Monday, August 23, 2010

Weekly Goals

I'll be trading real money this week with same size as in SIM, risking a maximum of 1% of capital on open trades.  Goals for this week, much as last week with a few changes.
  1. Daily market prep - improve on creating daily prep documentation and then implementing the scenerios. Get Bias right across multiple time frames then execute correctly in your timeframe = Edge!
  2. Exit stategy implementation - hold onto trades to projected targets, give them room and time to move.
  3. Thinking in Probabilities & Capital Protection -  premium trades only, focus on keeping odds in your favour, once the trade is on remember anything can happen, let it run one way or the other.
  4. Take all triggered trades - execute 40+ trades by close of markets on Thursday.
  5. Patience - take your documented trading plan trades only, no development trades this week.  Wait for the market to create the trades, don't be too agressive, react do not predict.
  6. Stay Relaxed but Focussed and Enjoy - stay focussed during trading hours, remember losing trades are the cost of doing business, move on to the next one, focus on achieving the big picture over a large sample of trades
  7. Achieve consistency in trade Execution and Risk management - the result will be consistent stats over a large sample size, standard deviation of less than two, a smooth and rising equity curve.
  8. Daily Routine - work to a daily routine you will be using in the future.
    • Weekly/daily goal setting/review
    • Market preparation
      • Prep market structure on charts for every market
      • Market economic events today, major news events today, major earnings?
      • Set risk management parameters, position sizing for the day
    • Trading and recording trades
    • Record keeping
      • Mark charts with trades, entries, exits
      • Review individual trades, comment on charts with mistakes, improvements required..
      • Export daily trade execution from IB, update BT combined spreadsheet, export to csv
      • Import into MSA, review stats if required.
      • Copy all files to Daily folder and close out.
      • Update journal with commentary and charts as required.

    Atlanta Trading

    It's been a busy month, planning and preparing for our family trip to Ireland for a wedding and my trip to Atlanta for the a two week trading workshop with Tzar Analytics.  Time has flown by.  Week one of the trading workshop is over and what a week! 

    Two trading rooms with nine traders in each under the keen eye of Alex and Davin, very successful prop. traders. Fantastic atmosphere working alongside a great bunch of people all trading for a living, at various levels of progression.  Exchange of ideas, discussions between each of us on how we're doing, what startegies we're using, our trading styles and much more, consulting directly with Davin and Alex on our trades, watching them trade their own accounts, ongoing advice and tips and much much more - it's been a brilliant week! 

    I'm off to a good start with my trading this week on SIM, I'll be trading real money this coming week.