Friday 1 October 2010

I Love the smell of profits in the morning .... and the afternoon

Just when I thought that I could walk on water....I have been rebooting my main trading PC every morning when I wake up although I don't think that's really necessary. I have to go to my place in France on the week-end to resolve some internet issues there and I was getting some stuff together in preparation.

I looked over at Flo at about 9:18am (London) as the DAX pulled back on it's upward rise and started counting the Euros that I knew would be in my pocket if the pull back was followed by a thrust and Flo triggered a long. I then went about what I was doing.

I came back to Flo about half an hour later to count my gains.

BAM!!!!!!   No trade! My mouth dropped and I started digging into the code, and the connectivity everywhere.

Just as I was pulling the last of my few hairs out, I discovered the problem. Me!

After a re-boot, I need to reselect and reconnect AND TELL FLO THAT I DO NOT NEED TO MANUALLY CONFIRM ORDERS. I forgot.

It cost me a heap!

There are many banana skins along the way. Hopefully, this will be as bad as it gets. While it's annoying and while I question why it didn't miss a losing trade instead of a winning one, it will remind me all the next times not to rush my check list. I started check lists after I learnt to fly. Very useful and has saved my skin before. Pity I lost my discipline this time.

But I redeemed myself. At 10:44 Flo went short and lo and behold, almost an hour later, the market tanked. We are working on the EXITS still. There is a small difference in the code since yesterday. Exits, as I have written before, are as important as entries and most traders only concentrate on how to get it and place arbitrary stops and targets without letting the markets tell them. We are testing a number of automated exits based on a combination of volatility, parabolic, average true range, MomDots and the like. We have tested candle patterns and other price patterns but we can't make the computer see what I can see. With the right exit, the losses will be much smaller and hopefully, the profits unaffected. The search goes on but meanwhile, ching, ching.

Today's Flo trades are below. I did NOT trade the first one today due to the above.

1 comment:

  1. I have had the best profit by exiting the final position after a close above a moving average. Average value will vary according to interval on chart ... but you might find something around an 18 period gives good results.

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