Trading Challenge II : 300% in 5 months

[augubhai]

Hi Swagat,

You have to give up the boredom excuse, unless you are in the market for entertainment.

When I started trading full time 6 years ago, one of the systems that I could trade successfully was the Opening Range Breakout. But trading that did not need much screen time, and I did not have anything to do the rest of the time. So, I decided to try out other systems - I had the idea that a day trader needed to be more active, and attempt to capture all the significant moves of the day. You can see the number of trading diary threads that I started on traderji, mostly posting live trades day after day, month after month, year after year.

Now, I am back to trading a boring method, similar to the Opening Range Breakout. I am doing much better. I am tracking about 40 Stock Futures for day trading everyday. I don't track manually. I depend on the NSE market reports to choose the stock to trade for the day. It's just a dull daily routine. Over half the days, I take only 1 trade. Since I am not trading actively for most of the trading day, I do something else to keep me from getting bored, Like browsing, reading a book or watching tv, sometimes gardening or cooking. Rarely, if a new trading system interests me, I experiment with it, but with only one lot.

Finally, you have to find the solution to your problem yourself. But getting frustrated, or being unable to deal with boredom is not going to help at all. Get over this phase asap.

Step 1: Get a system with positive expectancy, preferably one that has a higher win rate. Once the money starts coming, it will compensate for the boredom to a large extent.

Wish you the best on your trading journey....

 

[SwagatN]

Planned just now. From tomorrow going on a 2 days vacation with one of my trader friend. Away from live market, looking forward to discussing many issues related to trading/strategy/psychology/MM etc. Its time to understand each other's perspective. Learn the unknown and question the known.. Will resume live action after I return..

 

[VJAY]

Hi Swagat,

You have to give up the boredom excuse, unless you are in the market for entertainment.

When I started trading full time 6 years ago, one of the systems that I could trade successfully was the Opening Range Breakout. But trading that did not need much screen time, and I did not have anything to do the rest of the time. So, I decided to try out other systems - I had the idea that a day trader needed to be more active, and attempt to capture all the significant moves of the day. You can see the number of trading diary threads that I started on traderji, mostly posting live trades day after day, month after month, year after year.

Now, I am back to trading a boring method, similar to the Opening Range Breakout. I am doing much better. I am tracking about 40 Stock Futures for day trading everyday. I don't track manually. I depend on the NSE market reports to choose the stock to trade for the day. It's just a dull daily routine. Over half the days, I take only 1 trade. Since I am not trading actively for most of the trading day, I do something else to keep me from getting bored, Like browsing, reading a book or watching tv, sometimes gardening or cooking. Rarely, if a new trading system interests me, I experiment with it, but with only one lot.

Finally, you have to find the solution to your problem yourself. But getting frustrated, or being unable to deal with boredom is not going to help at all. Get over this phase asap.

Step 1: Get a system with positive expectancy, preferably one that has a higher win rate. Once the money starts coming, it will compensate for the boredom to a large extent.

Wish you the best on your trading journey....

Exactly...augubhai...If unable to handle boredom in trading and look many scrips for overcome it that imo its only for excitement......

 

[MSN1979]

Planned just now. From tomorrow going on a 2 days vacation with one of my trader friend. Away from live market, looking forward to discussing many issues related to trading/strategy/psychology/MM etc. Its time to understand each other's perspective. Learn the unknown and question the known.. Will resume live action after I return..

Swagat Bro sometimes after a break , things turn out really well. Wish you all the best.

 

[SwagatN]

Swagat Bro sometimes after a break , things turn out really well. Wish you all the best.

Yes, A refreshing, and much needed break to see things clearly..
We talked about many things..on strategy, RM/MM, psychology and also on my on going challenge.. Will write a detailed note on the how do I plan my journey ahead from now in evening.. Excited to getting started..

 

[SwagatN]

The last two days break from trading was a special one.. Cause it was just not any normal vacation, I spent time with one of my trader friends and it gave me an opportunity to look at my current situation by withdrawing myself from it. (As a third person). Based on the realisations and experience I am going to do some changes in my ongoing challenge.

1. Dropping the idea of quitting trading if not successful.

When I started my 1st challenge of making 300% in 5months, I had already stated before my intention was very clear to become that person who can make 300% on any given 5 months.. My goal was not on monetary achievement. based on the experience and mistakes from 1st challenge when I started the 2nd challenge my intention was still the same. But when I started addressing my fear of not leaving trading (trading being a comfort zone) and the stakes got higher the challenge went on to a new level all together. Knowingly or unknowingly I was focusing on the 300% only. (by any means)..Day after day I was facing fear of loss, loosing focus, being restless in a dull market and was not addressing them but was only looking at 300% by Dec. Thankfully this break made me look where I am going wrong.

The closer analogy I can think of is - "Its like a battleground from which the warrior is going to return for sure, either alive by winning it or his dead body. So its a complete do or die battle. And no captain in his sane mind will send an amateur soldier from his team for such a battle. These battles are for true warriors who take pride even dying and stay grounded even after winning as they know one battle is nothing in the life of a warrior".
As it was seen during my last challenge, I have the humility to accept that I am in no way closer to being an expert trader. I am still struggling to make profit.. So if I want to take part in that battle, first I need to become that warrior through dedicated training, disciplined and routine drills both physically and emotionally. And that should be my first challenge to acquire those quality as it was during my 1st challenge.

Rest about addressing the issue on making trading as comfort zone, I know this challenge will be waiting for me once I prove myself as an warrior. So for the time being I am dropping that idea of leaving trading if 300% is not made.

2. Having sub-goals with in the bigger goals

Now my main aim is to be that trader who is able to trade profitably and can make 300% on any 5 months. And on that path on a regular basis I am facing many huddles (habitual, emotional, and technical). And now my main goal is to take one issue at a time and fix it on a week basis and keep moving forward to my bigger goals.

I got to ask myself these questions - "How can I be a trader of that calibre(300% in 5months) If I am not having this simple attribute of patience?" "What kind of trader I will be If I am not able to handle the boredom coming out of no trading hours ?" I always used this as a reason to add more scrips to my watch-list. Though I dont see any wrong in tracking multiple stocks simultaneously provided one is able to trade them all perfectly. During my 1st challenge I often missed signals due to multiple stocks. SO I was always swinging between these two choices of one vs many but I never addressed the core issue in first place. I think this is what @VJAY and @augubhai were referring in few posts earlier.

Its true one need a great deal of patience and concentration to track just one stock and need to wait for the right opportunity like a crocodile perhaps. But tracking more symbols and to trade them perfectly one need even a more calmer mind, more concentration and more focus of mind. So this my first sub - challenge.

S/G 1 - Trade one scrip perfectly for 1 week.

• From tomorrow till next Friday I am going to trade only 1 symbol. i.e. TATASTEEL future.
• The goal is to maintain the level of concentration and focus from 9am to 3:30PM, and take all the trades exactly as per the system.
• in evening post 2 charts one with trades marked as per the strategy and one with actual trades taken by me. Study them both and note down where and why I deviated and check the scopes for improvement.
• If at least for a single day I loose focus because I was not attentive and for that if I miss signal/or take wrong entry (again for lack of focus), then it will be counted as a failure and the challenge will be repeated for one more week.
• Always come with a trade plan to market. and maintain trade journal and log file after the market.

This will test my patience, level of concentration and how well I understand and execute my strategy in live market. No more excuses from tomorrow. ( Now I am getting the feel like the real game is ON. )

 

[SwagatN]

Continuing from my earlier post ...

3. Technical Learning :

Both of us decided to learn and apply a new aspects of trading i.e. the concepts of supply and demand and volume spread analysis. Though I was aware of this concept from before but I never studied it with care and never really learn to apply it successfully. My friend was also new to this concept. and both of us agreed to expand our knowledge in learning things which will aid our existing strategy. Last 48 hours we studied the book by Gavin Holmes "Trading in the shadow of smart money" and re-read the setups many times. we also saw many charts with the setups..and promised to keep testing these ideas..

Now in Traderji, I dont see many people trading the concept of volume spread analysis or even talking about it.. Just an open question to everyone- "What is your experience with trading by the concepts of VSA and how do you review it ? ( even if you traded it sometime back and then stopped)"

Me and my friend both happened to be believing in the core ideology of the VSA which made us more interested to dive deeper in to it. So far we have been looking at price swings and then identify the trends or different patterns made by price and then trading according to those pattern. But in reality its not the the pattern which is causing the price to move, Price is moving and thats why patterns are being formed, and the sole reason of price movement remain same as supply-demand imbalance. And this book tries to read that imbalance using the volume-spread and price close. So will it give an edge to the trader to know where exactly traders are changing hand who was previously waiting to get a trend reversal confirmation ??

I dont think these concepts from 1930 are outdated today as even today price moves on the basis of same s-d imbalances. Or may be the system is too good and everyone is trying to hide it by not talking about it.. LOL.. Anyway I will keep my journey in to it..

 

[RadhuK]

Continuing from my earlier post ...

3. Technical Learning :

Both of us decided to learn and apply a new aspects of trading i.e. the concepts of supply and demand and volume spread analysis. Though I was aware of this concept from before but I never studied it with care and never really learn to apply it successfully. My friend was also new to this concept. and both of us agreed to expand our knowledge in learning things which will aid our existing strategy. Last 48 hours we studied the book by Gavin Holmes "Trading in the shadow of smart money" and re-read the setups many times. we also saw many charts with the setups..and promised to keep testing these ideas..

Now in Traderji, I dont see many people trading the concept of volume spread analysis or even talking about it.. Just an open question to everyone- "What is your experience with trading by the concepts of VSA and how do you review it ? ( even if you traded it sometime back and then stopped)"

Me and my friend both happened to be believing in the core ideology of the VSA which made us more interested to dive deeper in to it. So far we have been looking at price swings and then identify the trends or different patterns made by price and then trading according to those pattern. But in reality its not the the pattern which is causing the price to move, Price is moving and thats why patterns are being formed, and the sole reason of price movement remain same as supply-demand imbalance. And this book tries to read that imbalance using the volume-spread and price close. So will it give an edge to the trader to know where exactly traders are changing hand who was previously waiting to get a trend reversal confirmation ??

I dont think these concepts from 1930 are outdated today as even today price moves on the basis of same s-d imbalances. Or may be the system is too good and everyone is trying to hide it by not talking about it.. LOL.. Anyway I will keep my journey in to it..

Please share the eBook, if possible

 

[MSN1979]

Continuing from my earlier post ...

3. Technical Learning :

Both of us decided to learn and apply a new aspects of trading i.e. the concepts of supply and demand and volume spread analysis. Though I was aware of this concept from before but I never studied it with care and never really learn to apply it successfully. My friend was also new to this concept. and both of us agreed to expand our knowledge in learning things which will aid our existing strategy. Last 48 hours we studied the book by Gavin Holmes "Trading in the shadow of smart money" and re-read the setups many times. we also saw many charts with the setups..and promised to keep testing these ideas..

Now in Traderji, I dont see many people trading the concept of volume spread analysis or even talking about it.. Just an open question to everyone- "What is your experience with trading by the concepts of VSA and how do you review it ? ( even if you traded it sometime back and then stopped)"

Me and my friend both happened to be believing in the core ideology of the VSA which made us more interested to dive deeper in to it. So far we have been looking at price swings and then identify the trends or different patterns made by price and then trading according to those pattern. But in reality its not the the pattern which is causing the price to move, Price is moving and thats why patterns are being formed, and the sole reason of price movement remain same as supply-demand imbalance. And this book tries to read that imbalance using the volume-spread and price close. So will it give an edge to the trader to know where exactly traders are changing hand who was previously waiting to get a trend reversal confirmation ??

I dont think these concepts from 1930 are outdated today as even today price moves on the basis of same s-d imbalances. Or may be the system is too good and everyone is trying to hide it by not talking about it.. LOL.. Anyway I will keep my journey in to it..

All the best

 

[SwagatN]

Please share the eBook, if possible

Check in google using the book name and use the volumespreadanalysis link. You will get it there