I Finally Lost & I'm Glad I Did!

#1

This post is going to be an awkward post because rather than discussing what I’m doing right I’m going to focus on what I’m doing wrong so I can get some help and maybe help other New or Intermediate APEX traders along the way.

Since I started trading the APEX System I have not lost a single trade until today. I was about to recoup about 80% of those losses so not a bad day at all. I will try to share the trades that I lost on so I can get some clarification but I wanted to post the reasons for me losing in the sanity section.

It’s a bit difficult to post this because it may be quite embarrassing but I don’t mind it at all if it can help develop me into an Elite trader. So here it goes.

  1. Taking Profits To Early

a. Taking profits because I have hit profit target b. Price has hit or is coming near a deviation c. Looking at P & L d. Not willing to let the market hit the MVP line to take me out pf the trade.

Conclusion:

Conclusion A: My habit of taking profits to early comes from a way of thinking that is killer. I hate to lose what I have already gained in profits. For example lets say I’m up on a short and the market pulls back before it continues I will take my profits rather than let the trade hit the MVP Line to give me a signal to take profit.

I feel that the MVP line is to far from price at times and it may eat into my profits. Fear of losing and greed are the root cause but that just a scenario that I thought I should share.

Conclusion B: For the past few weeks as I have been observing APEX I noticed that price respected deviations pretty well. So I assumed that every time price came to a deviation level that the move may be over and I should take profits. So after that happend a 2-4 times in actual trading I registered it as gospel.

But yesterday there were some moves in the TF that had a stayed in could have netted me well but I pulled out at deviation levels rather than trailing with the MVP. So if anyone can help me there please do so. And as far as P&L I have no changed it to points rather than dollar amount.

  1. Entering Trades To Late

a. Darrell cleared this up yesterday so I should be pretty good “http://apexinvesting.net/forum/elite-mvp-trade-review-229/how-bar-ahead-elite-entries-1790.html#.U73Y1PldV8E”

b. Entering late was a result of not being fast enough to set the limit orders & waiting for the E Bar to close before I placed the order. c. I would enter the trades 2-3 ticks after the E Bar Closed

  1. Setting Up Stop Losses To Late

a. Instead of setting up the stop loss immediately when the trade is filled I would set up the stop loss if I only saw the trade going against me. b. Granted I still won those trades but I don’t acknowledge it as a true win unless I follow the rules. I’m real big on following the rules and that is where most of my focus is on. I know I follow them to the “T” and not partially I will have even better results.

  1. Making Rookie Mistakes

a. On a Profit Popper on the TF today I entered short when the trade was supposed to be long. The trade ended up doing short but I closed the trade as soon as I realized I made a mistake.

  1. Trading Sleep Deprived

a. I personally believe trading off of 3 hrs of sleep was a very stupid choice. If I plan on trading the next day I need to be disciplined enough to go to bed on time. It takes not PhD Psychologist to realize that sleep deprivation can inhibit frontal lobe performance. Trading is 99% mental. The other 1% is used on clicking a mouse.
b. I also believe that the rookie mistake was a symptom of the sleep deprivation.

  1. Entering Trades While Still Unsure Of Rules

a. As I was trading Profit Poppers I knew the entry rules but I did not have specific rules for the stop loss. And when I realized I did not know where to place my stop loss, fight or flight took over and I found myself panicking. I ended up losing the trade because I thought it had hit my stop loss and it didn’t. Trade turned out to be profitable!

I’m sure there are a few things that I left out but I decided to share this so that some of you out there can analyze yourself and see where you may be messing up. One thing for sure that if you are losing a lot more than you are winning its not the APEX system. It’s most likely you. Now I’m not saying that APEX does not send out losing trades. It does! But most of the time the losses are the cause of something we are doing wrong.

Hope that helped you guys!

P.S.

Spend some quiet time thinking about what you may be doing wrong rather than thinking the system is giving bad signals. Self analysis can go a long way and really give you a clearer view of what you may need to work on.

#2

Do you trade Nadex only?

#3

Thank you so much for your honesty and sharing in-depth self-analysis. You have no idea how this has helped me. Almost everything in your post applies to my own personal behavior. I especially appreciate the acknowledgement of the sleep deprivation habit. I have done this to an extreme as well and therefore have reaped the unwelcome consequences of this behavior.

I’ve started having some very poor results with my trading so I decided to start a meditation program a few days ago. I now meditate before trading, take breaks to do it and do it when I finally decide to pry myself away from my computers and lay down for a few hours. In just a couple of days, I am discovering that my results are a direct reflection of the development of poor habits (funny, I didn’t have these when I started this last summer).

These habits include:

  1. Trying to guess or “front-run” a signal or a reversal. This worked for me several times in the past so I developed it as behavior pattern and continued to do it despite severe consequences.

  2. As you mentioned, fear of the MVP trailing stop as being too large. I tighten my stops up to my level of comfort and wonder why I get stopped out, and miss the run. I either don’t get back in or I get a very poor entry and lose on the trade because I am not fast enough and the move is typically over by then.

  3. I have also entered trades using some of the different methodologies (outside of APEX MVP) without being crystal clear on the rules i.e. thinking I have been here so long that I don’t need to try to do it in market replay first.

  4. Scattering my mind all over place. I now have three monitors and two computers. So the more, the merrier right? Wrong. Too many charts with too much information. I will have ThinkorSwim, two or three trading shows and a couple of chat rooms going at the same time. You would think I am some kind of hot-shot 25 year old trading whiz kid who can multi-task like a banshee instead of the 54 year old woman doing her best not to have to go back into the corporate world. Long story short, I can’t multi-task like that anymore and I am not convinced I would have been able to even keep track of all of the things I have going now when I was 25. I am discovering that I do much better when I concentrate on one thing at a time. Imagine trying to trade Nadex, crude oil or gold futures and then options on TDA at the same time.

  5. Concentrating on trading so much (and doing it poorly) that I have neglected the other things in my life that are very important.

When I joined this community last summer, my very first trading day I made $1,300 on Crude. Back then, there was no MVP, It was just APEX and BMX pretty much. Darrell was so impressed, he had me post my chart in the forum. With that being said, I came out of gate fabulously and over the past 6 months, the market has made a proverbial "snack’ out of me. Why? Because of the development of very poor habits.

After doing a search on You Tube, I found some guided meditations especially for traders. They have been helpful in helping me to realize I have been engaged to some very destructive behaviors.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience. I am very grateful for your honesty and respectful of the courage it took to speak about what is going on with your trading. I appreciate you!

#4

MoveMaker and MeowSkin Great post. Self analysis is just as important as market analysis if not more important great job…

Move Maker

  1. Not every deviation level… just on the + or - 1 or high to low of 1 deviation (deviation indicator) is where this applies not every time any deviation level is hit. At this point i usually TIGHTEN to the predictor line (little arrows) versus the MVP line just in case it keeps moving. Though yes occasionally you can make more holding. Trading is not about the occasional could have its about the consistent CAN. Focus on the consistencies not the fringe cases.

2 c) We do enter 3 ticks above the high fo the E or below the low of the E after it closes so enter 2 ticks would be early - 3 ticks would be spot on - maybe you men 3 ticks after the enter that is 3 ticks above so ie 5 to 6 ticks above?

Meowskin That was an impressive first day. I love even more though as you Im sure you do to learn of the longer term success. I Can definitely say when i start not getting results i stop look at what I am doing and quickly realize its usually me not the system messing things up. When its not going well quickly re-examine yourself and if your following the basics. Glad your back on track!

#5

No…I am mainly focused on Futures at the moment. Why do you ask?

#6

You really shared a lot here. It’s amazing how we are all so unique but yet the same. Of course we may have different habits but at the core of each habit its a quite similar.

“Imagine trying to trade Nadex, crude oil or gold futures and then options on TDA at the same time.”

That is a ton of things to monitor. Especially with the two or 3 trading shows going that is def some Pre-Frontal Cortex overload. Trying to monitor all of that at once is like trying to run the APEX System on 1G of RAM.

“I have also entered trades using some of the different methodologies (outside of APEX MVP) without being crystal clear on the rules i.e. thinking I have been here so long that I don’t need to try to do it in market replay first.”

One thing that humans are good at doing is changing what already works. I think that something happened that caused you to add something to what was working or you thought you saw a way that you believed could make it better. Either way deviating from the rules I’m sure caused havoc in your trading.

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience as well. I think its cool to see what others are dealing with.

I would encourage you to try and go back to the state of mind you had when you made the $1,300 on Crude. I’d like to know what your way of thinking was at that time when you were performing at that level. And then what mental shift took place that caused the expensive donations you have been giving to the market.

Thanks for sharing! :cool:

[quote=meowsekin]Thank you so much for your honesty and sharing in-depth self-analysis. You have no idea how this has helped me. Almost everything in your post applies to my own personal behavior. I especially appreciate the acknowledgement of the sleep deprivation habit. I have done this to an extreme as well and therefore have reaped the unwelcome consequences of this behavior.

I’ve started having some very poor results with my trading so I decided to start a meditation program a few days ago. I now meditate before trading, take breaks to do it and do it when I finally decide to pry myself away from my computers and lay down for a few hours. In just a couple of days, I am discovering that my results are a direct reflection of the development of poor habits (funny, I didn’t have these when I started this last summer).

These habits include:

  1. Trying to guess or “front-run” a signal or a reversal. This worked for me several times in the past so I developed it as behavior pattern and continued to do it despite severe consequences.

  2. As you mentioned, fear of the MVP trailing stop as being too large. I tighten my stops up to my level of comfort and wonder why I get stopped out, and miss the run. I either don’t get back in or I get a very poor entry and lose on the trade because I am not fast enough and the move is typically over by then.

  3. I have also entered trades using some of the different methodologies (outside of APEX MVP) without being crystal clear on the rules i.e. thinking I have been here so long that I don’t need to try to do it in market replay first.

  4. Scattering my mind all over place. I now have three monitors and two computers. So the more, the merrier right? Wrong. Too many charts with too much information. I will have ThinkorSwim, two or three trading shows and a couple of chat rooms going at the same time. You would think I am some kind of hot-shot 25 year old trading whiz kid who can multi-task like a banshee instead of the 54 year old woman doing her best not to have to go back into the corporate world. Long story short, I can’t multi-task like that anymore and I am not convinced I would have been able to even keep track of all of the things I have going now when I was 25. I am discovering that I do much better when I concentrate on one thing at a time. Imagine trying to trade Nadex, crude oil or gold futures and then options on TDA at the same time.

  5. Concentrating on trading so much (and doing it poorly) that I have neglected the other things in my life that are very important.

When I joined this community last summer, my very first trading day I made $1,300 on Crude. Back then, there was no MVP, It was just APEX and BMX pretty much. Darrell was so impressed, he had me post my chart in the forum. With that being said, I came out of gate fabulously and over the past 6 months, the market has made a proverbial "snack’ out of me. Why? Because of the development of very poor habits.

After doing a search on You Tube, I found some guided meditations especially for traders. They have been helpful in helping me to realize I have been engaged to some very destructive behaviors.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience. I am very grateful for your honesty and respectful of the courage it took to speak about what is going on with your trading. I appreciate you![/quote]

#7

[quote=darrell]MoveMaker and MeowSkin Great post. Self analysis is just as important as market analysis if not more important great job…

Move Maker

  1. Not every deviation level… just on the + or - 1 or high to low of 1 deviation (deviation indicator) is where this applies not every time any deviation level is hit. At this point i usually TIGHTEN to the predictor line (little arrows) versus the MVP line just in case it keeps moving. Though yes occasionally you can make more holding. Trading is not about the occasional could have its about the consistent CAN. Focus on the consistencies not the fringe cases.

2 c) We do enter 3 ticks above the high for the E or below the low of the E after it closes so enter 2 ticks would be early - 3 ticks would be spot on - maybe you men 3 ticks after the enter that is 3 ticks above so ie 5 to 6 ticks above? [/quote]

Hmm. Well it looks like its time for me to start studying the deviation levels and get a better understanding of how price reacts to them based off of their +/- (plus $ minus) signs. I know that price responds to them but I need to know why that is and why certain levels are more significant than others. I’m not saying I need to know every detail but I need understand what they mean and why price responds certain ways at these levels.

Also with my deviations I usually tend to be a bit hesitant when an APEX is forming near one. Missed out on a APEX trade today that I think was in Crude. The APEX was forming near a deviation level and I figured it may chop a bit so let me stay out. And as I watch the trade play out it was a **** good move. So I def need more understanding about that.

“maybe you men 3 ticks after the enter that is 3 ticks above so ie 5 to 6 ticks above?” I don’t understand what your saying here. Please clarify if you don’t mind.

Thanks again for everything you do for us!

#8

[quote=movemaker]You really shared a lot here. It’s amazing how we are all so unique but yet the same. Of course we may have different habits but at the core of each habit its a quite similar.

“Imagine trying to trade Nadex, crude oil or gold futures and then options on TDA at the same time.”

That is a ton of things to monitor. Especially with the two or 3 trading shows going that is def some Pre-Frontal Cortex overload. Trying to monitor all of that at once is like trying to run the APEX System on 1G of RAM.

“I have also entered trades using some of the different methodologies (outside of APEX MVP) without being crystal clear on the rules i.e. thinking I have been here so long that I don’t need to try to do it in market replay first.”

One thing that humans are good at doing is changing what already works. I think that something happened that caused you to add something to what was working or you thought you saw a way that you believed could make it better. Either way deviating from the rules I’m sure caused havoc in your trading.

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience as well. I think its cool to see what others are dealing with.

I would encourage you to try and go back to the state of mind you had when you made the $1,300 on Crude. I’d like to know what your way of thinking was at that time when you were performing at that level. And then what mental shift took place that caused the expensive donations you have been giving to the market.

Thanks for sharing! :cool:[/quote]

When I came here I was desperate for some type of logical system and guidance. I was willing to do anything and do it exactly as I was told to do it. So, the trade was actually “born” out of desperation.

I was so grateful to find Darrell! When I was first starting, the man actually took the time out of his schedule to find my telephone number and call me when I was having some major misunderstandings with how Ninja Trader functions.

APEX has really taken massive steps forward since last summer. At the time, we only had about one third of the systems, information, videos, etc. that we have today. I studied everything that was there at the time, Including putting together my own personal master guide (things were laid out pretty well the site but it was not what it is today) from the materials as well as watching the available videos and webinar recordings over and over again.

Then, I began to insert “myself” into my trading because I thought “Wow, this is a great system…if I just add in a few other things I’ve learned in my trading journey I can make it even better!”. This was very misguided thinking and thus the path to disaster was created.

I have found something that may be of interest to you. I don’t want to get in trouble for posting any outside information but maybe Darrell was cut me a little slack on this one. If not please accept my apologies in advance. I found an interview on YouTube with a man named Mark Douglas. He has written a few books on trading psychology. One of them is called “Mind Over Mark Market”. He talks about how our personal trading systems can give us an edge in a trade but it is our psychology that can really reduce our probabilities i.e. not entering the trade when the signal is given because we’ve overthought it, etc. He says that system signals are given when the mathematical situations determined by that system are matched. It can be the best system in the world but it will never be 100 percent perfect because it can’t predict the human behavior behind the market activity. But, it does give us an edge and even though we cannot predict the outcome of the trade, we are better off following it as closely as possible. In the long run, it produces more consistent and better results than following our own thinking.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Darrell say (paraphrasing) “Take all of the trades, it is consistency that counts”.

So, now I am on another part of my trading journey. My goal is to remove “myself” (ego) from my trading. I not only wish to survive in our arena but I want to thrive here. The thought of having to go back into the corporate world is very unappealing and I get filled with anxiety every time I think about it. Darrell has opened the door. I must unequivocally and unquestioningly step through it or perish. Returning to my own devices has placed me in a precarious position that is uncomfortable.

Thanks again for all of your sharing. As you mentioned, my hope is that somehow others can benefit from this dialog!:smiley:

#9

Mark Douglass is awesome :slight_smile: I highly recommend his book Trading In The Zone :slight_smile: