one of my "best" trades

Obviously I broke every trading rule during a 30 minute trade (see the attached screenshot).
- entering against the trend ( shorted in uptrend)
- doubling up my position while having the wrong position in the market
- trading while being very tired
- no initial stop loss established
- no risk / reward calculated previously
- impulse trading
- daytrading

trading log

I will log every trade I do in a table with the following columns and possible values

Trade analysis

---

• Date - pretty clear


• Time - hh/mm/ss of execution


• Symbol - the code of the traded symbol.


• Type - market, limit , stop limit, GTC, etc.


• SL Type - stop loss type of order : mental, technical, percent risk, etc.


• Risk - the value at risk


• TP Type - take profit type : trailing stop, pivots, etc.


• Reward - expected reward

Trader analysis

---

• mental and physical health

Other:

---

closing a BIG MOVE on forex ( EURUSD)

This is what I call a "BIG MOVE":

Here is the entry. As you can see the expected risk/reward ratio was 1:3. The actual risk / reward is 1:7.21 due to my "late" exit at 1.4786 meaning a 110.13$/ lot.

Daily view:


1 hour chart:


5 min chart:

my first S&P move

This is my first swing setup on S&P (short S&P to be precise).

Daily chart:


1 Hour chart:



5 mins chart:

intraday dow jones

Entered long ( I have to admin it was an impulse trade) then changed my position to short. Here is the 5 min charts:


The exit was here:

Judgmental vs. non-judgmental trading systems

  Oh God, another question for me. I just can take this anymore ! Trading is indeed the hardest job one can do. I should have tried to become a rockstar. 

So, here we go: Am I a judgmental or a non-judgmental trader ? I'll try to answer this question over the next few weeks, but first of all:

Q: What is judgmental trading ?

A: "Judgmental approaches call upon the trader to make decisions within a given criteria or context, while non-judgmental systems are strictly mechanical."

Here are some advantages / disadvatages ( taken from Joe Dinapoli's book - Trading with Dinapoli levels)

Miths about non-judgmental trading : 

1. Once you have developed your system, your research and your work is over. Stress is non-existemt since the decision-making process is out of your hands
   
2. You don't have to monitor the markets anymore. 
3. The system can generate an adequate income flow which will enable you to go to Fiji :)

The reality : 

1. The work never ends. Your system will exceed the historical extremes ( discovered by back-testing) and you start "massaging" the parameters. In fact, you should have 2, 3 or maybe more systems. Then, regarding the stress: you will feel it when your system will dictate absurd orders. 
2. Your system will start missing some big moves
3. It's hard to get enough capital to fund four systems over a number of futures contracts. 

Miths about judgmental trading:

1. You achieve a 90% win ratio 
2. You live where you want, trade where you want 
3. You turn a modest amount of money into a veritable mountain of pure finacial muscle. 

The reality:

1. You learn from a pro, then from another, and although you find some real benefit here and there, you're just never able to achiever quite what you expected. 
2. If you can't find a way to get profitable, your savings will be gone and you start wondering if you will become someone else's employee.
3. You will be constantly focusing on the markets. You'll never get to Fiji, actually you'll start wondering " Is there a contract on Fiji ?"

The seven habits of successful trader by Mark Crisp

Recently I read on a trader-girl's blog (www.olesiafx.com) something about this author (Mark Crisp). The title was very intriguing so I decided to have a look. So, according to Mark Crisp the 7 habits of successful trader are:

1. Take complete responsability, that is , don't try to blame anybody else for the mistakes you do.


2. Have a system that fits you.  In order to define a system that fits your personality ask yourself the following questions: 
   
   
   
   • What annual rate of return do I want ?
   
   
   • do I want to trade full time, part time ?
   
   
   • Can I handle the stress of day trading and short term selling ?
   
   
   • Do I have the patience for long term trading ?
   
   
   • What king of personality am I ? Do I need lots of action, Do I need to make decisions all the time ?
   
   
   • What kind of books have I read and which top traders do I most admire and why ?
   
   
   
   


3. Plan a trade and trade a plan.  Here are some helpfull questions that you should ask: 
   
   
   
   • Where will I place my initial stop ?
   
   
   • How will I take my profits ? ( Will I trail stop ? If yes then By how much will I trail my stop ?)
   
   
   • Will I add more shares as the trade goes my way ? 
   
   
   • If the share does not show any profit after x periods will I get out ? And how ?
   
   
   • If stopped out of this trade will I be willing to get back in ?
   
   
   
   


4. Work hard at learning how to trade properly.  Would you expect to become a brain surgeon after attending a weekend seminar ?


5. Positive Self-Belief: You'll never be able to follow a system if you have a doubt in your mind. But how can one gain the confidence in the system ? Well, the answer is : only by doing the groundwork described in the previous step ( Work hard !)


6. View trading as a source in points not in money. Stop counting dollars every time the market makes a move and focus on following your time tested rules. 


7. Keep trading as part of a balanced life. Work hard, play hard.  Successful trading is : 
   
   
   
   • boring
   
   
   • effortless
   
   
   • easy
   
   
   • stress free
   
   
   
   

my first NASDAQ trade

Entered short on BRCM ( Broadcom) then inversed my trade on long 

Think before trade !

You just have to watch this ! John F. Carter was involved in the production of this Carrie Underwood parody.

I like it Doji style !

Division by zero in MetaStock

    Today I tried to create a custom indicator in Metastock. I thought it will be fun & easy since I have a good programming background (Java, C/C++, Delphi, etc.) . I was terrribly wrong !

  Well, everything was cool, the small formula editor didn't bother me too much, until I came to the IF function. The synthax for IF according to the Metastock Help is: 

 if( condition, value when true, value when false) ;

I was a little disappointed about this approach but I was ready to get over it and continue my work. The big problem occured when I tried to display the value of a division and of course I had to take the necessary precautions in order not to divide by zero:

     if ( denominator <> 0 , numerator/denominator, 0) ;

Guess what ? .... although my denominator was checked, I was still getting a nice "Division by zero " error and not once but more than 100 times. Moreover, the indicator seemed to be properly displayed which made the finding of the error even more painful. 

After a while I realized that the parameters of any function have to be evaluated before being delivered to the function. So,  in a statement like : 

if( condition, expression_1, expression_2)  

both expression_1 and expression_2 will be evaluated no matter what the condition says.

You have to admit : This is really crap !

Did anybody hear about WealthLab? 

 

True Range Metastock formula

{high - lov}
diff1:= H-L;
{today's high - yesterday's close}
diff2:= Abs(H-Ref(C, -1));
{today's low - yesterday's close}
diff3:= Abs(L- Ref(C, -1));

Max(diff1, Max(diff2, diff3));