November 2018 Go-Live Support Group

[Abiel 475]

Hi @Mike B... "not blowing up my account" is a negative goal, how you think about your goals can influence how you feel about it, and whether you achieve it. "Not blowing up my account" could mean you are trading with a fear to lose mindset, and it not necessarily means to grow your account or become a profitable or consistent trader.

Some people says that negative goals don't work because is not the way our brains are wired to work. For instance, "don't think of an elephant" ...You weren't thinking of one before, but now that you've been told not to it's impossible not to. Negative goals like: I will quit smoking, I will not eat as much, I won't spend so much money, etc. are almost never attained, your mind visualizes yourself smoking, eating, and spending, and that's what you end up doing. I remember once in a flight they announced "Remember NOT to forget your belongings"... I almost left my stuff in the plane... (Remember ___ to forget)

Instead you need positive goals, goals where the image is of what you do want to achieve: I enjoy breathing fresh air, I will eat small healthy meals, I will save my money for …, etc. Goals in general work this way. You must visualize the goal and your mind will do whatever it can to achieve it. If you want to become a profitable or consistent as trader you have to tell your brain what do you want to achieve. 

Maybe you want to reframe this goal so that it sends a positive and clear direction to your brain: "Increase my account X% or X$$ daily" and it will do whatever it takes to achieve it...

[Thomas 2]

Went live Monday of this week after paper trading since March.  Had 2 red days for tiny losses, but did really well today.  Trading in tiny share sizes to start with, and will increase slowly if I keep being consistently profitable.  Switched to per-share pricing structure today which will save me a ton.  I only traded 1000 shares total today, so that's an important change.  I'm also starting at a default 100 shares, but I drop to 50 for high price or volatile stocks (like NVDA and SQ today).  If I average a positive amount after 5 days, I'll go to a default of 200 shares.  If I average a negative amount after 5 days, I'll go back to the simulator until I have 5 days green average again.  I'm actually having a lot of fun doing this.

[Mike B 625]

On 11/18/2018 at 10:39 AM, Abiel said:

Hi @Mike B... "not blowing up my account" is a negative goal, how you think about your goals can influence how you feel about it, and whether you achieve it. "Not blowing up my account" could mean you are trading with a fear to lose mindset, and it not necessarily means to grow your account or become a profitable or consistent trader.

Some people says that negative goals don't work because is not the way our brains are wired to work. For instance, "don't think of an elephant" ...You weren't thinking of one before, but now that you've been told not to it's impossible not to. Negative goals like: I will quit smoking, I will not eat as much, I won't spend so much money, etc. are almost never attained, your mind visualizes yourself smoking, eating, and spending, and that's what you end up doing. I remember once in a flight they announced "Remember NOT to forget your belongings"... I almost left my stuff in the plane... (Remember ___ to forget)

Instead you need positive goals, goals where the image is of what you do want to achieve: I enjoy breathing fresh air, I will eat small healthy meals, I will save my money for …, etc. Goals in general work this way. You must visualize the goal and your mind will do whatever it can to achieve it. If you want to become a profitable or consistent as trader you have to tell your brain what do you want to achieve. 

Maybe you want to reframe this goal so that it sends a positive and clear direction to your brain: "Increase my account X% or X$$ daily" and it will do whatever it takes to achieve it...

Thanks Abiel for the advice. Sorry for the delayed response, I had an usual busy week of work before Thanksgiving and than got sick to the point I couldn't even trade last Friday.  

I concur focusing on the right things is important in order to be successful. In my second and third month I definitely see myself setting my goals to increasing my account X%. I set the do not blow up my account as my number 1 goal for the first month of trading for two reasons, the first being I have no idea what to except in live trading, so I definitely wanted to survive the first month without destroying my confidence and getting a solid baseline of where my psychology is going to be during a live trade. Secondly, I like how Robert H. set out building blocks in his psychology videos and his recommendation for the first month was not to blow up your account. I am in it for the long haul, so my focus right now is getting through the psychology learning curve not necessarily making money yet. (Tuition Cost must be paid first)

[Garry 5]

Hi,

For whats it worth, my going live experience.

I've been in SIM since March 15. I work a full time job, so I took extra time to feel ready. Last month or two in the SIM were fantastic, probably upwards of 70% win rate. I was aware emotion was the big differentiator, but as much as you try and prepare yourself for that, you can't train emotion without trading real money. 

I went live in mid Sept. On the first two trade days, I had moderate wins around $100. Hey, this is easy, on my way to traveling the world in my private jet! 🙂 On the third trading day, I lost around $400 and on the fourth trading day I lost over $500 (trying to get the $400 back). I have no problem sticking to my stops, those losses weren't that kind of a problem. they were emotional (Hulk, revenge, over-trading etc).

I stepped back, significantly reduced my position size, and instituted some live trading rules. Maximum trade limits, time of day and the best thing I did was eliminate my $goal (Too much pressure, green is good!). I don't have DAS enforced rules, I know I can control my discipline enough not to need that. Everyone is different so I think we all need to find what works for us.

I played around somewhat through the rest of Sept, but I was so emotionally damaged over those losses (not that it was a lot of money, but due to the shake in confidence) that I couldn't trade effectively. I refused to go back into SIM, because for me, the challenge was obviously overcoming the emotional aspect of trading. I "started over" not trading in the first week of Nov, moving my account from CMEG to IB, and zeroing out my equity curve (starting fresh). That really helped because it got that loss out of my mind.

The move to IB was also a game changer. VERY difficult with a CMEG small account and 2.95 commissions to be successful starting out, because you need to keep your position size small to gain confidence. I'm sure it can be done, but those commissions tend to have a way to sneak into your math head when you are calculating how much you need to make on 50 shares to make $20 AND cover nearly $6 dollars commissions (remember you pay when you go in, and when you come out!).

In my first week and half back, starting 6-Nov to 13-Nov, my zeroed equity curve dropped another -$670. 😐  Since 13-Nov I have pulled my equity back up to -$568. It doesn't seem like much but I can feel my confidence growing. My win ratio is 73 wins and 74 losses for the month. I had an $85 dollar loss on NVDA on the 27-Nov that was a result of an order error on my part, but apart from that, since 13-Nov my biggest daily loss was $47. My wins are small, cause I NEED to take profit too soon; working on that (Hide the P&L and make the trade, have a stop, and a target, and stick to it). The other problem for me is to stop trading when I am green. Generally when I did take just "one more trade" that's when my profit for the day disappeared. I do that now by just taking the trade in SIM, to test my theory (Funny how they always win!).

My current rules are simple, not a big list, but its working for me. I have learned over the years to keep it simple. 

• keep the position size SMALL (for now).
• the goal for the day is to be green.
• Don't speculate, look for a setup. However, I will play a feeling, but with a pretty tight stop.
• Three losing trades in a row and call it. And generally three winners call it.
• And above all else, never, ever, look at your P&L. As Andrew has said, and most other you-tubers that matter, make the trade. If you do that, the money will come. I do peak at my net when I am not in a trade, and use that to decide if I want to take another trade, or if I am good for the day. But generally, if I have 4 or 5 trades under my belt, I will stop, win or lose. I think Andrew knows this, or why wouldn't he just keep trying to recover from a -$300 dollar loss. We have all seen him do it.

The only other thing I do most days is turn off chat at 9:30 est. I do find myself occasionally influenced by those chat notifications, and quite often, they don't work out when I hop on the train. 

Lastly, a rant: traded AMD every day this week, and took a little loss on it every day. Piece of Garbage! It's a tough market right now, so I think its a great time to learn.

Cheers

Garry

 

[Robert H 455]

8 hours ago, Garry said:

the goal for the day is to be green.

Great post, Garry! Thanks for sharing.

I would suggest that you remove "being green" as a goal. Remember that our P&L is not something in our control--the market decides if and when we get paid. Our goals should be things such as: enter on pullbacks, honour stop losses, size correctly, etc.

Cheers.

[Garry 5]

Thanks Robert, and fair enough on removing the goal advice. Perhaps it should state, “my desire for the day is to be green” however as required, i will accept a loss if that is what the market has in store for me that day! We cant control the market.

cheers

[Mike B 625]

Here is my wrap-up for the 4th week of live trading. My third week I traded both Wednesday and Friday, but did not find any trades to take. I was busy Monday and Tuesday with work, so I did not trade those days at all.

Weekly Overall Self Rating: Satisfied and built back some confidence

Daily Goal Hit – 2 of 5

Daily Max Loss – 0 of 5

Goals for the month progress

1.       Met my goal for Month 1 and did not blow up my account. I ended the month slightly red but nothing that was worrisome to me.

2.       Did not meet my reward to risk ratio goal but was able to get it back to a 1:1 ratio by the end of the month. In the first two weeks I was well below were I wanted to be.

3.       I ended the month with a 58%-win ratio. Although I was a little below 60% I still consider this a win.

Risk Controls

1.       Did not trigger Max Loss control all month

2.       Did not trigger Max Share traded in a day control all month

Trading Methodology

1.       Did not increase or decrease share size (largest win streak was 3 green days in a row)

2.       GGGRG

Weekly Analysis of trading

I had four really good trading days. Monday and Wednesday, I hit my daily goal. Tuesday was probably the best learning experience as I took a loss on my first trade, but I was able to control my emotions and find another good opportunity to enter and ended the day green. Friday was tough day trading AMD, I did execute my trading plan the way I Intended. The only thing I was unhappy about is I did not have a hotkey available to execute a trade at 200 shares. Due to the movement of AMD, my trade plan called for an increase in share size, which if I had available, I would have ended my day meeting my daily goal. I have since adjusted my hotkey layout to accommodate for this.

Thursday was the worse trading day as I took a trade outside my edge and setup. I did an extensive analysis of my trading edge after the first two weeks as I was not trading well and determined a few key indicators and confirmations that had to be met prior to trading. My goal was to only take trades that met these criteria.

What I Learned for the month

First and foremost, the biggest thing I learned is that if I execute my trade plan according to my edge, I am extremely comfortable in the trade and have a lower fear of losing or being wrong. When I do this, I have an overall comfortable feeling with no issues of stopping out, emotions are in control after a loss or win, and I can continue to trade with little effect from the last trade.

Now, when I enter a trade out of FOMO or against my trade plan, I am extremely emotional in the trade worrying about if it will go in my direction or not, have second thoughts about where I have set my stop loss (luckily I have yet to move it), but most importantly after the trade I am pretty emotionally drained because I didn’t execute the plan I had in place.

My Journal for the first two weeks reflects I was having big issues following my entry and exit rules, while the last two weeks I was following my entry rules much better. I still have a lot of work to do on my profit taking plan, but I believe I started improving on that now that I have worked on entering only according to my rules.

What I did not Expect from the first month

If you have read my previous posts, I still think the only thing I did not expect was the impact of the commissions on my psychology. I had to adjust how I traded after the first two weeks because of the impact they were having on me.

 

Revised Goals for the month progress

1. Execute 5 days in a row trading only my edge

2. Increase share size once during the month after 5 straight green days (this will be achieved by achieving goal 1)

3. Have a 2:1 ratio at the end of the month

4. Have a 60% average win rate

[Mike B 625]

On 11/30/2018 at 9:09 AM, Garry said:

 moving my account from CMEG to IB, and zeroing out my equity curve (starting fresh). That really helped because it got that loss out of my mind.

Gary,

I am doing the same thing starting December with zeroing out my equity curve. I found during the first two weeks that it was having a negative impact when I looked at it. I think I will be able to handle my trades a little better starting over, however, I am still keeping a file that has all of my live trades so that later I can go back and continue to evaluate it. 

Mike

[Garry 5]

3 hours ago, Mike B said:

Gary,

I am doing the same thing starting December with zeroing out my equity curve. I found during the first two weeks that it was having a negative impact when I looked at it. I think I will be able to handle my trades a little better starting over, however, I am still keeping a file that has all of my live trades so that later I can go back and continue to evaluate it. 

Mike

Yes, its important to learn from those losses but not to dwell on them. I still keep the journal entries in regards to those bad trades, but I try to approach every day like that didnt happen. I reviewed my trades again. My win loss ratio was 73/74 for the month however in the last two weeks, it was 27/13. Those are the stats to look at, get the confidence up. Looking forward to seeing how December goes, for both of us. Its great to see these posts...

Update mid month...

Cheers Mike

Garry

[Rob C 826]

 

Hello,

I would like to add my experience so far going live (6 weeks so far). I am hoping by posting my goals/results it will help with the discipline I need in keeping to them.

I was in SIM (both DAS and TradingSIM.com) for 6 months with very poor results. Saw no progress so I looked for a new platform. I felt my primary issue was hotkey and other careless mistakes. Though DAS is a very strong and nimble platform, I always felt like I was fighting it. I guess my brain is wired differently. Looking at other platforms I thought Etrade-Pro would have the best impact on my hotkey, etc. mistakes. Which it did. I went from ~2mistakes/day to only 2 total since I went live. I wasn’t planning to go live, but Etrade has no SIM so I kept my risk to only $25/trade.

Here is my first month results:

I am only striving to accomplish psychological goals. At the moment I am not interested in my P/L or my win% rate.

I was quite pleased with my Winners($)/Losers($) ratio. In SIM it was 0.6 to 1. I was always cutting my winners short and having trouble stopping out.

I have an over trading issue I need to deal with so I need to keep my trades to a minimum (~3/day) so I only choose good setups.

Hulk days. I knew I would have an issue with this. It is not a coincidence that the number of hotkey mistakes is equal to the number of hulk days since that was the trigger for both. This was the reason I failed my goals the first month and I am still keeping myself to $25/trade risk until I have a whole month keeping to my min goals. I define hulk day as more than 7 trades, going past my -$75 S/L limit and consciously choosing too large of a share size at least once.

Correct Stop Out % was my favorite stat. This really helped me going from using hard stops on all trades to now using manual stops on all trades. By keeping this stat I know it is quite likely my chosen stop out price is correct and the stock will unlikely turn around and be profitable. Once I went to manual stops I started S/O before my predetermined stop when the trade didn’t feel right anymore. This was the primary catalyst to improve my W$/L$ ratio. I determine this stat by looking at the next technical level. If I would have used the next tech level as my S/O instead would the stock turn around and make it to my first profit target? The answer was no 77% of the time.

 

Here are my results for halfway through my second month live:

 

I am concerned my over trading tendencies are kicking in more. I need to control it. I am really happy with the W$/L$ ratio, but I don’t think that is sustainable at this level. I don’t know if the hulk days are under control or not. I will only know, next time I get a hotkey or other type of mistake.

That’s all. Thanks for reading. Any insight you could give me would be appreciated.

-Rob 

Edited December 5, 2018 by Rob

[Mike B 625]

Here is my wrap-up for the 5th week of live trading.

Weekly Overall Self Rating: Good

Daily Goal Hit – 2 of 5

Daily Max Loss – 0 of 5

Goals for the month progress

1. I executed 2 days in a row trading only my edge. I took two trades outside of my edge.

2. Hit 5 days green days in a row, so I will be increasing share size to 150 starting on Monday

3. I have a 2:1 ratio

4. I have above a 60% average win rate

Risk Controls

1.       Did not trigger Max Loss control

2.       Did not trigger Max Share traded in a day control

Trading Methodology

1.       Did not increase or decrease share size in the week.

2.       GGGG

Weekly Analysis of trading

Focusing on trading within my edge has really brought everything together. I have been less emotional once entering the trade as I have gained more confidence in my trading edge. After my struggles the first two weeks, I decided to take time and analyze my trading edge while I was away from trading due to work. This gave me a solid 7 days to review my simulator and live journals to see if I could identify why my winning % had dipped so much. I found that I was entering trades outside of what I considered my edge. I then decided to clearly identify what my edge was and only trade within that for a sample set of 20. The past two weeks have highlighted the huge impact this has had on my trading. As you can see from the stoplight chart below I have had a huge improvement. Nov 29th I trade outside my edge and got stopped out at my entry point according to my edge.

What I Learned

I have learned that if I trade within my edge my probability for having a winning trade this week was 88%. If I trade outside of my edge my probability for having a winning trade this week was 22%. For me this has increased my ability to handle my emotions and control my ability to not trade when I am feeling FOMO. I did miss 2 entries this week, but I was able to stick with my rule of letting it go if I miss the trade. I know the trade is not going to work each time, but at least I know I am entering a trade with a high probability of going in my direction. Below you can see my analysis that I have started doing each day at the end of the day. For a stock to meet my edge it must be within risk/reward ratios, have 2 of 3 indicators, and 3 of 5 confirmations. I have done this for 5 and 15 Min ORB, but as of now I am only trading 15 min ORB.

What I did not Expect

I truly did not expect the profit taking management to be as hard as it is. Right now I am having issues holding a stock moving in my direction to my predefined exit rules. I have this urge of making sure I take some profit before it goes against me. This is going to be my next area of focus once I complete my edge analysis sample set of 20.

[Mike B 625]

I have to vent today, so I am ready for tomorrow. please bear with me.

What a day today. A roller coaster of emotions from the first trade through the writing of this post. After back to back losses in which I did not trade my edge today I figured why not just try one more time, it has to work. Luckily for me, on this trade right after entering I came to grips with my frustration and exited the trade before it could turn worse. I closed down the platform and walked away in frustration and disgust at my performance. I normally do my psychology and trading performance sections of my journal right after I am done in the morning and than finish the rest of my journal up during lunch. After my performance today I couldn't even bring myself to look at my trades during lunch. My frustration was there all day. It wasn't until the evening after dinner that I said this is the day that you must focus on your trades and learn from your mistakes no matter how difficult it is. So, I put my emotions in check and opened up my journal and started analyzing and recording today's trades.

Amazingly, I realized that one basic mistake lead to the rest of my poor performance, but prior to that mistake I was doing extremely well. I actually had the setup for my edge; however, I hesitated on entry and missed where I should have entered. Then began the fight with FOMO that kept telling me to enter, even though I have a rule that states, "if you miss the entry cut your loss at 0 and move on to the next trade." Unfortunately, FOMO won the battle and I enter at near my original planned profit target; thereby, destroying my Risk to Reward and starting the snow ball that caused the avalanche.

I am glad I brought myself to doing the journal entry, because it has actually showed me my performance was not as bad as I thought on the first trade. My other two trades, well they were terrible and I should have never taken them. I can not state how important it is to journal your trades on your bad days no matter how hard it is.

Anyways, I feel much better now thanks for the venue to vent.

I hope everyone else that went live recently is doing well

[Rob C 826]

Well, I failed reaching my goals on my second month of live trading as well as my first. Had another hulk day this past week which classifies the month as a failure and I will not allow myself to increase my trade risk. So my third month will also be at $25 risk per trade.

I had a near miss hulk day last week, but I kept under my max loss (only by $1) and I never took the incorrect share size so by my definition was not a hulk day. Though it was definitely an overtrading day with 23 tickets (I usually average less than half that). So I made the mistake of not giving (forcing) myself to have time off after to recover. Thus the following day I went hulk, 39 tickets, way too large share size and went well over my max day loss turning my month from green to red in a few minutes.

It was caused by a hot key mistake (as usual). Accidentally made a limit order instead of a market. When canceling it, the order disappeared from my order window so I assumed it was cancelled. But, it disappeared from my order window because the order went through and I didn’t know I was in a trade (not the first time that has happen, so I should know to double check). Took a big loss before I realized it, then started the reckless trading. That was Wednesday. So I haven’t traded now for 4 days. I will try to go back on Monday, but I told myself I don’t have to trade if I don’t think my psyche is back.

So on both of the first two months of trading, I had 3 weeks of solid trading followed by the last week of the month with over trading and hulk days. If I have another 3 solid weeks on my 3^rd month I will seriously consider altering my last week of trading of trading for the month. Maybe take days off or decrease share size.

Though I consider 20 days of trading a month (not 4 weeks) I am calling it a month with only 17 days of trading. I want to start with a fresh month tomorrow.

 

Rob

[Rob C 826]

Well at least I didn’t blow up my account today.

I was a bit nervous when I got up this morning (the usual 5am Pacific time). The last 3 times that I put together 4 straight days of solid trading (Mon-Thurs) I hit max loss on Friday. So again this week I had 4 solid days of trading so I was worried I would hit max loss today. Well I went way beyond that. I’m a real boom and bust trader.

I know I have a hulk issue and overtrading. This is the 4^th hulk day in 9 weeks, but today was far worse. The other 3 days I lost less than 1% of my account, today was over 3%. It’s an eye opener that I now know I have the ability to blow up my account. My share size was doubling with every trade so by the end I would have. Luckily my 40min alarm went off. I see from my journal that ALL trades after 40min of continuous trading are losses. Essentially, it is my alarm to take a few minutes break. That broke me from my destructive path for long enough to turn off my platform.

For the first time my video recording was corrupted. So I can’t watch to see what set me off. I remember the first trade I stopped out at B/E. It was a correct action since stock kept going against me. The second trade I also stopped out at the stop point for the predetermined $25 risk I am trading. So these were two OK trades. The third one I remember stopping out but that’s all I remember. The rest is a blur.

Etrade doesn’t have risk controls. I asked after my first hulk day. Apparently I need them. So I just placed an application to CMEG. I also like the idea of a smaller account. I can do less damage. I knew Etrade-pro would only be good enough for at most my first year of trading, but I didn’t think I would switch this early. Etrade-pro really helped me with my hot key mistakes, which was a major issue. Hopefully, I am better at that now. But, I am really going to miss a platform that the buy and a cover are different actions.

I took on my overtrading and hulk issues sort of supply/demand. Reduce the causes and reduce the reaction. Hotkey mistakes were my big trigger. So I changed platforms and greatly reduced it. I created simplified rules and started with low risk to help prevent over reaction. I increased my discipline by getting up well before the market so I am fully awake and had time to study the market before the opening. All my trades are recorded and reviewed. I am aware that’s not enough. I will change platforms again, but more importantly I need to search and determine what part of my psyche is so reactionary and why. A tough thing to do. But necessary. Will have to ponder over the holidays on how to accomplish this.

 

 

[ragy 5]

@Mike B Hi Mike  - I found your live status is extremely valuable. I am starting my SIM and learning from people stories here. I really like how you track and monitor your progress in the spreadsheet. Is it possible to share it with me?

Thanks!