| RESULTS FOR DAY | |
|---|---|
| CL Contracts: | 5 |
| Net $P/L: | -739 |
| Wins: | 0 |
| Losses: | 4 |
| Win%: | 0 |
| Avg$Win: | 0 |
| Avg$Loss: | -185 |
15 hours ago
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Thurs. 6/25
9:30am CDT - Gave back half my June gains today and am likely done for the month. I honestly have no idea how to consistently produce gains the way crude oil is trading lately. The relentless spikes up then down and back with no follow through is mind numbing. Big stops, small stops, no difference. Break needed.
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Yes survival is what I've barely been doing for awhile now. Hope to continue that until the "thriving" period kicks in! Enjoy your continued break.
ReplyDeleteMBA...IF you are in this for the money (<- I mean that in a non-facetious way...we do this for many reasons other than for the money), I'd suggest you take an honest look at how you are getting in the way of techniques that work.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you try taking 10 1-lot trades according to any set of criteria and see where your incongruent behaviour is in applying the criteria? Then you can systematically work on those and the PnL will follow as an afterthought.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts!
MM
Not following MM. "techniques that work" is exactly what I need. Sure, everything works to some degree in certain market conditions (known after the fact). PnL only follows if you have a great enough edge and can execute it.
DeleteWhat I mean by "techniques that work" is that, in my opinion based on looking over your data of the last few years, you clearly have what I call an "analytical edge"...this is obvious by the frequency with which you can bang out small but consistent profits over a significant number of trades/extended period of time. The problem is in the consistent application of that AE...
Delete" PnL only follows if you have a great enough edge and can execute it." - Agreed. I'm suggesting you look at the execution part (<- with consistency!) rather than the edge/AE.
The market condition thing is redundant when you stop looking for a rigid system and use a few simple ideas in harmony with what's going on. If you cultivate what Tim Ferris refers to as "selective ignorance" you'll allow the edge to produce for you rather than you exercising your right to make decisions/control things only to end up degrading that edge.
Hope that explains my line of thought a little better! If it would be of any use to you, I'd be willing to sit in on an hour of your trading to help you highlight those potential points of improvement. I know it really helped me find out what to work on (and stop the hunt for the perfect system) when others did the same for me.
Sounds like what Market Monkey is saying is that winning trading plans are a dime-a-dozen. I agree with that. But as human beings we have the opportunity to screw up the best laid of plans. And so its "execute...or be executed". Temporary amnesia is not a bad thing if your last trade didn't work out (there are no "losers"...only trades that "don't work out"). Just my opinion. 1) Focus is EVERYTHING. 2) Follow the RULES 3) NO FRUSTRATION about anything!
ReplyDeleteMM, I am no doubt analytical but I would not define my small runs as proof of any analytical "edge," as you call it. Trends exist, or appear to exist, in random data after all. Agree there's room for improvement in my execution (bet we can all say that).
ReplyDeleteYM, good 3 points! However I disagree that winning trade plans are a dime-a-dozen. Unless you are excluding commissions and slippage and only looking at gross ticks, winning plans are few and far between. Otherwise, we'd be hearing a lot more about all the profitable day traders out there. But if anyone has a dozen trading plans out there that consistently win, send them my way and I'll be glad to mail you 10 cents!
"Sounds like what Market Monkey is saying is that winning trading plans are a dime-a-dozen. I agree with that. But as human beings we have the opportunity to screw up the best laid of plans."- YM Trader.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I'm saying in a nutshell.
I'm going to take the time to challenge all your ideas/beliefs (in the same way that I do with mine) as I think that's where true growth occurs. This exchange is probably beneficial to a few people... I want to make it clear that I'm by no means suggesting I have any definitive answers but I can share what has moved me further along in the right direction. The comments below are the beliefs/ideas I currently hold.
"I would not define my small runs as proof of any analytical "edge," as you call it. Trends exist, or appear to exist, in random data after all."- MBAG
How you define what you are doing will affect what you are doing. Agreed with the trend in random data part BUT would add that EVERY trend resides in a bunch of random data if you zoom out to a large enough time frame. Looking for confirmation in stats is somewhat a waste of time as everything is always evolving (as Sandy rightfully said).
"winning plans are few and far between. Otherwise, we'd be hearing a lot more about all the profitable day traders out there."
Once again, I believe there are many, many winning plans out there. It's the execution that's the drain on the edge. Why not chose to believe this, at least for a while, and test it?? Take a simple plan based on logic then tweak and record as you move closer to the desired goal. Even pull backs in a trend, buying/selling bottom/tops of channels works IF we wrap a consistent approach around it that allows the market to deliver.
I agree with most of what Sandy. It's like a backbone...always in a different position, ever changing but it's always the same backbone.
This TED talk is extremely relevant to this discussion. Just have a structured way to randomly arrive at the solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5wCfYujRdE
I agree execution is nearly always a drain on any edge, but I 100% disagree there are many winning plans out there. I know this because I've programmed hundreds of systems, many simple ideas, and have found very very few that I would throw into the "winners" pile. This, it turns out, is part of the draw to this profession - the challenge to succeed!
DeleteThanks for those authors/titles Sandy. Added to my book list in Workflowy! (<- You were the one who got me hooked on the idea of a "book holiday" in one of your posts a few years back...).
ReplyDeleteAgreed...DP makes great-tasting lemonade out of the most ordinary lemons. The part of the aforementioned TED talk that really impacted my thought process was the Unilever-nozzle bit. Another example that keeps springing to mind that demonstrates the same idea is the way those little vacuum robots make their way around our homes, mapping out the layout of each room. Structured trial and error.
Your penultimate paragraph reminds me of David Marcuum's and Steven B. Smith's "EGOnomics- What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability)". This still ranks as my number one book about trading that's not about trading.