Wednesday 18 August 2010

Patience or Patients?

Just a reminder to everyone: you can only take what the market gives you.

I trade a fairly specific trading plan. In it, I specify the times that I trade and the circumstances when I don't trade. The "when to trade" part is fairly easy but the "when not to trade" part is more problematic.

Firstly, I like to trade. Trading means that I'm doing something. Not trading means I am either just sitting there or I'm away from my workstation - that's called "the week-end" and most traders hate the week-end.

Secondly, I have financial obligations like everyone else and trading is the way I meet those obligations. When I don't trade it means I'm not earning money to meet those obligations, so I don't happily stop my trading.

Having said all that, there is one thing worse than not trading. That's called "losing money". I HATE losing money because of my own negligence or stupidity. I don't mind losing trades if they are a result of sticking to my trading plan but losing money when I have ignored something I have worked out as "required"  makes me angry at myself. Lack of focus or discipline.

Stuff happens and I do lose focus and discipline. Usually it's because of something going on at home. Trading requires 100% concentration when I am working.

So my "don't trade" rules include 1. Not trading if I am concerned (to the point of distraction) about something in my personal life. And,

2. I don't trade if the market is dead. I'll either go and do something else or switch to a market that has momentum.  Which is why I traded the Bund today. It was slow easy biz. My alerter did catch them well. This stuff is not too hard.



BTW, there is a response from Shepton in the comments of the post.

5 comments:

  1. EL, at what point do you decide that a market is dead? It seems difficult to know in advance which ones will fizzle out and which will be moving. Even ES moved roughly 20 pts both days, albeit erratically. But I struggle with how to determine that a market is not going to play well on any given day. Thoughts?

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  2. I've noticed that you don't have the CVD indicator on your chart anymore. Has it been replaced by the VWAP oscillator?

    RJG

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  3. cal_trader, it is usually easy to see that it will be a quiet day in the ES if you trade RTH as there has already been a quiet Asian and European session and no numbers have come out to add any interest. The day is featured by the 45CCI chopping around the zero line, the MP is very squat, EMAs are horizontal and chopping about.
    RJG, CVD is useful. I trade with less on my charts if I can. I get a sense of the CVD from the VB as i've been watching it for long enough now.

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  4. I have been following your blog with interest, learnt a fair amount from it in some aspects. However I am surprised at the naivety regarding the perception of your practice.

    Your personal details and bio are pretty scant , the only other link on your blogger profile is to a blog for selling lamps?Lamps? perhaps a hobby?

    There is no corroboration of your claims through a neutral source, or newspaper, previous prop firm etc. In your case as you've been independent so long, this would be tougher. Keeping in mind with the net these days anyone can claim anything and often does, a healthy dose of scepticism is often a must.

    There will always be doubters and I dont think you could persuade them either way, unless proof comes in one way or the other. Will it ever be enough for the doubters, who knows?

    Ask Obama you have half the States thinking he's not American, the other 25% thinks he's Muslim, and a sprinkling from another planet :-)

    Keep up your good work, stay true to your path and family, and those who don't believe forget about it. As long as you know who you are.

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  5. eagle, most successful traders are invisible. I became one of the exceptions when I started to teach Kiki. Now my head is well and truly above the parapets helping another daughter into business. On the LIFFE floor I was TBN and was known by most down there.

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