My video for wednesday… long live the mighty box play! I am still struggling with the same basic issue I’ve had since I started with futures… which is… win 0.5, win 1, lose 2, win 0.5…. which you might notice, adds up to 0! Either my winners need to get bigger or my losers need to get smaller. One thing’s for sure… I am going to conquer these markets… just need to keep adjusting my habits.
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November 1st, 2007 at 2:00 am
Hey Richard,
hmmmm….. no stock plays for almost two weeks now, starting to tinker with other futures markets, and dabbling in the overnight session now as well ….. you’re pretty hooked for the whole nine yards, eh?
November 1st, 2007 at 7:51 am
it’s more of a love/hate relationship… I can’t stand that I am so close to making real money in futures, but just not there yet… it’s like if I could just get used to a couple more things then everything would fall into place.
The problem is that my stock trading style is based on risking 3 cents to make 5 or 10. In that case, if I have to bail for 2 cents it doesn’t really hurt me in the long run. But, in ES, risking 4 to 8 ticks to get 2 ticks just doesn’t cut it. I have to turn off that part of my brain that thinks it knows best when it jumps out early. Or something…
November 1st, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Hey Richard,
You probably recognize my handle from EOTPRO (Gotta love EOT). Your posts are great. Some of the few movies on the e-mini markets from a regular trader.
A couple of ideas for you (I’m pretty green so take them for what they’re worth):
1) The box play has been working like a charm. I would recommend trying to increase the opportunities by running two time frames on both the ES and DOW E-Mini markets all at once. This will give you more box plays per day. Cha Ching?
2) It sounds like you might want to work on your trading psychology some. As you probably heard Bill mention today, he spoke with Mark Douglas Author of Trading in the Zone. Mark will be presenting to EOT in January. I just finished his book and it is the best trading psychology book I’ve read so far. Give it a read (or a reread).
Note: I’ve been getting more profitable over the last month but I’m still plagued by the same problem you’re running into. A few smaller wins and a bigger loss than net to zero or so. I’m working on keeping my charts simple and getting to know just the key EOT indicators as well as I can. All of the master traders stress that I should keep it simple and not change plans or indicators often.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:29 am
I have been meaning to read that book, just have never gotten around to it. No one is ever done working on their psychology.
At the moment, I am actually more interested in collecting some statistics, once I have a sizeable body of trades to look at. For the time being, I am restricting myself from taking most available entries (including box plays), because of a self-imposed maximum stop size. I am looking at whether or not that is the best policy. I also need to collect stats on how often my fast profit-taking saves money, and how often it represents a loss of opportunity.
I agree that traders change their plans way too much, and have written an article to that effect. You see evidence every day that the indicators make a nice framework for building profitable systems… no need to switch them up too much.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:45 pm
enter box play once they break out..mid candlestick.. as I have seen in videos.. moves should start by going in ur favour.. then you can exist after 2-3 ticks.. will save u small losses.. and to be honest with you the smallest point stop loss in future should be atleast 1.5 points.. anything less and you will surely get kicked out..