loss you are still in the position ready to reap the profits?

Since my losers are a little bigger now, I started to scale into my positions instead of going all in right away. Most of my trades go against me to begin with, so why should I risk my max # of contracts when I know nothing about what's going to happen next? If the trade goes my way immediately, I earn less but it's a stress-free trade so I am happy anyways.

Your strategy is fine, believe me. Focus on consistency and accept the fact that markets rarely trend. Most of the times they just trade within a range and you can make a shitload amount of money working off the trading range. Don't let your hopes merely cling on trend expectations or the next big-time breakout...that's not the right way to trade IMO and I know of no full-time trader who struggles for 7-8 months of the year and depends on 3-4 good months.

Can you really picture yourself supporting your family with such an inconsistency of income? No way. Only an irresponsible person would adventure into something so unstable. What if the first 5-6 months of the year go bad and you are down 20%...then you make it up and get back to BE and there only are 2 months left for you to provide for your family for the whole year...how would that feel?

You are smart kid and you seem to be very dedicated to making this happen. It's in the bad times that real men step up and grab the bull by the horns.

My advice is to focus on consistency and finding some balance in your trading. You want to be a blue-chip and not a penny stock.

Enjoy the weekend.

IS
  • #1,795
  • May 11, 2007 9:39pm May 11, 2007 9:39pm
Welp. I'd have to say this is probably one of the best posts I've seen here on this forum. Very refreshing and I couldn't agree more.
Mr. Trend
  • #1,796
  • May 11, 2007 10:26pm May 11, 2007 10:26pm
Weird yet wisdom post here...

I do not know how long u been trading Italian Sharp... but I read in ur lines a lot of experience. The same thing happened to me... in the moment i decided to become daytrader and stop worring about the exact entre.... the top profit taking point and the ULTRA-MEGA-GIGA-SUPER-TIGHTEST-STOP-LOSS i finally became profitable...

I realized, just as u, that it is smarter to put ones efforts to be IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, rather than choosing THE RIGHT PRICES...

Same as you, sometimes i open my trades and thy immediatly go against me but... after 24 hours usually the most part of them are profitable... I just closed my USDCAD short oppened @ 1.16... after almos a month opened... and yes... when i opened it the first day was in red... and after a month it had almost +500 pips...

This last two weeks a lot of ppl have lost a lot of money the month-before trend gave them.. that is a shame... why? well i really dont know... for me it was clear that after gbpusd -for example- reached +2.0 price... it was a very good time to hold on longs and to WAIT... i mean holding longs opened way lower 2.0.. not longs opened @ 2.0...

but as you, i think maybe risk/reward ratios are only ideal stuff... does it really makes u profitable to have 1:3 risk-reward ratio when u fail 75% of time? Usually markets say: I AM BULLISH, or I AM BEARISH or I AM NEUTRAL... we have to concentrate in identifying that FIRST... and this will take you up to 75% of time... but if you can identify with that 75% of time, the 50% of accurate trends, and u close ur loosers and let ur winners run.. u will become profitable immediatly...

Stop-loss has become a "dogma" of the forex belief... and if u question the dogmas -in any religion- u will automatically be rejected... I HAVE BEEN REJECTED when i say i dont use them... but i prefer to be rejected than lossing money...

Steve... and all.. nice weekend

iiivb

Quoting ItalianSharp
Hi Stevie

A couple of observations on your situation and your thoughts:

1) Trading shouldn't be boring at all. Trading should be fun! If you don't have fun trading, then it could never become your sole source of income.

When I say FUN, I don't mean it should be like gambling to get an adrenaline rush...I simply intend that you should enjoy what you are doing at any time.

2) Following your journal, I believe that you've been overtrading. Too many pairs and too many trades. My feeling is that you have to work on your stoploss management a little better. You seem to get pickpocketed way too often and this forces you to close many trades as losers only to re-enter the next day in the same direction.

Have you ever considered giving your positions more room with a bigger stoploss that is less subject to noise and news announcements? This could tremendously help you with diminishing the number of losers and would keep you from overtrading.

I believe many beginners are too concerned about risk/reward ratios. I know you are very proud about your high risk/reward ratio and I know that almost every trading book stresses the importance of keeping losses small and letting profits run, but trust me these things only exist in books.

The moment you place a stoploss order, it's there for anyone to see and to pickpocket. If you really wanna have a stoploss in place just in case something weird happen, just place it 500 pips above/below your entry level and let the market tell you when you are wrong. If you are good at reading charts, you'd certainly be good at reading when your position is wrong. At that point, just exit or reverse it.

How many times are highs/lows taken out only to produce a shadow?

Please do me a favor and check all of your losers and tell me how many of them were pickpocketed during news or market noise. You'd be surprised to see how many pips you gave the mkts as early Christmas gifts.

If you want trading to become your full-time job, you need to start spending more time on understanding how markets behave and move. the day you figure out the market flow and patterns, you'd be a step ahead of competition.

Today was my 27th consecutive profitable day as a daytrader. This is my longest winning streak and every day I begin the day convinced my streak will end. I've never been so consistent with my trading. I would usually turn up a profit for the week, but no way day in day out. Considering that I average between 3 to 7-8 trades per day, the sample size is well over 100 trades since day 1 of my winning streak, so although I've had some luck sometimes, I consider it no fluke whatsoever.

I mentioned this because if there is one thing worth mentioning of my recent success is that I got rid of stoploss orders. I know it may sound insane, but this forced me to focus on price action alone without being scared of being pickpocketed. I let closing prices tell me when I am wrong, not price spikes or noise. Yes, my losers are a little bigger than what they used to be and my risk/reward ratio wouldn't make it in any of the trading books out there...however, trading is not only about numbers but rather about understanding the markets, position sizing and trade management.

Just picture yourself during the day at work checking on your positions. Instead of being concerned of whether your stoploss has been hit, you just sit back, relax and see where your position is at. At the end of the day you'll evaluate things again. Do you have any idea of how much frustration you'd get rid of when a day's high/low is taken out and instead of being out with a loss you are still in the position ready to reap the profits?

Since my losers are a little bigger now, I started to scale into my positions instead of going all in right away. Most of my trades go against me to begin with, so why should I risk my max # of contracts when I know nothing about what's going to happen next? If the trade goes my way immediately, I earn less but it's a stress-free trade so I am happy anyways.

Your strategy is fine, believe me. Focus on consistency and accept the fact that markets rarely trend. Most of the times they just trade within a range and you can make a shitload amount of money working off the trading range. Don't let your hopes merely cling on trend expectations or the next big-time breakout...that's not the right way to trade IMO and I know of no full-time trader who struggles for 7-8 months of the year and depends on 3-4 good months.

Can you really picture yourself supporting your family with such an inconsistency of income? No way. Only an irresponsible person would adventure into something so unstable. What if the first 5-6 months of the year go bad and you are down 20%...then you make it up and get back to BE and there only are 2 months left for you to provide for your family for the whole year...how would that feel?

You are smart kid and you seem to be very dedicated to making this happen. It's in the bad times that real men step up and grab the bull by the horns.

My advice is to focus on consistency and finding some balance in your trading. You want to be a blue-chip and not a penny stock.

Enjoy the weekend.

IS
  • #1,797
  • May 11, 2007 10:40pm May 11, 2007 10:40pm
Quoting iiivb
Weird yet wisdom post here...

I do not know how long u been trading Italian Sharp... but I read in ur lines a lot of experience. The same thing happened to me... in the moment i decided to become daytrader and stop worring about the exact entre.... the top profit taking point and the ULTRA-MEGA-GIGA-SUPER-TIGHTEST-STOP-LOSS i finally became profitable...

I realized, just as u, that it is smarter to put ones efforts to be IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, rather than choosing THE RIGHT PRICES...

Same as you, sometimes i open my trades and thy immediatly go against me but... after 24 hours usually the most part of them are profitable... I just closed my USDCAD short oppened @ 1.16... after almos a month opened... and yes... when i opened it the first day was in red... and after a month it had almost +500 pips...

This last two weeks a lot of ppl have lost a lot of money the month-before trend gave them.. that is a shame... why? well i really dont know... for me it was clear that after gbpusd -for example- reached +2.0 price... it was a very good time to hold on longs and to WAIT... i mean holding longs opened way lower 2.0.. not longs opened @ 2.0...

but as you, i think maybe risk/reward ratios are only ideal stuff... does it really makes u profitable to have 1:3 risk-reward ratio when u fail 75% of time? Usually markets say: I AM BULLISH, or I AM BEARISH or I AM NEUTRAL... we have to concentrate in identifying that FIRST... and this will take you up to 75% of time... but if you can identify with that 75% of time, the 50% of accurate trends, and u close ur loosers and let ur winners run.. u will become profitable immediatly...

Stop-loss has become a "dogma" of the forex belief... and if u question the dogmas -in any religion- u will automatically be rejected... I HAVE BEEN REJECTED when i say i dont use them... but i prefer to be rejected than lossing money...

Steve... and all.. nice weekend

iiivb
Right on. Stop losses are hunted so why use them? Place a hedge and let the hedge run until a profit is made (on the hedge). Keep the original trade in-tact until the market comes back, or at least makes the whole position profitable. In this way there is plenty of room for error.

People say: Hedge trading is nothing more than masking a loss. Not so. Manage the original trade back to profitability while using hedge trades. The key is to keep taking profits on hedge trades until the market comes back like it always does. Its a little more involved than that but the concept remains. I guarantee some hefty traders trade this way.

Trade small enough and average down. Martingale? I think not. With martingale the original bet is a dead horse. By averaging down and using hedge trades you can manage the position to profitability. Agree or disagree it works.
"Its not where your at, but where your coming from"
  • #1,798
  • May 11, 2007 11:05pm May 11, 2007 11:05pm
Quoting athalon7
Place a hedge and let the hedge run until a profit is made (on the hedge). Keep the original trade in-tact until the market comes back, or at least makes the whole position profitable. In this way there is plenty of room for error.
Quote
Manage the original trade back to profitability while using hedge trades. The key is to keep taking profits on hedge trades until the market comes back like it always does. Its a little more involved than that but the concept remains. I guarantee some hefty traders trade this way.
I am not a hedge trader. I will admit that. So with that said, my problem with this line of thinking is two-fold:

a) The first thing a successful trader will tell you is that you have no idea that the market is going to come back. The mantra of trend traders is that we have absolutely no idea what price is going to do. Traders will often sell at highs thinking that price, "just has to come back", but then they many times see that it doesn't, and then they're stuck... emotions take over, and that's that.

b) Nursing that hedge back to profitability is all fine and dandy...if you can handle the emotions of already closing one side of your hedge (in profit) and now you're "hoping" that price will come back to break you even on the opposite side of the hedge. The kicker with this is that it's drastically ironic. The same trader will proclaim, "You have no idea where price is going to go!", yet he is hedging because he, "thinks", it's going to come back.

So what happens when it doesn't? Do you have the emotional willpower to sustain such a huge drawdown on that hedge?

If you had done that at one time on GBPJPY, you would've blown up your account waiting for it to come back down...

Don't get me wrong -- I think this is, "just another way to trade", and I'm not saying that you're wrong. What I think is that this works best on short term trading (under 4H charts and less).

I know, I for one, would not be able to exit a winning trade, and then deal with a hedge that's -100 pips in the hole waiting for it to come back. That just seems to go against everything I've ever believed. And I believe that most traders can't neither.

Furthermore, hedging ties up your margin -- margin that you could've used on more trades. So instead of having ten to fifteen trades open and all your margin working for you, now you cut that in half.

To me, that seems silly. But trading is an ever learning process, so I'm open to your line of thinking.
Mr. Trend
  • #1,799
  • May 12, 2007 1:17am May 12, 2007 1:17am
Quoting ItalianSharp
Hi Stevie

A couple of observations on your situation and your thoughts:

1) Trading shouldn't be boring at all. Trading should be fun! If you don't have fun trading, then it could never become your sole source of income.

When I say FUN, I don't mean it should be like gambling to get an adrenaline rush...I simply intend that you should enjoy what you are doing at any time.
Hi IS, firstly great post - thanks! OK, when I said boring, I didn't quite mean it that way lol - I just mean it should be uncomplicated. I enjoy the challenge.

Quote
2) Following your journal, I believe that you've been overtrading. Too many pairs and too many trades. My feeling is that you have to work on your stoploss management a little better. You seem to get pickpocketed way too often and this forces you to close many trades as losers only to re-enter the next day in the same direction.

I'm trading 5 pairs at any one time and I've become comfortable with that. Is that too much, I don't know. I know very successful traders who only trade 1 pair and also those that trade up to 10 pairs at a time. When I say successful, I mean people that have been doing this consistently for years and average a monthly return way in excess of my current annual income.

Quote
Have you ever considered giving your positions more room with a bigger stoploss that is less subject to noise and news announcements? This could tremendously help you with diminishing the number of losers and would keep you from overtrading.

This is why I brought in my complimentary system last month which tends to have much larger initial stop losses. I haven't traded it long enough yet but it should do exactly what you're suggesting and cushion the blows in a choppy market as well as taking advantage of the overall trend.

Quote
I believe many beginners are too concerned about risk/reward ratios. I know you are very proud about your high risk/reward ratio and I know that almost every trading book stresses the importance of keeping losses small and letting profits run, but trust me these things only exist in books.

The moment you place a stoploss order, it's there for anyone to see and to pickpocket. If you really wanna have a stoploss in place just in case something weird happen, just place it 500 pips above/below your entry level and let the market tell you when you are wrong. If you are good at reading charts, you'd certainly be good at reading when your position is wrong. At that point, just exit or reverse it.

How many times are highs/lows taken out only to produce a shadow?

Please do me a favor and check all of your losers and tell me how many of them were pickpocketed during news or market noise. You'd be surprised to see how many pips you gave the mkts as early Christmas gifts.

If you want trading to become your full-time job, you need to start spending more time on understanding how markets behave and move. the day you figure out the market flow and patterns, you'd be a step ahead of competition.

Today was my 27th consecutive profitable day as a daytrader. This is my longest winning streak and every day I begin the day convinced my streak will end. I've never been so consistent with my trading. I would usually turn up a profit for the week, but no way day in day out. Considering that I average between 3 to 7-8 trades per day, the sample size is well over 100 trades since day 1 of my winning streak, so although I've had some luck sometimes, I consider it no fluke whatsoever.

I mentioned this because if there is one thing worth mentioning of my recent success is that I got rid of stoploss orders. I know it may sound insane, but this forced me to focus on price action alone without being scared of being pickpocketed. I let closing prices tell me when I am wrong, not price spikes or noise. Yes, my losers are a little bigger than what they used to be and my risk/reward ratio wouldn't make it in any of the trading books out there...however, trading is not only about numbers but rather about understanding the markets, position sizing and trade management.

Just picture yourself during the day at work checking on your positions. Instead of being concerned of whether your stoploss has been hit, you just sit back, relax and see where your position is at. At the end of the day you'll evaluate things again. Do you have any idea of how much frustration you'd get rid of when a day's high/low is taken out and instead of being out with a loss you are still in the position ready to reap the profits?

Since my losers are a little bigger now, I started to scale into my positions instead of going all in right away. Most of my trades go against me to begin with, so why should I risk my max # of contracts when I know nothing about what's going to happen next? If the trade goes my way immediately, I earn less but it's a stress-free trade so I am happy anyways.

Your strategy is fine, believe me. Focus on consistency and accept the fact that markets rarely trend. Most of the times they just trade within a range and you can make a shitload amount of money working off the trading range. Don't let your hopes merely cling on trend expectations or the next big-time breakout...that's not the right way to trade IMO and I know of no full-time trader who struggles for 7-8 months of the year and depends on 3-4 good months.

Can you really picture yourself supporting your family with such an inconsistency of income? No way. Only an irresponsible person would adventure into something so unstable. What if the first 5-6 months of the year go bad and you are down 20%...then you make it up and get back to BE and there only are 2 months left for you to provide for your family for the whole year...how would that feel?

You are smart kid and you seem to be very dedicated to making this happen. It's in the bad times that real men step up and grab the bull by the horns.

My advice is to focus on consistency and finding some balance in your trading. You want to be a blue-chip and not a penny stock.

A lot of things to think about obviously - firstly I have no intention of quitting my job until I'm in the position to do so financially. This maybe 2 years, 5 years or even longer down the road but when I do, there will be a large amount of capital in savings to cover drawdown periods. I won't be expecting to draw a monthly 'salary' from my trading account because that's just a job mentality - if you run a business you have good months and bad months but overall you aim to make a profit.

Here, you are talking about day trading and it looks like you are being extrememly successful. When I decide to go full-time, I don't intend trading much differently to the way I do now. I don't want to replace my full-time job for another full-time job in front of the pc - I'd probably make myself ill.

Stop losses - as I said earlier my complimentary system uses larger stop losses. It may well be that I eventually just use this system or continue to run alongside my main method. I'm determined to see this through for the whole year otherwise I'm just doing what most others do by choping and changing and never really coming up with a long term strategy.

Trend trading - this is an interesting point and goes back to me using the word boring lol. When we say markets only trend for a few months a year what do we really mean? It depends what timeframe we look at - EU has obviously been in an uptrend all year and Jacko to name one has taken advantage of this for a long period of time. He has his strategies worked out and just enters and exits according to his rules.

The difficulty in posting this journal every single day is the way the trades are out there all the time for the world to see, compliment on, pick holes in etc which can be a big distraction. Most journals seem to last a month or two and then disappear never to be seen again. I'm very tempted to take to turbo route and just post the trades and the daily total once a day and leave it at that.

There's loads more I could talk about but I don't even know why I woke up a couple of hours ago at 5am on Saturday lol.

Have a great weekend yourself IS and congratulations on your recent winning streak - very impressive

Kind regards
Steve
  • #1,800
  • May 12, 2007 6:23am May 12, 2007 6:23am
Hi Italian Sharp

May be you would be kind enough to start a thread and teach us all your day trading method and stop placement in real time.
Regards
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