Trade what you see NOT what you expect

Damn , your a mind reader...

Ken, Said he can't achieve any measure of consistency in accumulating wealth from trading until he learns self-discipline, emotional control, and the ability to change his mind to flow with the markets.

Don't Forget Mom Today .....
http://img.metblogs.com/lahore/files...others-day.jpg

I know I have a bad habit of stating the obvious, But as beginners in this thing called trading. We need to always remind ourselves as we interact with threads like this. That everyone here is not on the same Playing field.

This goes both ways. More experienced traders need to be patient with us beginners and the newer traders need to remember that they can't play all the trades the way the more experienced traders can. We need to remember our Money Management when deciding on any trade. But especially we need to remember to take profit...

I don't remember who said it but it has been said by a few of the more respected traders around. Never let a winning trade become a loser. I am as or more guilty of this than anyone. It seems with the trades I finally decide to let run to make me some pips , Turn around and I lose more than ever. They never developed into good trades to begin with but they were in profit at some point.

Another thing I learned which I also don't use is once you lose 20% of your profit close the trade. In other words if your up 20 and it comes back to 16 get out. I think this would serve us newer traders well in the beginning. We need the winning attitude as we build on that we will also learn the trades that need room to develop.

One other thought on longer term trades. I personally want to trade this way. But I also know I don't have the account balance for it yet.. But if we find ourselves in a trade that is using the 1hr or 4hr stop ( and we entered on the 15min). Until we have the funds to add on to our position as it moves against us at possible turn around areas. Maybe as traders with smaller accounts we should scale out until we have a confirmed reversal then scale in on the way up in equity. It is a lot easier to make up the lose of $1.00 a pip verses $10 or $20..

Just more of my insane thoughts...

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.... Ken Lee

The main thing I got out of Trading In The Zone. Was the CURE, develop a STRUCTURED strategy and trade it the way it is designed. So as each traders is different, so might be there rules of the game. That is why Everyone tells us you need to write it down..

We HAVE to decide what is right for us.. Taking into account our Money Management our trading hours, The trades we tend to take , and any other variables unique to each of us. The goal is to make consistent trades based on our own rules. If we trade many of the setups we have learned on this thread then there are different stop levels , and profit taking areas.

The goal of the book is to have us do the same thing over and over until it becomes a habit.. There has been studies done if you do something 21 times in a row it becomes a habit. I have actually done that in the past for other things and it works.. We just need to consciously make the correct choice based on facts instead of having a emotional response. The emotional response is a automatic response that has to be suppressed and overridden that is why it is hard to do. As our trades develop talk to yourself. When it does this I WILL do this .. etc..

That is another point brought up in the book. To avoid the "It was My fault" blame. We find ourselves doing other things instead of concentrating on the trades. We can not allow our minds to wonder when our money is on the line. When we are in a trade we must be there 100%.

Just more Babbling. Mainly talking to myself.. Ken Lee

Just got e-mailed this - http://broadcast.ino.com/education/b...d_on_the_move/

Interesting take on things ...

Just more Babbling. Mainly talking to myself.. Ken Lee[/quote]

Please keep "babbling" Ken. You talk more sense than you give yourself credit for and your posts are an integral part of this thread (for me at least).

Good work

Macc

Hi Ken.... This is how i see all that psycho babble stuff!

A Direct action type personality is the best for trading. I strongly suspect EO and Infinity are very direct action people! I have a very analytical type personality. I see patterns well and have "vision" but my personality often gets in my way of my reaction speed and I miss a lot of trades or get in 20 pips to late and get stopped out with a few or a small loss.

I am trying to come to terms with myself and be aware of my liabilities and instead of fighting it, go ahead and pull the trigger when my gut tells me to. I see the trade but hesitate and end up wishing i had entered when the signal came out. (sound familer?) Trading the way those direct action types do it. I am getting better thanks to them.

No fear, no hesitation, just getting in at a level where price will not go against u more then a few before u have time to take a little profit and cover. A risk free trade in about 10 mins is what I am looking for, and I think I am good enough to call it! sometimes!

If it does not go my way I want to be out, quick and in a hurry. It is a personal thing with me but I don't like to add to a loosing trade either. EO does it and it works often but I am just not comfortable with it. I would rather be stopped out with a small loss and enter at a better price. Takes the pressure off so i can focus on a new trade instead of freaking over a bad call. You just have to find your own comfort level and know your risk tolerance. And "know thyself".

Hehe....i am preaching to myself also

Thanks for the Input.. I agree 90% of what you saying.. The only thing I disagree which I think is a wording issue is the part where you should listen to your GUT. That is a emotion. We Need to listen to the charts. They are telling us everything we need to know.

After watching and seeing the levels EO and Infinity and Others are entering trades at. I know they are hitting the button due to where price is. Heck A lot of the prices they enter at never show up on my charts..

I like you wait for a little confirmation, like letting it move a bit in the right direction.. This is normally when they are locking in 15 or 20 pips.Then as you say it goes against me. Then they enter again where I get stopped out at.. LOL. I now watch for this though and the trade sometimes can be salvaged by either adding a bit Or better being patient and letting it move back in the right direction then close at BE or with minor profit.

Also if we enter at say the MA line our stop or risk is less as we are already closer to the stop. This has been said here before it is hard to enter a trade in the opposite direction to price movement. Other words price is heading down it hits our MA area we need to buy in a short market. Emotions don't like that.. We will succeeed at this it will just take some effort on our part. I believe, as in anything in life the hardest battle is against ourselves.. The worste problem would be to not know you have the key to success within yourself and just kept looking for that perfect strategy.

I truelly believe the strategy is in our hands now the key to making it work is in ourselves.

Take care and I hoping up for your trade This afternoon.. Think UP UP..Ken

i agree, wanted to type this earlier but was distracted, ken with myself i find i enter with a defined stop loss and target which is generally 2:1 ratio is favour for profit

once stop is in...im mechanical and wont (try my best) to place to break even, the reasoning behind me doing this is because i want to accept the risk of the trade and this help me in the trade (accepting the loss)

one or the other will be hit..

i find i cant trade any other way because im very spontaneous by nature and i will change my mind every time i have a opportunity too

on the plus side this has allowed me to have more losses than wins and still be profitable at least in the short term(am on a demo)

its all about the entry in my view and stoping myself from over thinking

happy trading fellas

Yeah Ken...just let me change gut feeling to the first time I see the signal!

Now we 100%

Ken -


First point - Don't let a winner become a loser - Yeah thats an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to execute, you will have to have a plan. Whats your actual plan to do that ?

I always hear people say "Cut your losses and let winners run", and thats fine, so how do you do that ? If you try something like a volatility based trailing stop then you will probably end up with

40% small losses
40% small winners
20% massive winners

The small trades will probably worth .5% (as they were for me) and your "massive winners" are around above 2% which is fine.

Your idea of say . . . Exiting when it goes 20% against you is fine, but I mean we are talking about 4 pips, 4pips is nothing. Thats why I am more of a longer term trader in general, its much easier to understand whats going on without the noise.


As for 1HR and 4HR SL size, The problem here is not that your account isn't big enough but it's your brokers granularity, you need to switch to a broker that will allow you to trade in smaller amounts so you can have your SL as a %R that is acceptable to you.

Oanda for example allows this.



Shilva -

I understand what you mean about "I see whas happening" and "my gut tells me to do such and such", I used to feel that way all the time until I got a concrete plan about what I am doing, what setups I trade, when I trade them, what I risk.

That way you never have any paralysis of analysis. For ages I had no EXACT plan and found no success, but ever since I had a plan and followed it to the word I have not had a losing month.


Just some of my thoughts,

Regards,
Jig

anybody open yet? I just checked and price was at 5042...if that is correct........yikes

The pound is still being sold. I checked a couple of minutes ago and it was at 1.5042. That's roughly a 200 pip fall from Friday's close. I can't remember the last time I saw that much movement over a weekend. What the hell is up?

There was an interesting theory on the cable thread about the mark down. They hypothesized that the 10 banks who were told that they needed to raise billions more dollars based on the results of the stress tests were manipulating the market to make the money.

This is interesting for two reasons, one, the dollar weakened, thus if they hold foreign currency reserves, it makes it easier to meet their $ target, and two, a gap down gives an opportunity to further buy into the currency pair at a significant mark down.

Let's see what happens on market open.

Oanda is open and I have 1.5229.

Thanks pippiNole...I feel a little better. I left a trade open over the weekend and i could just see it gapping down and opening below my entry around 5050.

When does your broker open?

5pm EDT

Quit worrying your good... Just get ready to move that stop or close..no telling what will happen at open..

First point - Don't let a winner become a loser - Yeah thats an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to execute, you will have to have a plan. Whats your actual plan to do that ?

I think I have mentioned in the past, The time I have been most profitable is when I have scalped the market. Taking up wards of 30 trades a day. But only averaging 4 or 5 pips per trade also having 10 or so 1 - 2 pip trades.

The key was the $ per pip it being higher made it easier to close bad trades with a small gain. With that type trading I would only have 1 or 2 nonprofitable trades a day. For very Minimum loses 5 - 6 pips.. I still prefer that type trading but a as you mention I am trying to use the things taught here to better my entry and to know when I have a good entry that should make more pipage..



I always hear people say "Cut your losses and let winners run", and thats fine, so how do you do that ? If you try something like a volatility based trailing stop then you will probably end up with

40% small losses
40% small winners
20% massive winners

The small trades will probably worth .5% (as they were for me) and your "massive winners" are around above 2% which is fine.

Your idea of say . . . Exiting when it goes 20% against you is fine, but I mean we are talking about 4 pips, 4pips is nothing. Thats why I am more of a longer term trader in general, its much easier to understand whats going on without the noise.

I believe that statement is really designed for longer term traders. I have seen on this thread many times where people are up hundreds of pips to only close barely up or even Break Even or less. If I am up 100 pips closing at 80 is not a bad thing. That size of drop could also hold a re-entry normally.

You figure 32.8 pips of a 100 pip move is a major fib level and 50 pips of a 100 pip move even better. So you could close at 20 and re-enter or add on at the fib levels. Just a thought. The main point of all this banter is what we can find that works for each of us.. I honestly haven't got mine totally figured out. But I will not give up..


As for HR and HR SL size, The problem here is not that your account isn't big enough but it's your brokers granularity, you need to switch to a broker that will allow you to trade in smaller amounts so you can have your SL as a %R that is acceptable to you.

Oanda for example allows this.

I agree 100% But I also have seen and done myself. You read what others are doing and figuring they are more experienced than you tend to risk more, no this is not their fault but it does happen A LOT.. That is why it is important to make your own choices based on your risk level. You can say that is their problem and you would be right. But we on this thread are trying to progress everyone not leaving any behind.. Just my 2 cents..

I just but that out there earlier because you can find yourself in that position and might be able to manage the trade differently..

I also use Oanda and do use there per % feature..


That way you never have any paralysis of analysis. For ages I had no EXACT plan and found no success, but ever since I had a plan and followed it to the word I have not had a losing month.

That is great I am just now working on a plan with all the rules.. I have reopened my other GFT account for intra day trading so I Will Have the 2 accounts i mentioned earlier. I also have a Oanda account I want to use just for the longer trades. I will keep everyone advised to how it goes..

Thanks for taking the time to add your thoughts this is how we all make choices and see options we might not have thought about. None of use are right or wrong we just have different priorities and concerns..