MY Journal-phil13

Phil,
Thanks for your response, it is well appreciated. I will go through the recommended post and revert to you.

Sutiv

Phil,
How do you deal with emotion when you are trading?
Sutiv

Hi Sutiv

this is vast and complex topic, I struggle myself to explain it whenever asked, there are some basics though, firstly you have to try to level yourself back to a place where you can see and really think about what is front of you, I find one of the oldest and well known technics for doing this helps me get to near calm/reset within myself, that is the ten deep breaths, as you inhale you close your eyes and fill your lungs via your nose, as you exhale you open your eyes and breath out via your mouth, this basic 'reset' floods your body with oxygen and reduces the 'fight or flight' chemicals in your blood and brain allowing you to think/see more clearly and gives you 'time out' to get back on with it. Now every-bodies risk tolerance, life experience and every culture that you are born into holds varying beliefs that shape how their own personal emotions will be triggered. All I can suggest is what finally helped me, learn how these emotions are produced, which means looking into how our minds work, after all how can deal something let only try to fix or control it without knowing the basic of its workings at the very least, the quest for emotional control within is an infinitely ongoing learning journey, the quicker you can 'feel' or recognise an emotion surfacing the easier it is to deal with it, it is a worthwhile journey that will not only help you in trading but also in life, everyone struggles with this but if you are willing to educate yourself on the ways the mind works and processes things you can overcome many things a lot easier as you learn to reprogram and remap (to some degree) the wiring that you have in your head at the moment. Here are some videos to help get you started, now I am not advocating anyone who produces any video but I do like some of this person's work and explanations in simple terms, all we have to do is relate it to trading. but of course also do your own research into this aspect of trading.

Thanks for your advice, my main problem is knowing how these emotions are produced and recognising them as they appear. Please can you elaborate on these areas?

Sutiv

Hi Sutiv,

so you believe you have an issue in self regulation, well my friend we all do to varying degrees, so I am posting some links and videos that I hope will help you understand the parts of emotional responses and reactions in more depth and may give you an idea of what type of content I looked at to help me, firstly let me put some perspective on the issue.

The main issue in trading is the 'fight or flight response or to convert it = fear and greed.

So I take a trade long, great all my beliefs are I am correct (maybe overconfidence here?), it starts moving a few pips in my direction and I can see I am making money, (now my emotional belief system is excited because I have it correct.. hoooray), then for whatever reason the move quickly puts me into drawdown???, now my greed has turned to fear either because I got stopped out or I did not have a stop and never thought about what I would do in this situation, if you were stopped out you are now likely in the 'freeze' faze of this roller-coaster which will then affect your next trade decision, 'the I must get my money back' (revenge trade mode/anger), now if I had no stop I am likely to be in the fear and starting the freeze stage as this was not planned for, my brain is racing as is my body and the chemicals that are causing it are still flooding my body making it hard to think and make a rational decision, (fight or flight in full mode now), do I cut the trade? Do add more in desperate hope I can get out at near break even, crap what was the higher fame indicating as a possibility??? I am so mixed up and full of fear I now enter the 'freeze' stage, fear of what to do is holding me back from making a rational decision as I can not think or really take in what is happening in front of me, all I can think is the loss is too big for me to take, (now I am in full automatic emotional control but do not realise it), I can not take the loss... I add, crap it still going against me ( man, I am so high on all those chemical emotions now), I am frozen again watching my drawdown eat away at my account, I can not afford to lose this money is my only frozen thought, suddenly it starts to reverse and go toward my entries (now hope starts lowering those 'fear' chemicals), I watch absolutely glued to the screen, it starts to drop a bit quicker now but I am in drawdown (the fear chemicals are nearly out of me) then it hits a must 'Panic' entry, (greed is starting to release its chemicals but I am still as high as a kite on the chemical cocktail), it is going to keep going I convince myself, I am approaching my break even point, should I just get out?, no I was right all along my ego tells me, ok I am making money again (the greed chemicals are flooding in I have no 'fear' now), I will hold and make a good profit like I planned, then the price moves against me again, it is ok it is just a retrace I tell myself brimming with confidence and ego, but it does not return in my favour and I end up having to take a big bigger loss than I wanted too. I am pi**off and feel full of anxiety and depression ( yes the chemicals are flooding back into me, only these will last longer), I turn/flip short in my desperation to get at least some money back and this time I put a stop ( in the belief it will not be hit and that it is my safety net) but because of what is going on inside me I am still on emotional autopilot but I do not know that, again the price goes against me but this time it is a very quick move, I have been stopped out, I am not happy, but I congratulate myself for limiting my losses this time, then I look at my balance.. WHAT!!!! half my account has disappeared??? HOW??? I am mad really upset about this now, I phone the broker it must their fault, I argue and argue with them about my loss blaming everything I can think of on them, when I finally calm down a bit I start to understand what they are trying to tell me! Oh Crap it was my fault for not reading and fully understanding the system/game I was playing, oh no it is MY RESPONABILITY for the loss....NO!!
you see a market order, any order be it a stop or order get in/out at X level is not guaranteed, it clearly states this in the terms of trading with them, as the market moved so fast it triggered my stop at that level as it should of done, a market order though is just that 'an order/request' if triggered to get in/out at the first available price, so instead of losing 20% of my account as finally planned, the first available price meant I lost 50% due to my own lack of knowledge in what I was doing, I owned it, it was my responsibility, everything that happened was my fault but I still can not understand why?? this is because I failed to prepare, I acted emotionally rather than having a rational plan for my trade and with lack of practice over my our mind and body.

This is the emotional roller-coaster of trading, could I have made a profit?? who knows this is just a made up example of what emotions you can go through during your trading and an example of some things you should know about and have control over when trading, having a solid money management plan for each trade is not all that is needed or may end up in this cycle of self destruction that we are pre programmed to do from within the oldest part of our brain, from ancient times when we had to live on our emotional responses just to stay alive and hunt for food or be something else's food, the modern part of the mind has not had enough time to adjust to its new environment where we do not constantly face these kinds of threats any more, hopefully this explanation of an emotional trade can help you start to 'feel' these chemical enemies within us all, I really do not know how else to explain it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_self-regulation













again not advocating anyone here just parts of what this person says i agree with.

Thanks for your explanation. Sometimes I panicked when I should be bold, this morning I was buying EU and was waiting for PA to break out of the bullish flag to implement the last attack but when I saw strong sellers toward the end of the flag, I panicked even though the support holds and have mapped out where the sellers are. PA breaks out of the channel nicely, but I have to reduce the skew and still could not hold the trade till the end of the bull run.

Sutiv

Hi Surtiv

what are describing about your trade above is normal, your sole job in trading is to make money by any means possible, nothing else matters, you must lose this notion of have to go from top to bottom pip to pip, it will hold you back, I know why you feel this should be your goal, it is because all over the internet you have these fools having a huge dick swinging contest and spew out total bullsh*t that they are doing this all the time they are in front of their screens, have you ever seen anyone do it live, I mean real live on video call or internet channel so you can watch the market at exactly the same time when they actually catch the trades they say they are getting from pip to pip, I already know the answer, sure now and again you may get lucky and have all the run, but no one can repeat that consistently like these ego rubbing dick swinging seekers profess, statically it is nearly impossible to do, what matters is making money..period!, how and why is totally irrelevant, these people hold people back so much please do not listen to them or let them make you think you should be 'keeping up with the jones' the person you have to keep up with is yourself, by improving little by little everyday, after a while you will be a calm emotionally controlled trader and then your decisions will be better, you will hit more of the run you are chasing now and again you will do the pip to pip thing, but that is not the focus, the focus is on making money not losing it, judge yourself by your own progress, not by others, you have nothing to prove to anyone but yourself, losses are part of trading for everyone, the trick is in how you deal with those, you do not have do or trade like anyone else, there is no magic set of anything that will make you a trader, it comes from within you alone, learn to look at things in numbers and as games, if I gave £500 a day and told you to spend it in the casino could be sure of making money by the end of the month?? FTI spoke of this and there is a way to do it, you have to adjust yourself to work out the odds and find out where the casinos odds are in their favour, then you can adjust those odds to put them in your favour using their weakness created by their odds, trouble is not many people can be bothered to sit down and think for themselves, they would rather look up online some bullsh*t way someone else tries, but the lose, unless the create a situation where the odds are at least even but preferably in you favour slightly and combine that with a good well tested money management strategy you can not win, even then you will lose your £500 some days but not as many days as you would of doubled or trebled your money over all, probability is stretched over a period of time, so let us say you have a system that gives you a 3/30 chance of losing, on average you will in that month lose £1500 - £2000, let us just say you lost 4 times so £2000, and let us be conservative and say you only took and average of 50% a day so the is 26 x £250 = £6500 - £2000 (4 x loss days) = £4500, it can be done, I spoke to fti a few time about this and made it my mission to work out how he used to do it by clues all over his thread, the system itself is so mind numbingly boring that few people can stand doing it = no or little emotional control over themselves, so when you are working out your own system or strategy expect it to be very long-winded and boring is what I am saying to you, the money is always in slow and steady not the fast heart racing and exiting systems that people are generally drawn too.

As our friend FTI said it is no good being a dead hero, what value is that for you.

Good luck my friend.

Phil,
This is very insightful, our job as traders is to manage risk and in the long run profit will follow. What is your daily routine before/after trading?

Sutiv

Hi Phil
on what time frame are U trading

Hi Surtiv

before trading, i start about 1hr to 1.30hr before euro open, i sit down and ask myself how i am feeling, i pull up the charts, i check the daily then i look at how and where that is inline or not with the daily main trend and last few bars, i mark out H1 with what areas i may be interested in and any upcoming news that i need to watch out for, then i move down to M15 or M5 to see what the price action may suggest for the next move and i keep in mind all day the daily and changing hourly action, i may often ask myself again how do i feel about trading today, then i make the decision to either trade, wait or walk away for the day, then the battles begin or not after i have usually tested the water/grounds with a few very small scouts, if i start to see momentum building i will start to trade with the bigger entries, this journal is full of trades if you want a deeper look at what i may look for/at. i will not (most times) as a general rule take new trade entries after 4pm (uk Time), i will let entries run that may already be in, i finish trading or decided to leave some in overnight at about between 4-6pm generally. when i am finished i go relax have something to eat and just chill out doing whatever i want to, i rarely come back to look at the charts unless i think i may in with a chance to move stops to better positions if i have any overnighters that is.

i am not trading at the moment and have traded very little so far this year, i have health issues that need resolving so i took the decision it was better not to trade for my accounts saftey, i will hopefully be well again sometime next year and start trading again when i feel i am able to do in safe and very attentive manor that is required in this field.

Phil.

Hi .yab and welcome

what i written above should answer this question in good detail i think, if not ask what you want.

Phil.

Phil,
I'm sorry to hear of your health challenges, I wish you a quick recovery. I will not bother you with more questions until you have recovered well and returned to trading. Thanks for your effort in answering my questions.

Regards,
Sutiv

Hi Sutiv

really it is no problem asking questions, I just wanted you/everyone to understand that I am not trading at the moment and likely will not be for a good few months yet, the questions are in fact a good distraction from my health issues and I really do not mind answering them (as well as I can), just understand that at the moment I have no 'skin' in the game so can not really make a remark on any actual moves in the market due to not trading and being on the side for now (I can not assess a fight as I am not involved in any market activity), but I do keep an eye on what is going so all I have is 'an opinion' and our friend fti said, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

Thank you for your concern though, but be aware if I am too unwell it just may take a while for me to respond until I am back on my game again, everyone's life has good periods and some not so good periods, it is normal part of nature. I will be fine once I get through this temporary downtime.

Phil,
Usually, I start trading one hour before London opens, check the daily and hourly chart, note their direction, and then move to M5 where I do the battle. If there is any major news, I will reduce my exposure 30 mins to the news (usually Scout) and wait another 30 mins after the news to continue from there.
Please, can you explain the concept of invalid impulse and how you understand it?

Sutiv

Hi Sutiv

i know what you are trying to understand now (I think), i also understand that even though your english is very good there could be other ways of asking a question, the other person could also not actually truely understand the question you are posing to them, what i am going to write here now will likely answer this and many other questions you may have wanted to ask, i say all this because not only do we all have a language issue with each others wording but i am dyslexic and because of the difficultlies that brings to me i can totally understand this 'words of unintentional misunderstanding thing' that can very easily happen even between people who speak the same lanugage and are from the same area even, i read this post of yours shortly after you posted it, but wanted to think about the best way to answer you and maybe give you a better understanding of what our friend FTI wrote about in his thread/book of how to trade, i do not think many people have understood it, it took me years myself to get just the basis of what what he was saying to us. below are FTI's words/posts that i have saved in my files, i do not have the post numbers as these are spread out in the thread and i did not save that part, first i will give you a link to help undrstand EW/DOW theory as i do not know how much you know on these subjects, this is not full out technical book full of crap with loads of 'infill' the pages that are not needed, this is just an outline of what i consider you/we should know of the basics in these similar theories, below that is FTI's own words from his thread, i suggest you read the whole of the link first, then when you read FTI's words that may help you (hopefully) understand all these questions that you are having issues with getting your head around due to the sheer amount of bullsh*te and different peoples view and interpretations of these things.
Phil.

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https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/impulsewave.asp
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The battlefield should be looked at from a distance to get the whole picture of how large an army is, an estimation of where and how far we can anticipate the battle to last. In the trading sensethis can be done using multiple time frames. Look at daily first to get the overall trend (flow of the water), and where about in the current wave is within the trend. If it approaching a critical fib level such as the 61% or the 161%, this is the time to execute discipline and patience, waiting for the corrective wave to take hold then exhausting itself. This is knowing when to fight and when not to fight, going with the flow of the water and respecting fortified cities such as the 161% fib level. Once the corrective wave nears another critical fib level such as the 23% or the 38% and begins to appear in disorder and to lose its keen-ness, now would be a time to attack for another impulse wave. The lower TF’s such as 1 hr and 5min would be employed to optimize entry. Personally, I use the 1 hr TF’s to plot my MM levels for a target and scaling into a winning trade as well as where I can anticipate rescue levels if the timing is off. From here, I can calculate what size the initial attack wave will be (lots). In the end we assess the proper trend, where-a-bouts within the trend the pair is trading, then timing the entry based on the exhaustion of the price action near certain corrective fib levels. The MM is based on Risk assessment, so no matter what happens with a wrong timed entry, we will be properly positioned to rescue a trade with the appropriate resources.

The MM is calculated backwards from the worst case rescue level. (example) If the timing is off or even the short term trend was misread and then I chose the -61% level as the approximate point of rescue. From here I can determine how far away in negative from the entry I will be. This will give me an approximate level and what skew will be applied for entry and rescue. If my ultimate risk exposure is to be 10% and the initial entry lots plus the rescue levels and skew fall within my maximum 10% risk, then it is a fight worth fighting. If it is over my maximum risk, I either size down or pick a different battle. ”Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack”. Also if it is determined that there was a miss-timed entry we can execute a deployment of an equal sized army to neutralize the effects of the first lots sufferings and fight with the flow of the water. The initial entry is what is called Cheng, while the reversal neutralized entry is Ch’I, which soon after reverts to Cheng as well. This in my interpretation is attacking from front and rear like the Shuai-Jan snake. Once the trend is exhausted and shows signs of correcting, rescue the initial entry. In this tactic you have neutralized the defeated position of the first regiment that attacked from the front, deploying a rear attack and quickly destroying the enemy going with the flow of water, and finally rescuing the initial regiment at the point of enemy exhaustion.
Here is my summation;

1. Assess the battlefield: Look at the overall trend (daily)
2. Plot estimated points of entry, additional entries, and rescue entries. (Daily and hourly)
3. Determine the strength (vol.) of the prevailing trend and where-a-bouts the price level is at within the impulse wave to determine your entry point for attack. Let the enemy tell you when it is tired. (hourly and 5 min)
4. Apply MM calculations and work backwards from worst case rescue level to determine initial lot size for the attack. Think a defensive plan, to assure victory before battle even begins.
5. Plan possible neutralization level if required (hourly)
6. Use the lower TF’s to time your frontal attack with the flow. (5min)
7. Add to attack when going your way to assure quick and maximum effect.
8. Neutralize if trend goes against you and attack from rear if required.
9. Once trend shows signs of weakening, rescue initial entry as per the rescue skew.
10. Exit rear attack positions, assuring victory, never leaving the battle unattended.
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You have both not seen my true attack sequense yet, so as a matter of fact , both your planning is very different from my attack sequense.
Let me give you a hypotical scenerio.
lets say (for example only), (in reality I have much more muscle than this)that the fibo expansion is my MM play, ie 1,1,2,3,5,8
Now thats 20 sections.
I send in a scout (wave AB), he plays well and I decide to check him, I send in 1 checker, which is my level 2 (wave CD)
and level 2 plays well,that would mean that wave CD is short and plays above wave AB. If wave EF retraces then i would be forced to invoke rescue 5 and I go into rescue mode.
If EF did not do that then the instance of the attack would be in wave EF, and if the dance dictates that I am in alignment with the daily trend and both the short charts, It would require that I would attack full force 5, 11 before the break away r/s point( normally somewhere in the mid of AF's range, and would be drawing the attack total of 16 in batches as we test into the r/s depending on the volatility whereby the market is taking that r/s out.
Then upon the test, profitaking of the attack sequense would be invoked into the stops-break on the reverse 8,5,3.
In effects I would be profit taking for ammo(foreign capital) to sustain the residue of the 4 that are still in battle. The four would be further lighten if the trend continues to persist. This would continue until what is left is 1. then a new sequence of 1,1,2,3,5,8 would be put on stand by to ride the next retrace wave, and when the retace wave flats out , the whole rescue and attack sequense would be replayed, depending on the magnitute of the retacement. If the retrace was a fat and bouncy one then the rescue MO was most appropriate. If a new attack opportunity sequence was surfaces, then a new attack sequence would be invoked with whatever was left from rescue.
In reality, you would be seeing that the risk of full force used at the most advantages probabilities and timing.
Of course it can happen that the market may move adverse after the strong attack, and thats when, the damagecontol is invoked to rescue as many of the positions still in good standing as possible and re-strategised( regrouped) for exposure rescue.
This attack sequense is not invoked when the market volatility is tight, Only when the legs are strong,(strong = range play 50 pips average) and volatility run of max 7 bars average 3.
I hope this helps.
regards

PS:It is difficult to describe for you what the dance tempo is like before this opportunities avail themselves, after a few of these dances you will have a better feel for it. One of the tell tale signs is when a market behaves non letargic and seems warmed up in its sequence of movements. For lack of a better word, active.
When markets are detected to be not in this mode, then the normal rescue and limited attack strategy is most prudent.
Sometimes, I may miss the initial legs of these runs, due to my negligence.
Under these circumstances, ad hock strategies are used to compensate the retiming.
In essence, please do not think that you are wrong in your approaches, just different. And probabilily due to capitalisation , not optimised.
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FTI.....

Phil,
Thanks for your explanation but you elaborate on "This attack sequence is not invoked when the market volatility is tight, only when the legs are strong, (strong = range play 50 pips average) and volatility run of max 7 bars average 3".

Sutiv

Hi Sutiv

"This attack sequence is not invoked when the market volatility is tight
small bars without much movement, use in H1 = low/tight volatility.

only when the legs are strong, (strong = range play 50 pips average) and volatility run of max 7 bars average 3".
again H1, bigger bars that cover about 50pips in a run/leg with a maximum of 7 bars but often average about 3, you find these as the first legs/runs (1) the retrace (2) etc.....

D1 is for main directional and other analysis, H1 is also for analysis and finding a correlation between the 2 T/F's for knowing where you are in a move, M5 is to fine tune your entries with the use of scouts for timing the EW 1-5 (a-f, whichever you want to call it) pattern/moves/runs/legs of whatever you want to call them, one thing I learnt is that it is best not to get caught up in all these 'names' for things, is best you know only what the move/pattern/bars true core meaning is suggesting to you. Make your own names up if you want, no one seems to agree on a true definitive name and one understanding for most things in chart reading.

Phil.

Sutiserv,

If I may add my two cents here... I agree with everything phil has said above and would like to add (based on my own discovery of my strengths and weaknesses) that a decent understanding of market moving fundamentals may paint a clearer picture and strengthen your confidence of your trade decisions in tandem with understanding with everything phil has said and shown on this thread (especially pages 65 and above). Take todays GBPUSD price action for instance. We had several days of strong buying and today we had a selloff of gbp. the buying was due to the market expecting a 50bps cut from the fed. Today news came out better than expected for consumer spending which shows a stronger economy which might give the fed a little more wiggle room and suggestive of a smaller rate cut. that's the fundamental side...

on the technical side we were nearing discount levels from the last move down on the daily and on the hourly we were in a zone where buyers were suspected to be trapped. on Usdx we were at weekly and monthly lows (big boys trading area) and at a significant previous low on the daily chart (where USD buyers are to be suspected. All of this was a strong indication that there would be some USD buying, couple that with the news release and you have a strong indication of direction.

I recommend reading phils thread in detail and studying every trade in detail as he has dedicated a lot of time and effort to show all his market discoveries. Study where and why he places his fibs and where he guestimates liquidity and big traders to be. as far as the fundamental side, you dont have to be a wizard at it you just have to understand market expectations and watch how price behaves to see if it moves in tandem with expectations or if the big boys are using it to trap. A good way that I have learned to look at fundamenals is to listen to powells speaches and see what metrics they are paying attention to as that will likely be the market movers

i wish you luck on your journey

Phil,
Thanks for the clarification, so the volatility for this condition is measured on H1 and not M5.
What do you consider when in rescue mode especially the price action before implementing the skew?

Sutiv

Dbrown,
Thanks for your input, but the market does not always react in line with the economic news. What is the correct approach?

Sutiv