Trading review processes

[Trembling Hand]

Why real time? Would it make much of a difference compared to post-trade reviews?

Post trade reviews are in some ways useless when you are active discretionary trader. You don't fix a driving error on the couch - you get in the car and practise real time.

Its not the trading as such you are reviewing its your state of mind. How many times have traders looked at yesterdays trades or last week/months and said,

"never again, I need to be more disciplined in my trades"

Its a load of toss. What these people need, IMO, is self awareness and real time ability to monitor their state of mind. Not some BS promise to themselves outside the heat of the battle. That crap don't work. In real time you can if you are aware quickly enough change you approach or state of mind before you blow the day out.

 

[skyQuake]

Post trade reviews are in some ways useless when you are active discretionary trader. You don't fix a driving error on the couch - you get in the car and practise real time.

Its not the trading as such you are reviewing its your state of mind. How many times have traders looked at yesterdays trades or last week/months and said,

"never again, I need to be more disciplined in my trades"

Its a load of toss. What these people need, IMO, is self awareness and real time ability to monitor their state of mind. Not some BS promise to themselves outside the heat of the battle. That crap don't work. In real time you can if you are aware quickly enough change you approach or state of mind before you blow the day out.

Cheers, that makes A LOT of sense for high frequencey discretionary. Going through a few hundred trades on the HSI at the end of day isn't that helpful
I guess its less relevant for equities or mechanical trades.
Welcome back!

 

[MRC & Co]

Completely agree TH. Good posts. Self awareness in the heat of battle is very hard, yet paramount.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Interesting TH, what do you do to actually review your state of mind? At the rate you trade I would have thought it would be reasonably hard to review anything? Do you use NTs account performance thing?

 

[Trembling Hand]

Interesting TH, what do you do to actually review your state of mind?

Pretty simple. If you don't or can't you should not be trading, on any time frame.

The equity curve will tell you most things ya wanna know. If you know you have positive expectancy and it turns negative it is not too hard to figure out whats happening.

:error:

:aufreg:

 

[Wysiwyg]

The equity curve will tell you most things ya wanna know. If you know you have positive expectancy and it turns negative it is not too hard to figure out whats happening.

Hmmm, that is interesting. What is obviously happening to make the positive expectation not so?

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Yeah I agree with all that, I keep progress manually, I was more after HOW you actually do it, like if you do it in excel or NT etc.

 

[Trembling Hand]

Yeah I agree with all that, I keep progress manually, I was more after HOW you actually do it, like if you do it in excel or NT etc.

Excel via API.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Excel via API.

Cheers mate makes sense now

 

[Wysiwyg]

Market conditions, market conditions and market conditions.

Additionally, Company Management Decisions have a huge bearing on stock movement. This is something that cannot be factored in to any positively expectant trade plan.

For example my last three trades (3 in a row) have resulted in rapid share price declines. One Management decision was to delay exploration proceedings not once but three times, the next Management decision was to reverse a planned decision to mine and thirdly a Management decision to review an inter company contractual agreement while terminating the present contract agreement.

Apart from selling at or beyond stop loss price, there is not anything else I can see that could be done.

 

[skc]

I agree with the OP... trading is a business. Review is essential to business improvements. The equity curve is the P&L, but in depth, trade by trade review can reveal much more than one expects.

I did some review of my trades on "My 99 trades" thread. It was incredibly helpful to put things on paper and see how stops were moved and exits were managed. And that's just one aspect of trading that I reviewed.

From this year I am going to try to keep my stock charts updated with entry, exit, stops, targets and thought bubbles...and review 2 weeks after the close of trade.

Let's see if I can keep that up.

 

[Naked shorts]

The equity curve will tell you most things ya wanna know.

How many different patterns would you say your equity curve follows? I'm assuming after a while you would see the same pattern show up multiple times.
I guess you could even label them as well; "what tired trading looks like" "what unfocused trading looks like" "what agro trading looks like" etc and from there you could spot the starting of such a pattern and become self aware before you screw yourself.

 

[CanOz]

The equity curve will tell you most things ya wanna know. If you know you have positive expectancy and it turns negative it is not too hard to figure out whats happening.

What would happen to your equity curve if you plotted a line along side it, a couple of SDs away and then stopped trading once your curve hit this? Can you use a system stop like this? How would it work?

CanOz

 

[Trembling Hand]

How many different patterns would you say your equity curve follows? I'm assuming after a while you would see the same pattern show up multiple times.
I guess you could even label them as well; "what tired trading looks like" "what unfocused trading looks like" "what agro trading looks like" etc and from there you could spot the starting of such a pattern and become self aware before you screw yourself.

Yep, they fall into two broad categories, 1. **** market - walk away, or try something different. and 2. **** trading - and yep there is certainly patterns to my poor trading.

What would happen to your equity curve if you plotted a line along side it, a couple of SDs away and then stopped trading once your curve hit this? Can you use a system stop like this? How would it work?

CanOz

I would end up losing lots of money, LOTS. I know my trading works. stopping because of a intraday draw down (ie not because I've hit the daily stop) would drag my average day way way way down. That's the same reason why when I'm having a good day I increase my position size and push harder - daily targets are for the :bunny: 's

 

[Naked shorts]

What would happen to your equity curve if you plotted a line along side it, a couple of SDs away and then stopped trading once your curve hit this? Can you use a system stop like this? How would it work?

CanOz

The name for that is equity curve trading, Howard Bandy has done a few posts on here about it if your interested.

 

[Naked shorts]

As far as a review process, unfortunately, I don't have much to offer there. I don't really have any specific 'set-ups' as such, it is far too discretionary. I tried to review my trades for a long time, but soon realised it was pointless for my style. Too many factors go into making a decision, and things change so quick I am constantly updating my style to the market conditions.

Ever tried TraderDNA?

 

[Trembling Hand]

Ever tried TraderDNA?

Have you? Would be interested to see what it spits out. NT has some of the stats but nowhere as deep as DNA. The thing I find now is that I don't really need to look at them as you kinda now what happens after a while.

Are you trading for someone NS?

 

[MRC & Co]

Ever tried TraderDNA?

Heard of it, remember reading about it a long time ago, but can't remember a thing of it now.

Care to elaborate?

 

[Naked shorts]

Have you? Would be interested to see what it spits out. NT has some of the stats but nowhere as deep as DNA. The thing I find now is that I don't really need to look at them as you kinda now what happens after a while.

Are you trading for someone NS?

I just got it myself, so still getting used to it. Im supposed to be getting a run through of it tonight (over the phone). The company is very dodgy however, website is buggy and unfinished, uploading trades is buggy, customer service is crap (everyone is always in "meetings"), I couldn't even pay them because the website doesn't even work with international transactions (so they have given it to me for free lol).

It is kind of similar to what nt can do, but 100 times more in depth.

What made me bring it up was you and mrc saying you dont have time to go over each of your trades, and instead you find looking at how you performed most beneficial.. that's basically what it focuses on. You cant really use it for individual trade optimizations.. its made for trading optimization.

Nope not trading for anyone.

 

[skyQuake]

I think me and mrc & co saw it a long while ago; They had some offer with TT as a package but was still heaps expensive.
What irked me most (at that time) was that you had to send your data over the net to them and they'll do the analysis for you and send it back.
As long as you're small fish you should be fine. If you do sizable volume they can accumulate data on you and 'learn' how you trades and your setups etc.
Worse still if you have big open positions that they can squeeze.