bakedbeans' learning journal

[bb01100100]

This is my post of shame: I blew my eval account today. Net -2.2%.

I kept shorting the up-move in ES this afternoon, looking to trade a retrace back to a zline, looking for a pullback to a prior hourly candle midpoint, but that didn't happen. Each pop higher "looked" like a top, so I was in. I didn't do any averaging of losers, but I did increase my size and was repeatedly wrong.

I thought about stopping when I was -$676, -$1032 and then I hit a full -1% down (-$2,500) and started getting stressed - surely this would be the turning point? No, it wasn't. The market was bid and I was trading what I wanted to see.

So my second red day in 15 trading days evaporated the last 6 trading day's worth of profits and blew my account. I've done an account reset and will regroup mentally and get back to work tomorrow.

Given my prior consistency, my wife made the suggestion of having a "3 day's worth of profit" trailing account stop.. so for me I'd have a hard stop at circa 1% down. The idea being that the best way for me to deal with being repeatedly wrong is to stop, regardless of the urge to continue.

[aliassmith]

The Bulenox 3 master accounts is a limit until they reach their profit cushion requirement.

You'll be able to run 11 accounts simultaneously at some point.

I was thinking 4 accounts for an even $1 million and about $500k a year. Doing no better or worse than you are currently doing.

Build corn, wheat, hogs, cattle business with the profits.

Oh I see; that's excellent... there is a lot of head-room for running a larger operation.

Are you aware of any futures prop firm that supports swing trading (holding at least overnight, perhaps even over the weekend)? I've seen CFD places (e.g. FTMO Swing account) but no futures based accounts..

I have not heard

[aliassmith]

This is my post of shame: I blew my eval account today. Net -2.2%.

I kept shorting the up-move in ES this afternoon, looking to trade a retrace back to a zline, looking for a pullback to a prior hourly candle midpoint, but that didn't happen. Each pop higher "looked" like a top, so I was in. I didn't do any averaging of losers, but I did increase my size and was repeatedly wrong.

I thought about stopping when I was -$676, -$1032 and then I hit a full -1% down (-$2,500) and started getting stressed - surely this would be the turning point? No, it wasn't. The market was bid and I was trading what I wanted to see.

So my second red day in 15 trading days evaporated the last 6 trading day's worth of profits and blew my account. I've done an account reset and will regroup mentally and get back to work tomorrow.

Given my prior consistency, my wife made the suggestion of having a "3 day's worth of profit" trailing account stop.. so for me I'd have a hard stop at circa 1% down. The idea being that the best way for me to deal with being repeatedly wrong is to stop, regardless of the urge to continue.

You did a PROCHARGEDMOPAR

[IgazI]

You did a PROCHARGEDMOPAR

No punches pulled

Adding to losers is pure poison, just don't do it.

[BambinoFlex]

This is my post of shame: I blew my eval account today. Net -2.2%.

I kept shorting the up-move in ES this afternoon, looking to trade a retrace back to a zline, looking for a pullback to a prior hourly candle midpoint, but that didn't happen. Each pop higher "looked" like a top, so I was in. I didn't do any averaging of losers, but I did increase my size and was repeatedly wrong.

I thought about stopping when I was -$676, -$1032 and then I hit a full -1% down (-$2,500) and started getting stressed - surely this would be the turning point? No, it wasn't. The market was bid and I was trading what I wanted to see.

So my second red day in 15 trading days evaporated the last 6 trading day's worth of profits and blew my account. I've done an account reset and will regroup mentally and get back to work tomorrow.

Given my prior consistency, my wife made the suggestion of having a "3 day's worth of profit" trailing account stop.. so for me I'd have a hard stop at circa 1% down. The idea being that the best way for me to deal with being repeatedly wrong is to stop, regardless of the urge to continue.

Man, I’ve been there. Try to identify what caused you to react like that. Maybe it’s ego, over confidence, or something else.

Not familiar with your trading style, but adjusting certain elements of your strategy might help with the problem. For example, adopting the whole “in” idea helps me in only entering during a consolidation. Using pivots, I only trade when either the previous weekly high or low is intact, R1 or S1 is intact or if the pivot point hasn’t crossed. If a pair has done all three, I don’t trade it.

Stuff like that to help against self sabotage

[bb01100100]

You did a PROCHARGEDMOPAR

No punches pulled

Adding to losers is pure poison, just don't do it.

Agreed - but to be clear I wasn't adding to my losers - I was entering, getting stopped out, then entering again at a higher price (eventually with more size.. sigh). I checked my fills to make sure..

The question I'm asking myself is this: what can I do to address this situation...

I wasn't paying attention to what was playing out in front of me:

• Price had been going up;
• 15:00 came along and price did not pull back and close below any swing low;
• 15:30 came along and price pushed higher;
• 15:45 came along and price was higher still
• During this time there were two opportunities to enter and net 4 points in line with the upward bias

My ego was definitely in play as well: "/this time/ I'll have enough size on to ride the aggressive pullback that runs stops..." I preferred to keep taking on risk for a potential positive outcome instead of accepting a smaller, definite negative outcome and coming back tomorrow. The irony of the post I made just yesterday is not lost on me.

On reflection, no secret sauce was required to not be in this situation - just the same focus and questions I ask myself on other days.

Ok, I have work to do:

1. Incorporating a self-imposed emergency brake: hard stop should I lose the trailing three day's worth of profits in a session... for me this amounts to about 1% of account.
2. Taking stock of what's actually unfolding on the chart and double-checking if my trade decision is driven by the market, my PnL, or my ego.
3. Practicing trading with the bias when present -- I find trading out into empty space very difficult, moreso when we're long for some reason

Just checked and account is reset; back to it tomorrow 5am local time.

[bb01100100]

Man, I’ve been there. Try to identify what caused you to react like that. Maybe it’s ego, over confidence, or something else.

Not familiar with your trading style, but adjusting certain elements of your strategy might help with the problem. For example, adopting the whole “in” idea helps me in only entering during a consolidation. Using pivots, I only trade when either the previous weekly high or low is intact, R1 or S1 is intact or if the pivot point hasn’t crossed. If a pair has done all three, I don’t trade it.

Stuff like that to help against self sabotage

Hi BambinoFlex; good to hear from you again!

When I went over the charts later on I realised that the price action was pretty clear, but that I was busy focussing on rectifying my PnL rather than observing what the market was actually telling me.. it was bid; it was ranging; it broke out; it ranged; it broke out.

It certainly wasn't going down, but I was very confident that as we got closer to 4pm a liquidity grab to the downside would propel me into profit.

Over-confidence in my trade idea blinded me to what was playing out - I stopped asking myself the critical question: "what's going on here?"

[aliassmith]

You did a PROCHARGEDMOPAR

No punches pulled

Adding to losers is pure poison, just don't do it.

Agreed - but to be clear I wasn't adding to my losers - I was entering, getting stopped out, then entering again at a higher price (eventually with more size.. sigh). I checked my fills to make sure..

The question I'm asking myself is this: what can I do to address this situation...

I wasn't paying attention to what was playing out in front of me:

• Price had been going up;
• 15:00 came along and price did not pull back and close below any swing low;
• 15:30 came along and price pushed higher;
• 15:45 came along and price was higher still
• During this time there were two opportunities to enter and net 4 points in line with the upward bias

My ego was definitely in play as well: "/this time/ I'll have enough size on to ride the aggressive pullback that runs stops..." I preferred to keep taking on risk for a potential positive outcome instead of accepting a smaller, definite negative outcome and coming back tomorrow. The irony of the post I made just yesterday is not lost on me.

On reflection, no secret sauce was required to not be in this situation - just the same focus and questions I ask myself on other days.

Ok, I have work to do:

1. Incorporating a self-imposed emergency brake: hard stop should I lose the trailing three day's worth of profits in a session... for me this amounts to about 1% of account.
2. Taking stock of what's actually unfolding on the chart and double-checking if my trade decision is driven by the market, my PnL, or my ego.
3. Practicing trading with the bias when present -- I find trading out into empty space very difficult, moreso when we're long for some reason

Just checked and account is reset; back to it tomorrow 5am local time.

The prop firms' magic of marketing.

It so easy you only need 6% and the riches are yours.

Its smoke and mirrors. The $250k bulenox.com account is roughly equal to you putting $15,000 in AMP, Ninjatrader, Optimus. Etc.

People in general tend to overleverage because they think they are trading an actual $250k. Its a $15k account with max DD of 37%.

Size accordingly.

Also if the account is Rithmic you can go on the Rithmic PC app and put an auto liquidation in that protects you from yourself. Directions are on youtube videos.

[BambinoFlex]

Man, I’ve been there. Try to identify what caused you to react like that. Maybe it’s ego, over confidence, or something else.

Not familiar with your trading style, but adjusting certain elements of your strategy might help with the problem. For example, adopting the whole “in” idea helps me in only entering during a consolidation. Using pivots, I only trade when either the previous weekly high or low is intact, R1 or S1 is intact or if the pivot point hasn’t crossed. If a pair has done all three, I don’t trade it.

Stuff like that to help against self sabotage

Hi BambinoFlex; good to hear from you again!

When I went over the charts later on I realised that the price action was pretty clear, but that I was busy focussing on rectifying my PnL rather than observing what the market was actually telling me.. it was bid; it was ranging; it broke out; it ranged; it broke out.

It certainly wasn't going down, but I was very confident that as we got closer to 4pm a liquidity grab to the downside would propel me into profit.

Over-confidence in my trade idea blinded me to what was playing out - I stopped asking myself the critical question: "what's going on here?"

Completely relatable. Just an assumption, but it happens because you’ve done it before and it worked.

You figured today could work out too and that you won’t do it again once you get out the hole. It happened and on to the next trade!

As TRO put it - “It’s the stories we tell ourselves”

[aliassmith]

APEX has $50k accounts for $50ish a month lifetime. 71% discount. Trade micros, target and DD are about equal.