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.

Combine- Day 14 + Fever.

Spent 10 minutes saving, then re-saving, todays' charts to the HD...wondering why the little image wasn't appearing in the folder. It took me that long to realise that I was saving it as "130315" instead of "190315"!

....yes, some residual effects of the fever I am now just getting over. This was almost certainly caught from my daughter, except she is tougher than me and managed to walk around with up to 38.5C/101.3F while I, on the other hand, was reduced to tears, bedridden for 3 days with 39.2C/102.6F and "head pain" so severe, it made a migraine look like a headache.

I'm now happily drugged up with two antibiotics and a third tablet "to protect me from a stomach ulcer". Joy :).

Things are becoming fairly routine trading-wise. Attempted to move one step closer to respecting the ZoA target by putting in order in to scale out of half when the trade appeared to run out of steam. It was rejected for some unknown reason. So I exited for $175 less than I would have earned if the order had been accepted. Probably a fever-induced error...we'll see tomorrow.

Combine- Day 12.

Good job with patience and avoiding TWOT...I recognised that thoughts of frustration, failure and regret were running through my mind yesterday when I missed purposefully passed on what would have been a nice payment because it didn't flush the way I needed it to. No trade.

Fast forward to today and I was faced with the same situation. Recency bias- together with negative self-talk-reared their ugly heads ("take it now or you'll miss it like yesterday"). But I just simply chose not to take part in it.

Work needs to be done on trusting my targets, but acclimatising myself to 10 contract trading is my first concern.

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 8.

Last Thursday was Day 7 and that was a profitable day with full contract size (10 contracts). Friday was a repeat of this scenario, except I did one better and just didn't watch the markets.

Since Monday, I've returned to my 19:00-20:00 CET hour (which is where I intend to stay for the rest of the Combine). I've taken just the one trade, today's, out of seven setups identified in those two hours. I managed to catch the only one that resulted in a loser an expense.

Easing in to 10 contract trading. Under water in the account but know the power of the edge so still feeling confident.