Wk ending 10th Oct 2008

I couldn't see how to reply to this via the usual means so I am just adding in colour instead.

Wasp, if you ended anywhere close to b/e, you did far FAR *FAR* better than I. Although I posted some of my golden eggs, the number of sour eggs I laid has ended up stinking up my house.

Sorry to hear that cowpip, I was hoping you and pipmonster did alright.

That's an excellent chart. Thanks for taking the time to annotate it. Nicely done.

When I tried trading the hourly this week, I consistently (and I do mean CONSISTENTLY) ended up getting stopped out. I noted that I would have needed 80 to 100 pip stops to make it work. So why didn't I just reduce my size and enlarge my stops??? Good question. I'll ask the dufus in my head as soon as I can accept my losses this week.

Well as my signature says, 'live, learn and adapt' and rather take the route you said, I did a bit of number crunching in excel on Tuesday and figured that taking 2 attempts (as annotated) per trade would be fine as the winners (if caught), dwarfed the losers. That is how I will play it next week and until things quieten down again.

THEN, I had the audacity to start trading the 5-min strat. It worked one day, but the number of false signals killed me in the end. Lesson learned: overtrading on the small time-frames is far more dangerous than an entire set of losses you might experience on an hourly time-frame during the course of a week.

I am kicking myself for doing that too. I looked at the 5 minute, then the 15 minute and all the time I should have just been concentrating on trading my usual plan, as per usual. Why oh why I convinced myself different is beyond me. I know 'they' say you should change with the market but I don't think my current method gets better in tune with the market and I should not have to change every week too much. Kind of defeats the object and theory behind every action I take.

So you're not the only one having a rough week. Believe me, I haven't a lot of blood left in these veins.

I've not much left in my knuckles! Plenty over the wall though!

Seeing your chart makes me think I was completely off the mark, somehow. I need to figure that out this weekend before I can take another run at the markets this week. You've proven that the last week was tradeable on the hourly. I thought it wasn't. I was wrong.

Yep, totally, although mid week was a bit ludicrous yet between luck, stupidity, distraction, fear and doubt, I too decided it is possible, and its not till now that I am starting to see where and how etc...

Yes, I was prone to some bad luck events during the week and sods law here and there but I can usually pull off pretty close to that charts results so I shall be at the Pc all weekend until I work out where I was going wrong and why I screwed up.

Rudyard Kipling's poem springs to mind and one I shall be thinking about in the future whilst trading....

here is the results if you can make sense of it!

Well, overall, not screwed as much as expected (aside from being 2500 pips out of pocket)!...

Analysis shows;

Always have a spare PC
Trendlines shouldn't be too tight
Trendlines should only start from high/low
Stick with the original plan regardless
Don't miss a thing

On one hand, one could look to change things but until I have a -250 point drawdown on any week (no of trades was the old one but not apt at the moment), I will carry on regardless.

Therefore I am turning off and out of here till Sunday night where I shall start afresh with the the above points in mind but no changes or even thinking about changing.

Sometimes being dumb could be an advantage!

You're dripping with wisdom, Wasp.

I'll post the view of how I SHOULD have played the markets had I been sane, in the Discussion area since I don't think I can post here.

Have a good weekend, Wasp.

Not so sure about that!!

I'll add to the thread.......

I should note that I think, perhaps, the most significant discovery you've made is in trend-lines that are too tight. I too have found that trades are exited too quickly if the TL's are too tight. The other side of the coin is that if the TL is not tight enough, you get a lousy entry, miss the next move entirely, or introduce too much risk.

Hmmm...

Yeah, too much room for sods law there ay... Need some more solid definition.

Hmmm....I seem to remember a wise old pipmonster posting in the Live Trades forum not to change a thing about your strat. One week is not enough to determine anything.

I know! I know, I know!

I did end the week in the black, though I gave up half my weeks profits in 1-1/2 days! I believe your insight not to keep trend lines too tight on the hourly is brilliant.

Sweet, glad one us made some money in a week where we should have all creamed it.

I was following a strategy for a while from a fella named Phil Newton who runs Trading Strategies dot info. He did the same as you at one point when he took an inordinate number of losses: He changed his strategy and lost more yet again. After a week of that torture he returned to the strategy he developed and knew like the back of his hand. He also returned to profit and has not deviated since.

(Hopefully) I shall never deviate (or need to) again. I know [of] Phil and his trials when I posted on T2W.

I fortunately have a second computer that runs my charting and I use my laptop for order entry, email and web surfing. I can do everything on both computers if necessary at any time. I also keep a spare hard drive with OS installed for my laptop in addition to a USB back up drive with everything I need to be up and running within 1/2 hour.

I normally do but I am working away from home for a couple of months and only brought one PC and the other one I have here wasn't running properly at the time! Won't make that mistake again.

Thanks again for being candid and sharing your experience. I learn so much from you and Cowpip every week.

No problems. I have no secrets and no holy grail. I just use price based analysis like traders have been doing for decades and how I originally learnt back in the early 90's. I find it helpful to have you guys to bounce thoughts and ideas off too so just as glad to have you around!

Hey Wasp, if you do decide to allow two attempts per trade, how are you going to do that in the event your first trade is stopped out? Will you just re-enter in the same direction when/if price reaches the same entry location during that hour, or will you wait for the current hourly candle to close before re-entering?

I was examining the consequences of doing that and discovered that often, it's difficult to get a better position than the original entry if you wait until that candle closes. Placing an order at the same level seems like a logical alternative, but it's difficult to tell whether the current candle warrants another shot in the same direction without first seeing its completed shape.

But I agree with your thoughts that two attempts is justifiable given the current volatility.

Its a tough one but in order to keep things orderly I think, the next candle is the best answer. Ideally, just re-enter where stopped out but sometimes it will keep going regardless so not sure..........