Trading What I see !?

[goat68]

A good day, made a couple of adjustments to strategy.
8 Wins, 2 Losses : Net = +£48.50
Avg Win = +£9.30
Avg Loss = -£12.94

I'm convinced if I keep applying all the "tips" PW suggests in his Videos I will be heading in the right direction...

[Trader Pat]

A good day, made a couple of adjustments to strategy.
8 Wins, 2 Losses : Net = +£48.50
Avg Win = +£9.30
Avg Loss = -£12.94

I'm convinced if I keep applying all the "tips" PW suggests in his Videos I will be heading in the right direction...

You should consider recording your trades and viewing them back. Its amazing all the signals you miss when in the middle of a trade.

[goat68]

A good day, made a couple of adjustments to strategy.
8 Wins, 2 Losses : Net = +£48.50
Avg Win = +£9.30
Avg Loss = -£12.94

I'm convinced if I keep applying all the "tips" PW suggests in his Videos I will be heading in the right direction...

You should consider recording your trades and viewing them back. Its amazing all the signals you miss when in the middle of a trade.

Will do, thanks for the tip Pat

[jamesg46]

https://youtu.be/AApxtkGaeWc

Random post but I feel it's relative.

[Kai]

I'm convinced if I keep applying all the "tips" PW suggests in his Videos I will be heading in the right direction...

Easier said than done! If you could apply only a handful of those tips it should be relatively smooth sailing.

Btw speaking of concrete tips, I can try and throw one of mine if it helps. If you're using this thread as a daily trading diary of sorts I would maybe suggest a very simple process of finding and highlighting your biggest mistake for that day and then trying not to repeat it the next day, and so on, simply getting in the habit of finding just one mistake per day can do wonders for your trading after a few weeks. The idea here is obviously to start working from the biggest mistakes and work your way down, if you cut those out then it's much easier to progress, and if you don't know where to find them just have a look at your biggest losses.

Ideally I'd suggest to do the same with the patterns, if you try your hardest to identify one "pattern" per day, and then try to confirm it the next one if possible and so on, that is infinitely more complex but not a bad habit either.

The above process more or less is how I work in general, if you do it right then in a couple of weeks time your trading approach and performance will be light-years ahead of your old one! Like Pat suggested above, imho you can get a lot more out of carefully analyzing one day's worth of trading than mindlessly trading for several months without any analysis in your work.

But those are good results for such an early stage, you can progress fast with decent stake sizes since baby stakes just delay facing the inevitable. Best of luck.

[goat68]

I'm convinced if I keep applying all the "tips" PW suggests in his Videos I will be heading in the right direction...

Easier said than done! If you could apply only a handful of those tips it should be relatively smooth sailing.

Btw speaking of concrete tips, I can try and throw one of mine if it helps. If you're using this thread as a daily trading diary of sorts I would maybe suggest a very simple process of finding and highlighting your biggest mistake for that day and then trying not to repeat it the next day, and so on, simply getting in the habit of finding just one mistake per day can do wonders for your trading after a few weeks. The idea here is obviously to start working from the biggest mistakes and work your way down, if you cut those out then it's much easier to progress, and if you don't know where to find them just have a look at your biggest losses.

Ideally I'd suggest to do the same with the patterns, if you try your hardest to identify one "pattern" per day, and then try to confirm it the next one if possible and so on, that is infinitely more complex but not a bad habit either.

The above process more or less is how I work in general, if you do it right then in a couple of weeks time your trading approach and performance will be light-years ahead of your old one! Like Pat suggested above, imho you can get a lot more out of carefully analyzing one day's worth of trading than mindlessly trading for several months without any analysis in your work.

But those are good results for such an early stage, you can progress fast with decent stake sizes since baby stakes just delay facing the inevitable. Best of luck.

Thanks Kai,
A good point, and very appropriate for today!
Not a good day, some big losers again...
I'm not convinced by an auto stop loss, but my manual exit is aweful!!
So reviewing one trade today went something like this:
1. Got signal on entry placed trade and entered exit orders
2. Started as I thought, and other runners confirmed
3. Turned sharply against, and was up against my mental stop exit -£20, but I didn't want to jump out as market could be fooling and other runners were still roughly inline
4. Ticked out suddenly to -£38... Damn it! What's it doing look at other runners, one has come in against what I predict, go back to exit, -£56 !!

Need to have a long think about that.......

Agree what you say about bet size

[goat68]

Another issue I see us my wins being too small maybe, I'm conservatively taking a chunk out of the predicted price movement, but for my bug losses I'm ending sometimes quite a bit bigger...
Not sure about letting the winners run...? Or just bigger targets?

[ShaunWhite]

my mental stop exit -£20

Your mental stop (loss or profit) needs to be a market led decision, maybe at a key price or when something happens in the market, not a cash amount.

"-£20" isn't telling you whether you should exit, hold or even add to your position. The PL column and especially that part where it turns from red to green is the least important piece of information on the ladder, in fact it's detremental unless you can treat it purely as interesting, but then disregard it when it comes to making a trading decision. Those should always be about what the market says rather than what your personal pain threshold happens to be. Same with your wins, don't snatch for quick ones to add to your strike rate or try and push them to target values or round numbers.

To see how much you're relying on the PL column (which the market doesn't give a damn about) try switching off the PL column and choose your min stake preset. Now just back or lay when you think the market says you should, and when you're done, hedge up, see how you did. That should also help break the mental block around 'opening' and 'closing' because you might end up backing or laying more than once in a row before finally squaring up any remaining position.

[ShaunWhite]

"1. Got signal on entry placed trade and entered exit orders
2. Started as I thought, and other runners confirmed
3. Turned sharply against, and was up against my mental stop exit -£20, but I didn't want to jump out as market could be fooling and other runners were still roughly inline"

1. You followed your plan. Good.
2. You followed your plan. Good.
3. You started to make stuff up on the fly.

Your initial bet was a carefully thought out one based on what the market was saying and a profitable exit was planned too. But when it didn't go to plan, and a large percentage won't, for your closing bet you decided there was a better way than planning and did it based on a phychological reaction to "£20" and guesswork about 'fooling' and coulda woulda shoulda.

It's perfectly normal thing for new people to do, it's all well and good before hand but in the heat of battle it all goes to pieces. I think you should reduce your stakes, the size of your positions is affecting you. They'll grow again soon enough if you're any good and it will happen in such a way that they won't be freaking you out so much.

[wearthefoxhat]

https://youtu.be/AApxtkGaeWc

Random post but I feel it's relative.

Good one.

Puts a few things in to some perspective. (my opinion of course)

"Monkey says to fish, let me save you from drowning." as he safely puts the fish up a tree.

[goat68]

my mental stop exit -£20

Your mental stop (loss or profit) needs to be a market led decision, maybe at a key price or when something happens in the market, not a cash amount.

"-£20" isn't telling you whether you should exit, hold or even add to your position. The PL column and especially that part where it turns from red to green is the least important piece of information on the ladder, in fact it's detremental unless you can treat it purely as interesting, but then disregard it when it comes to making a trading decision. Those should always be about what the market says rather than what your personal pain threshold happens to be. Same with your wins, don't snatch for quick ones to add to your strike rate or try and push them to target values or round numbers.

To see how much you're relying on the PL column (which the market doesn't give a damn about) try switching off the PL column and choose your min stake preset. Now just back or lay when you think the market says you should, and when you're done, hedge up, see how you did. That should also help break the mental block around 'opening' and 'closing' because you might end up backing or laying more than once in a row before finally squaring up any remaining position.

Thanks for the feedback Shaun.
Apologies I was using -£20 purely to demonstrate in my post how far my illdisiplined trade went past my market led stop, to -£56, I scale my bets so my stop is about -£20.
Cheers

[jamesg46]

https://youtu.be/AApxtkGaeWc

Random post but I feel it's relative.

Good one.

Puts a few things in to some perspective. (my opinion of course)

"Monkey says to fish, let me save you from drowning." as he safely puts the fish up a tree.

happy you enjoyed it. Makes a change from me feeling that I'm annoying people when posting these, I can be a little heavy on Alan Watts at times.

[goat68]

Another crap day! Had a few trades that were bonkers! Kempton 6pm all front 5 just went out...and I couldn't see any high odds horse that came in, how is that possible?!?! Cost me that one, my horse was going against me, but I was looking at the others and they were saying trade still good!

I'm pretty sure now I am very good at trading at random! I have done all these trades and ended back up where I started!
Thus no edge!

[Kai]

I'm pretty sure now I am very good at trading at random! I have done all these trades and ended back up where I started!
Thus no edge!

Building a probability-based mind from a fear-based brain is no easy task

[goat68]

I'm pretty sure now I am very good at trading at random! I have done all these trades and ended back up where I started!
Thus no edge!

Building a probability-based mind from a fear-based brain is no easy task

Just trying to understand your comment! Very subtle..!
So I think your saying to succeed at trading you need to create a probability of an outcome strategy from a market that is actually fear based, ie.movements are based on traders fear!!