Day's Anatomy- 30th October 2012- Decide.

1.2956....I hate you!

Followed along nicely today although I just missed the xxx69 short just. 18:20 ish on the chart (CET). I like the fact that I took all viable signals...something which should obviously always be done.

Ran the first of the two wins. Indecisive on the 2nd/last win. I had three choices:

1) Take the single (6 pips) and take no further action.
2) Take the single then get back in for the expected bigger move.
3) Hold through the pullback AND hold for the bigger move.

...I chose a hybrid of 1) & 3). I wanted the bigger move but then allowed the fact that it came back to break even (and into the red) to shake my resolve, exiting close to the 1 min pivot that it created the first time around.

TWoT  (well, four...but you get the idea!)

Reminds me of the time I stepped (yes, stepped!) off a moving bus. Not the smartest thing I've ever done, I'll admit :/

I was trying to follow my mischievous friend who enjoyed doing things like smashing bus stops, doing graffiti or using the emergency exit feature of a bus to jump off whilst it's still moving... leaving behind a blaring alarm and a pissed driver!

This time, I was onboard with him. His act caught me by surprise and so I had to decide whether to stay onboard and face the wrath of the driver or jump off of the relatively slow (it was doing about 15-20mph...)moving bus...

...I couldn't commit to a decision. So I stepped off...lol! I realised I had done the wrong thing by making my non-decision when I woke up on the floor after stepping in front of a street light pole!!! I still remember asking myself what the swishing sound was as I picked myself up off of the floor. I'm sure you can imagine what it was :)

Personally, I think it's better to make ANY decision, even the wrong one, rather than be indecisive. You're almost always going to get a worst result if you don't.

Combine- Day 9 + How We Frame Things.

Is it a "loss" or a "cost"? A "win" or "revenue"?? How we label our subjective view of a reality with unlimited malleability will, ultimately, shape the very reality we end up living.

 

 

"Winning" conjures up thoughts of luck. A lack of skill. You wouldn't go to work as a teacher, bus driver, electrician or any other "normal" job and say, "I won my payslip!"...so why do we use this terminology in trading? Does that not encourage the gaming mentality that gets so many people, myself included, financially slaughtered??

 

Similarly, "Losing" brings to mind failure. Being less than. But when we pay for a train ticket to get to work, or buy some food etc. we don't think of that money as lost but, rather, spent. Same monetary result, different psychological framing.

 

"We pay the market to find out whether we are right or wrong in our analysis"- This is what Tim Racette told me in a recent E-mail exchange over the Christmas period (thanks Tim!). There is no winning or losing. Just revenue/earnings and costs. At least this is true if you have a tried and tested trading methodology...

 

Sincere thanks also to Pete from Everydayaware for reminding me just how important the words we use are for cultivating the behaviours we want to adopt.

 

Combine- Day 17.

On the back of a losing streak but finally starting to see a glimmer of what's necessary to move towards the combine target rather than bounce around break even, which is what I've been doing.

The second trade went nicely in favour but I only got partially filled and let my disappointment get the better of me, keeping the order for the remaining 8 contracts on the books when I should have been out for a minuscule profit. I ended up paying out as a result, throwing the day off by some $400. Need to be better prepared to do the right thing even when tested.

If you are going to step off a moving bus, you had better do so with conviction! The next few days in the Combine will demonstrate whether I have that or not as I look to replicate today's kind of engagement with the market consistently. I see two probable outcomes:

1) Quickly moving towards the profit objective- I've been trading alongside the Combine in SIM and, as has been the case for 2 years now, I'm satisfied that my method has edge. The issue will only ever be the ability to execute consistently with a cool head. If I don't do this then the other outcome will be....

2) Quickly failing the Combine- Not embracing this possibility is the surest way to make it happen as we tend to hide from information that threatens us or cling to an outcome we are searching for, quickly removing our ability to be objective.

So my goal isn't to pass the Combine...it's to trade the way I almost did today and let the chips fall where they may. I will gauge success or the lack thereof by the process I engage in NOT by the outcome of that process.

Let's see what happens.

Deja Vu- EUR/USD

You wait for ages for the bus to come- then several come at once. It's the same with losses!

This time, I can't say I did anything wrong. Intraday was good, entry great and larger timeframe resistance good too. Just one of the few that didn't work out. Even if it's unusual to see two losers in a row, I'm not gonna think about pulling back or tweaking anything (for now) as I know from experience that's a debilitating thing to do. I'll just think of it as a routine drawdown. Of course, if I take a couple more in a row, I'll have to stop and reassess. At least I'm keeping those losses small compared to the winners...