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Niko
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Everything posted by Niko
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So far I have found that 60% of the days in september are opening ranges that extend until 11:00 AM, almost all of them between 10 and 14 pts, not easy to trade, the other days (40%) offer trend opportunities between 10 and 30 pts, there are 50 to 100 pts days, but they are scarce.
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Hey KP, sorry for the late reply, I will start posting as soon as I have something to post about, so far I have found that some of my hypotheses where wrong and that was leading me in the wrong path, but finding that has opened a lot of new things that I am implementing in the plan, not sure how others do it, but is taking more time that I initially expected, but that is OK, I will get there some time, thanks for the Douglas book again it has been a great read.
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Hey Emini and G, here from Tibet, things look a lot better. I have been going through market history starting in 2010, is a ever improving and learning process, after 3 months of back testing the system, there is always 1 correction that requires me to go back and re test the whole thing from the beginning, but there is always 1 little detail I was missing that I am not missing anymore, so is an ever growing task. At first I was frustrated, but then I realized that that is necessary in order to know what to expect from the market and a lot of my early mistakes where explained and are continuously being found so I am happy with how things are going. I had to cash in on other investments in order to stay afloat, but I am still pushing forward with this. How are you guys doing.
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Thank you, what I meant was that I need to finish the whole testing, I always started it but never got around it, so I will not make that same mistake again.
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Will follow your path . Will post back when done or if I have a question, whatever comes first.
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Yep, I cant thank you enough for all you have done, the fact that I cant actually get over my fears and trade the SLA is not the fault of the approach. Agreed I have to rethink my approach to trading so I will take a break for sometime to review my life. Thanks again.
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You are correct, I am still working on a method and I need to keep on working on it. And I am also frustrated, thanks for your comments.
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Well, it was very frustrating to find myself in the environment of late may and early june without understanding that this PA is not that unusual. As I went through the same period in other years I realize that is something to be expected. Db has always said that one should backtest at least one year of market data, and I skipped that step, therefore was not ready for the different environments that might come. I know I have been at this for too long, but I have been sorting out other issues in the way so I might have not paid attention to lots of important things that happened around me, and characterization is helping me with that. I have thought about this, like using my "full line" when conditions are favorable and going to the minimum when they are not. The thing I have not yet found out is how to discover this before the open, for example last two weeks have been very hard, but I still lack the understanding of how to detect preliminary conditions that can alert me that the morning will suck, I am looking for that kind of stuff during characterization. I am totally aware of this, but I think one must make up his mind and decide under which conditions one doesn't want to trade, for example a 10 PT TR might not be that interesting to mess with, but that is something I have to solve. What I had planned was to start trading live one strategy and keep on developing other ones in demo, but I need to make the first part of it work and given that the RET strategy is the one that I am more familiar with, it was the one to start with.
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Boru and Game, thank you very much for your kind messages. I am aware of the road traveled and for that I thank Db and everyone who has been there to provide advice. This experiment of going live provided me with the possibility of actually testing my emotions and my physical response to them as well as my ability to keep my mind focused on price, I went through multiple conditions and they were good at the beginning, but fear kept me from realizing my whole potential, and then they sucked at the end and eagerness kept me from not losing money. So now is time to work on that and also dedicate some time to characterize a whole year so I can see the bigger picture and don't get surprised so often.
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Today I realized that I am not ready for live trading, not only because of the way I feel regarding my trades, but because of the reason I feel like that. I still have not done my homework and trying to accelerate things don't seem like the right thing to do. I will then dedicate the next couple of weeks or months on getting my homework ready in order to give live trading a try again, but for now I am done. Thank you db for all your help and understanding and thanks to all the other members who have been there.
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Now regarding plans for the day, I want to be able to keep my focus and avoid a range day, only enter when I see clarity regarding the trend and act decisively once that occurs, after 3 trades that go wrong, I see no reason for staying, first because they would occur because I was unable to detect the range and second because even if it isn't a range capital preservation is paramount in order to be able to start with focus the next day and take advantage of a better environment. But I will try to avoid trading if I cant see a clear trend forming.
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So after struggling for a couple of days below 800, seems like buyers are finally saying "enough" this morning, from 4:00 price has been falling from the top of the range to the bottom at 82 and just during the last hour an exploration poke for sellers below 82 seem to have failed for the moment. If we manage to get below 82, the path through the 70s could require some effort, but below 72 there are not many trades all the way to 41, from there we would enter a new congestion area with an MP in 27 and a low in 15. The other course of action could be staying inside this range above 82 and try a trip to 800 and perhaps above.
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Although I understand the message regarding that my focus should be in price and where traders are unable to find sellers in the context of a forming uptrend, I have not been able to find the exact location of the bounce at 12:45, sorry. Yes, thanks, I am doing, I actually started with june 2011, and I was noticing how similar that month was, several days of ranges in the first hour, mostly between 10 and 13 pts. I will keep on characterizing and I will take the time of year into account as by now is obvious that there is some sort of seasonality in PA.
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Thanks for reading and for your kind comments. I am trading an uncharacterized environment that is very different from the one in which I learned the SLA and my scratching method. I am trying to solve that via characterization in order to include this kind of environment into the mix in order to either change trading strategy and take REVs or just avoid it in total. I am using an anticipated entry that tries to reduce the price risk/information risk trade off, I have already tried the break of LSH or LSL entry and it did not work much better, but thanks for your observation. As I said at the begining, thank you very much for your comments, I am trying to learn and apply SLA in order to reduce stress levels while trading and be more objective. In the future I will probably incorporate new stuff from my own recipe book or someone else´s but for now I am going to stick to SLA.
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Yes, I know, today I let myself be drawn into trading, before the session I was looking at the daily chart and just wanted to hit myself in the head for missing all of the upmove, that must have set the mood for the session making me look for trades where there werent any. Last few days I had been able to fold as the market did not offer any good trend, and I plan on keep on folding. Ok, thanks, It was very frustrating and I have been in the path of keep the stop in the LSL or LSH and waiting for the best and I didnt want to go back there. Ok, I will do that. Note, for example, how price behaves after it bounces off the midpoint at 1245 and breaks the SL. Thereafter is a higher low. If one entered off that, price would come back 1.5pts after the entry. If he exited and took the next test 8m later, price would come back only a half point below his entry. In either case, the recoil would be shallow. The message is the higher low, not the extent of the recoil after entry. I am actually doing the research since last week, I am looking at info from 2011, doing the characterization according to apendix e. Just remember to do your research in the same quarter. Applying results from the first or third quarter to summer trading is not likely to provide any information that will be widely applicable. Yep, I realized that today errors would have been avoided if SLA chop detector was used as intended. I am getting more aware of that each day, I think I must prevent myself from trading as that is a critical step in my success. Thanks for your comments.
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Ok, I am back. I thought about today and all I can say is a quote from someone I respect a lot regarding these issues of trading "Eagerness to trade supplants deliberation". I think it has to do with rule #3 "If you've been folding a lot, for a long time in the game, and you're starting to think that maybe it's time you got in and played a few hands again – that's not a good enough reason. Keep folding." Regarding specifics I have a dilemma regarding my scratch strategy, at the beginning of the trade I usually allow price more room in order to be able to go through the first RET after my entry. At the time that room level is fixed in 2 pts. Once the trade starts going my way I still give room to the trade in order to get the next RET and not exiting a good trade at BE, that second room level is usually 1 pt, most of the times it has worked in the past, but in the last few weeks that just doesnt work. I am gonna review that and see what could I modify in my rules in order to get that fixed.
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Today I was definitely not in my best, Not sure what happened to my rationale today, I just let myself be beaten like a piñata. 1. My feelings were of doubt at the open, at first the strong rejection from 92 made me think that the course price was gonna take was down, and I just let the long at 93 past by me. Then frustration came to hit me as I saw price rise rapidly. 2. Then came the RET and as prices bounced off the DL I decided to take the next long, but it did not go anywhere and hit my exit very vast. 3 Having broken the DL and failing to make a HH the way to go was to short this. But here is where my problems started, perhaps I was too focused on my P&L and that just blurred my mind, but I just missed the fact that we had failed to make a Low below 89 and a High above 800 therefore I had the conditions of a 11 pt range in the making. But instead of taking that into account I just kept on pounding the short side. At first at a Reentry at my previous entry level and hen in the next RET, but given the environment and the position of price just above the 50% of the OR I should have known better. 4. I finally came to my senses realized where I was and awaited for the 50% to be crossed before acting again, given that We had a LH and then a strong rejection of 99.50 I was expecting sellers to commit and break below 89, but they didnt and I got SCR, Here I think I have to modify the way I SCR trades that end up going my way, for example, here the expectation was to break below 89 as they did not manage to do that the trade should have been closed. Other thing one could do in an environment like this is to give RETs more room, but I am not really interested in that as my previous experiences with that kind of behavior have been very bad. 5. I thought about quitting for the day But then came the strong rejection after the break of 89, given that it occurred at the MP of the PM TR I decided to wait and see what I could do with that, given that it was occurring at the Bottom of the OR, so as soon as I got a RET I took the long, at first it looked promising, but then we hit 50% and buyers stalled, I allowed for a RET and then decided that if they couldnt take 50% in the second attempt I was not interested anymore. That is why I scratched the trade. I am gonna go take a walk and think about what I could do better.
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The trend that started in the 4th is being tested at this time. So far we traders have not been able to find trades below 85 and above 90. if we can break out of those levels as we surely will, then on the way up we have yesterday´s MP to deal with and the H of the day. Regarding the areas where traders have concentrated their transactions in the past days the areas from yesterday still hold.: 80,50,40. Above us we also have some trouble between 92 and 96. 9:25 Still stuck below 90 and above 85. The current mean is 87.5
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Now, regarding things to do better next time, I think I traded according to plan today, of course, in hindsight is easy to tell to myself that I could have tried each REV around 90 and close it at 94, but that is not what I am after, I dont want ending up trading the chop and creating bad habits. After the BO, the entry was not triggered and by then I was already starting to write the review so there was not much to do for me by then. There was an opp that came up after 11:00 but by then live trading was closed for me, it was the long at 95, if taken this one would still be open and awaiting for a LH in order to close it or a break above 800 in order to keep it open.
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These are today´s trades. 1. After trying up for a second time and being unable to reach the peak from the open (LH) the thing to do was to go short, but given that they had already tried 92 and failed I decided to wait for a LL before taking the next RET. Just before taking the trade I felt doubt as prices did not just fall as fast as I wanted, but then after a rise that stalled at 92 I realized that sellers still had the ball, so there was no reason to cancel the trade. As prices started to retreat, anxiety levels started to rise, but I realized that there was nothing to worry about, the stride was just fine at first so I decided to leave my exit level where it was , once it was hit I already had a broken stride so I did not consider reentry. 2. Another thing that lead me not to reenter 1 was the fact that we were at 50% (88) and buyers where showing they still wanted more, so instead of fighting the buyers at an important level I decided to take the long. I knew the risk was to get stuck at 50%, but the reward was much bigger, hitting 800 and breaking above it would place me in a perfect position for taking advantage of the trend, and besides, past week entries into the good trends were just like this, so I decided to take it. But, we did not get too far away as 50% at 93 rapidly brought selling, enough of it to overcome buying interest. After buyers were unable to make a HH I decided there was no point holding this trade anymore so I just closed it. After these two trades I was already trapped in a range so I needed a BO to enter again, and that did not happen until after 10:50 and the entry in that case wasn't triggered.
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10:21 So we formed a hinge above the 50% from 775-80 and below the 50% from 800 to 788 Before the hinge formed I took 2 trades, 1 the RET on the expectation that the downtrend would gather enough strength to break below 50p at 88, as that did not happen, and being 89 a level from my prepwork the thing to do was to take the long with the expectation of a HH above 99, but as they gave up at 50% I SCR the trade. 11:00 The hinge was finally broken, but the buying interest dried up at the PM mean.
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So far 800 showed up to be the level above which no more buyers want to join, by now there have been already 2 LHs, but selling dried up at 92.50. We are still 20 minutes from the open, so any of these levels could be tested and broken by then, so we will have to watch and see if buyers still think there are bargains out there or if sellers think this whole trip to 800 is just too much. As before, nothing relevant above 800 and below a couple of areas were traders have settled in the past month. 89,80,50,40. Be mindful of the 50% levels along the way.
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This week I am gonna work on connecting my prepwork with my actual trades, so far I have only identified areas of interest, but my prepwork has not really been a plan of sorts, so when I get to those areas that matter I keep doing the same stuff I was doing before, and that is a mistake. I think I have been doing this consciously, mainly because I was not sure my prep areas of interest were really pertinent and also because I was not sure I was able to execute properly disregarding areas of interest. But after the last few weeks I observe that my prep is getting sharper and my execution is not that bad, so I can try to mix them both "as I am supposed to" and play better.
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Thanks, I was trying to get a grasp of my feelings at most turning points in order to be able to understand what is it that is holding me from trading some valid setups like the ones we discussed on Thursday. Thanks to all your teachings I was able to avoid getting sucked inside the range. Something that I used to do pretty often. I will review the basics as you suggest and will also review the differences between the good days when I avoided good trades and days like yesterday when I should stand aside.
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Ok, acknowledged. As kp said, after the chat died, I kept a channel open via skype for anyone who still wanted to discuss SLA and Kp joined. We try not to make calls in RT nor influence each other decisions, but we might be failing at it miserably so we will stop.