Interesting way to Self-Review (and add fixes to your routine)
Hey everyone, my last educational post unexpectedly blew up
. I have way more things that I'd like to share related to trading, but to keep this endeavor relatable I will try to only do so when I personally (at a moment in time) will utilize one (or more) things from the post. In this manner the post about taking breaks was relevant because I had just come back home after a holiday.
Today happens to be one of those days.
I like to think of trading as not merely an activity, but as a perfect blend of sport, science, and art. In this material we will be discussing the science of it.
In its core science is objective observation, data collection, analysis, and further conclusions. Sometimes more data is needed, sometimes a completely different from expected outcome emerges, and so forth.
The science of data collection in trading comes with our journal - the more relevant data we collect when we log our trades the more conclusions we ideally can make in order to test a new hypothesis, or make a strong decision to stop doing something.
One of those things happened to me when I started logging in time of open and time of close of each trade. Over series of 100+ trades I noticed that my profitability drops dramatically after 4-5PM, and in the period between 6-9PM I was getting 85% chance of loss of any trade taken.
This led me to cut my trading time at 4PM. My results obviously improved.
However, trading is not a done deal as we are humans - our routines may change, various other life circumstances may pop up, and what worked last month may still work this month, but this month you are a slightly different person.
This last bit is actually heavily affected by personality trait Orderliness, the more orderly a person is the more they are inclined to not switch things up, and vice versa.
Nevertheless, apart from time, pips, profit, strategies, instruments, and so forth, we can also log our feelings. Before trade, during the day, upon entering a trade, after closing it, and so forth. Then, once we have enough data we can correlate results with feelings that we experienced at a time. This bit is more difficult than others because it's subjective, and thus requires a greater deal of awareness and interoception. But upon practicing it - it becomes much easier to pick up on.
This week after coming back from holiday I started trading as usual. However, for some reason it was difficult for me to wake up at 5:40am to get ready to start trading at 6am. I would oversleep till around 6.30am these past 4 days.
Upon waking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I'd notice that no moves happened during that time, which led to sense of relief. But there was also a tingling sense of guilt as from experience I knew that profitable trades often happen in the period between 6-7am for me. So by chance of luck none were missed during these days, but the act itself wasn't top-performance as it was only a matter of time before experiencing a missing trade.
That is exactly what happens yesterday.
The oversleeping ultimately caused a miss of +1.5 of profit, which would still give me a losing day, but much less than what happened yesterday.
The feeling of guilt building up during first three days of the week culminated in that, which made it even worse. The rest of other trades were taken well with discipline, and managed well too, but the point is the quite heavy toll that was experienced by me for no apparent reason.
Now, getting all of that data, I am immediately implementing a fix by moving (temporarily) my trading time 1 hour. So, instead of feeling guilty or inadequate for missing a good trade, I will now simply get enough sleep in without sacrificing emotional integrity. Trades outside my purple box do not exist as they all fall outside of my trading times. Yes, I will be missing these 6-7am moves. But I won't be holding unnecessary baggage instead, which would help me to capitalize much better on other trades. And maybe there will be other trades happening at 4-5pm instead. (As losing trades mostly occurred after 6pm for me, and who knows whether it was due to decision fatigue or lack of edge during that time? For that I'd need more testing).
The key is removing all the baggage that we bring to the market, and that is precisely what light work is.
Lightwork_
Today happens to be one of those days.
I like to think of trading as not merely an activity, but as a perfect blend of sport, science, and art. In this material we will be discussing the science of it.
In its core science is objective observation, data collection, analysis, and further conclusions. Sometimes more data is needed, sometimes a completely different from expected outcome emerges, and so forth.
The science of data collection in trading comes with our journal - the more relevant data we collect when we log our trades the more conclusions we ideally can make in order to test a new hypothesis, or make a strong decision to stop doing something.
One of those things happened to me when I started logging in time of open and time of close of each trade. Over series of 100+ trades I noticed that my profitability drops dramatically after 4-5PM, and in the period between 6-9PM I was getting 85% chance of loss of any trade taken.
This led me to cut my trading time at 4PM. My results obviously improved.
However, trading is not a done deal as we are humans - our routines may change, various other life circumstances may pop up, and what worked last month may still work this month, but this month you are a slightly different person.
This last bit is actually heavily affected by personality trait Orderliness, the more orderly a person is the more they are inclined to not switch things up, and vice versa.
Nevertheless, apart from time, pips, profit, strategies, instruments, and so forth, we can also log our feelings. Before trade, during the day, upon entering a trade, after closing it, and so forth. Then, once we have enough data we can correlate results with feelings that we experienced at a time. This bit is more difficult than others because it's subjective, and thus requires a greater deal of awareness and interoception. But upon practicing it - it becomes much easier to pick up on.
This week after coming back from holiday I started trading as usual. However, for some reason it was difficult for me to wake up at 5:40am to get ready to start trading at 6am. I would oversleep till around 6.30am these past 4 days.
Upon waking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I'd notice that no moves happened during that time, which led to sense of relief. But there was also a tingling sense of guilt as from experience I knew that profitable trades often happen in the period between 6-7am for me. So by chance of luck none were missed during these days, but the act itself wasn't top-performance as it was only a matter of time before experiencing a missing trade.
That is exactly what happens yesterday.
The oversleeping ultimately caused a miss of +1.5 of profit, which would still give me a losing day, but much less than what happened yesterday.
The feeling of guilt building up during first three days of the week culminated in that, which made it even worse. The rest of other trades were taken well with discipline, and managed well too, but the point is the quite heavy toll that was experienced by me for no apparent reason.
Now, getting all of that data, I am immediately implementing a fix by moving (temporarily) my trading time 1 hour. So, instead of feeling guilty or inadequate for missing a good trade, I will now simply get enough sleep in without sacrificing emotional integrity. Trades outside my purple box do not exist as they all fall outside of my trading times. Yes, I will be missing these 6-7am moves. But I won't be holding unnecessary baggage instead, which would help me to capitalize much better on other trades. And maybe there will be other trades happening at 4-5pm instead. (As losing trades mostly occurred after 6pm for me, and who knows whether it was due to decision fatigue or lack of edge during that time? For that I'd need more testing).
The key is removing all the baggage that we bring to the market, and that is precisely what light work is.
Lightwork_
Lightwork Trading