Ray's amnesty page

[wiseambitions]

10pm UK time, Thursday, I didn't take it, but saw a signal to go long which would have been stopped out the next candle if the SL was the opposite end of the Aims box. Subsequent to which the original direction looks like being resumed

Incidentally it might have just been a spike on one broker not all others, I have noticed this sort of thing at this time of night, and it's one reason I try not to be in the market.


Other than that it hasn't been a bad day, I had more wins than losses, probably coming out with 60 pips of gain, but the emotional toll did seem to be quite high due to worries about whipsaw

I have had a couple less good days during the week so far, and ascribe this to my own silly fault. Combination of not waiting for reliable setups, getting too greedy and allowing stop losses which were sometimes too tight and sometimes too wide. When I say my own silly fault, I'm aware of the carry over of man flu and it seems to affect my judgement! Hope for better performance to resume now.

[wiseambitions]

Not such a good day so far for the way I have been driving the system.....1 win but 3 losses (rents Immy)

Kinda takes away the confidence to re try...... we get days like this in spite of good longer term results

[wiseambitions]

Agreed Ray. Days like this shake our confidence level.

It's difficult to enter after a couple losses eh

And having had a dose of man flu and not feeling quite so bright in the brains I found I was also making mistakes. By which I mean failing to adhere to the system. Opening trades a bit before confirmation of a setup. That's something different from following the rules and getting the regular dose of wins and losses.

It's difficult to know sometimes whether to cut a loss and wait for a proper signal, or live in hope - I dont know what the chance of a win from a random outcome is, but I'm inclined to say it's less than and not equal to 50%
Profits dont seem to come by accident in this job!

[immy]

Agreed Ray. Days like this shake our confidence level.

It's difficult to enter after a couple losses eh

And having had a dose of man flu and not feeling quite so bright in the brains I found I was also making mistakes. By which I mean failing to adhere to the system. Opening trades a bit before confirmation of a setup. That's something different from following the rules and getting the regular dose of wins and losses.

It's difficult to know sometimes whether to cut a loss and wait for a proper signal, or live in hope - I dont know what the chance of a win from a random outcome is, but I'm inclined to say it's less than and not equal to 50%
Profits dont seem to come by accident in this job!

Well Said! Profit don't come by accident on a "consistent" basis. You may have an add winner here and there, which may not be even a setup but if you don't follow the setup , you've lost your edge and continually taking trades without your edge would mean, you're feeding the market.

[wiseambitions]

Thanks Immy
In the first 12 days of February I took 450 net pips of profit, all but a few out of EJ. It was my first experience with EJ, which I have found to be a very volatile pair at that! I did that mainly on M5.
The second half of the month was not so good at all. I put this down to having had too many other distractions, man flu and work, and I have to say it was not a smooth ride.

I just appreciated a comment you made to me when things were going ok, "Dont change anything"

I wish I could remember what I was doing which at that time was great, I know it involved intense periods at the screen but for 450 pips is worth it. And those pips in less than 2 weeks created 2 months' salary. It will be better for me after about the end of March when my office lease expires as I can concentrate better at home. Meanwhile the landlord requires that I redecorate the place - and that's a thankless task!

I also need to assess what I have been doing when I've made mistakes. I think I would admit that the three biggest are acting on impulse, (not waiting for the setup to properly manifest), being too greedy, and not quitting a bad trade soon enough.

Good luck to all for March

[immy]

Thanks Immy
In the first 12 days of February I took 450 net pips of profit, all but a few out of EJ. It was my first experience with EJ, which I have found to be a very volatile pair at that! I did that mainly on M5.
The second half of the month was not so good at all. I put this down to having had too many other distractions, man flu and work, and I have to say it was not a smooth ride.

I just appreciated a comment you made to me when things were going ok, "Dont change anything"

I wish I could remember what I was doing which at that time was great, I know it involved intense periods at the screen but for 450 pips is worth it. And those pips in less than 2 weeks created 2 months' salary. It will be better for me after about the end of March when my office lease expires as I can concentrate better at home. Meanwhile the landlord requires that I redecorate the place - and that's a thankless task!

I also need to assess what I have been doing when I've made mistakes. I think I would admit that the three biggest are acting on impulse, (not waiting for the setup to properly manifest), being too greedy, and not quitting a bad trade soon enough.

Good luck to all for March

Ray!

Every now and then everyone will get in to the hole. The trick is to not focus on getting out of it. Instead, divert your attention to what makes you feel good. Focus on the lovely trades and streaks of great trades and trading days and weeks. When you're making mistake, it indicates one thing. You're not in the now. If you're not in the now, you cannot be in the zone, during trading specifically and as a whole as well. There are periods of being intensely in the zone. A zone within zone if you like and there are periods of being in the negative zone with intense laps of being in the zone of the zone of negativity. Those little zones can only be avoided by deliberately creating 4 conditions that would allow you to instantly get back in the zone. Remember no one can decide to get in and out of the zone because if it was possible no one would ever get out one in the zone.

So the four conditions are the 4 conditions in my journal, 1st page. Moreover, doing creative work helps us get back in the zone. e.g. if you do something totally new each weekend, you'll have a "creative" experience. Creation is something that did not exist before right! now if you've never been to flying, does not mean that it was never created but in your experience in your universe this will only be created when you actually fly. That is your creative experience. It took me a while to understand why Bill Williams asks his students to do something new each weekend. He calls it the IT Date (Inner Trader Date). So, I've never been to this park, ok lets go there. there you go creative experience. My friend sitting next to me suggests, "you've never tried certain drug Right? why not give it a shot? that's a creative experience." Though I disagree (idiot) because all new experiences can be creative, since they never existed before in your experience. So it can be considered as a creative experience, but its damaging so we gotta stay away from destructive stuff besides most of us do, destructive stuff, most of the time anyway.

So if you know arts, creating a nice painting would get you back in the zone. spending nice time, having fun will get you in the zone. And most importantly, visualizing what you want and ignoring what you don't want is the secret. Beliefs are energy and once something is created, that is energy, it can never be destroyed. So how do you get rid of belief that you don't want. Simply by NOT giving it more energy by NOT focusing on it.
e.g here is a belief that every trader must understand and adapt if they want to make huge amounts of money.

"I am a consistently successful trader"

Read it aloud and then observe, simply observe to the inner chatter. Chances are that alot of it would be negative. "nah, thats not true, you're not that". "how can you be that when you're making so many mistakes".blah blah. The moment you argue with one of those thoughts, you've given it energy and now it will grow. Instead divert your attention to "I am a consistently successful trader".

Remember, consciousness creates, and energy flows where attention goes. So focus on creating profits on a consistent basis and visualize, and feel it as if its already happened and then say Thank You. Being in the now is more powerful than thinking about the future. Being in the now, brings the future and the past together and you can be and have what you want right NOW.

I hope my Sunday sermon was not BS.

cheers

[immy]

Sunday Treat for Ray's Amnesty!

[wiseambitions]

Thanks Immy
You have said you're a strong believer in God, and that's good to know.

This was actually my own Sunday sermon, it wasnt about trading this time:

"The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.

Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling."


By the way you're quite right about the need to be creative and have the right attitude of mind!
Hope we all have a good week.

In the first 12 days February my average result was 8 pips, which I think is plenty enough to keep a show rolling; I will try and keep in the zone.

Keeping in the zone? I haven't studied the definition, if you have proposed one, but I suppose it would include reversing the trades as soon as an aims box is broken in the other direction. However whereas the rules would say don't trade towards purple in m1, I don't know whether there's any experience as to if it's usually best not to do that in higher timeframes?

[immy]

Thanks Immy
You have said you're a strong believer in God, and that's good to know.

This was actually my own Sunday sermon, it wasnt about trading this time:

"The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.

Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling."


By the way you're quite right about the need to be creative and have the right attitude of mind!
Hope we all have a good week.

In the first 12 days February my average result was 8 pips, which I think is plenty enough to keep a show rolling; I will try and keep in the zone.

Keeping in the zone? I haven't studied the definition, if you have proposed one, but I suppose it would include reversing the trades as soon as an aims box is broken in the other direction. However whereas the rules would say don't trade towards purple in m1, I don't know whether there's any experience as to if it's usually best not to do that in higher timeframes?

Here is another one for you. Being in the zone is Mental State of Mind!. In cricket we say, "he is in form or out of form". In the rest of the sports, mostly athletics, they say "he's in the zone". Its a mental state of mind where you lose track of time and become so available in the now t hat there is no past or future. You are not trading anymore, you are the market. It is because you operate from the core and right hemisphere of your brain. You are one with the universal intelligence. No one can deliberately choose to get into the zone by will but one can create the 4 conditions that would allow you to get into the zone. (1st page of my journal/Trading Chat Thread)

[immy]

To You and all of the AIMSters!

I'd like to put together all my research and then give it you but that would be a wasted effort. Mark Douglas has already done that over a decade ago. And he named it "Trading in the Zone". I've been recommending this book every since I started trading and sharing. So here we go again. I'm tempted to share my highlighted copy of his book but I cannot do that. I have too much respect for Mr. Douglas.

Someone was trying to convince someone and wrote something that again, i think I don't need to write. So I'll copy and paste what he wrote. 100% agreed.

"I feel that you do us all a very valuable service by bringing this Mark Douglas material to our attention.

I have become a very enthusiastic Mark Douglas fan. His masterpiece, "Trading In The Zone," bids fair to be the best book on trading I have ever read in 16 years in the field. And his first book, "The Disciplined Trader," is a worthy precursor to it.

However, just because I like something doesn't mean I leave my critical faculties at the door to worship at a guru's lotus feet. That's just not me. I understand why some people have trouble with it. Some of the psychological stuff can be a touch tedious. But his insights are very valuable. And there's much, much more in there than just his psychological insights! I have gone over that book with a fine tooth comb, sentence by sentence, and there are gems in there of incaluable value! In fact, in my view, any trader who does not absorb and incorporate Mark Douglas's "Five Fundamental Truths of Trading" and "Seven Principles of Consistency" is set up for failure, anxiety and angst throughout their trading careers, which are likely to be brutal, painful, unprofitable and short.

Here's the bottom line: Mark Douglas has performed an heroic intellectual feat in attempting to get our grubby noses out of our endless obsessions with the present trade to bring us into the brilliant sunshine of the Broad Statistical View! Once you understand -- really understand -- that his First Fundamental Truth is gospel and that "Anything can happen" on any one trade and that you can only judge your results over a statistically significant series of trades, your obsession with the present trade fades like morning dew off the grass in the afternoon sunshine! You trade with confidence and ease. You sleep like a baby. If a trade goes against you, you shrug it off like water off a duck's back.

Perhaps one of his most brilliant sentences is this: "When I place a trade all I expect is that the market will do something." That's it in a nutshell. The market and/or the chart you are trading will either go up, go down or go sideways. Period. Something will happen but you can't KNOW in advance what it is. You have to play the probabilities and no matter how high they are in your favor on a single trade, anything can happen and you can lose.

BUT, BUT, BUT...if you view your trading over the long run, over a statistically significant series of trades, and your "edge" or methodology is any good, the bell curve of standard distribution will do its magic for you WITHOUT FAIL! In other words, the outcome is not predictable in the short run but almost infallibly predictable over the long run. And this can be demonstrated and proven not merely beyond a reasonable doubt but beyond any doubt whatsoever over and over again!

The reason for the psychological stuff is to try to show us why we fail to grasp these obvious truths, or, even if we do grasp them intellectually, fail to apply them emotionally.

If you don't think it's a great book, you need to read it again. And again. And again. Carefully. Sentence by sentence. I don't know how many readings it will take. That depends on you. But sooner or later, after one of them, you will find yourself concluding that it really is a GREAT book, and at that point, you will apply its lessons and your trading life will change forever for the better.

I think it's a masterpiece. Truly.

Good work, Hagadol!

hiyo"

Enjoy!