Diary For Discipline....

Hi All,

I am not an experienced trader, just doing some Intraday trial and error stuff in live as backtesting results are very different from live, at least for discretionary trading.The reason I am starting this diary is because I experienced some very serious issues in my psychology and discipline while trading. I can list them as under:
1) Since I am not answerable to anyone about my actions, I tend to take trading casually.
2) I have defined certain set up areas, but I also trade when price is not in those areas.
3) The result is I overtrade and keep suffering losses.
4) I dont keep note of my trades, and as it is, most of the trades I take have no solid base.

So I thought that if I start a thread, while trading, I know that I have to update the thread, and I have to justify my actions in that thread. Since this thought will always be at the back of my mind, I will trade very selectively. Because many times I have decided to trade selectively, but failed.

Now as I have stated at the very beginning of this thread that I am not an experienced trader, my default position would be "to NOT trade" like Lance Beggs once said, although in a different context. And with this, the toughest challenge would be boredom and losing focus !!! But that would be definitely better than a dent in the trading capital.

I will not go looking for set-ups, but trade only when a set up jumps out at me -- AT THE TRADE AREA.

About my trading style, I have read YTC, trying to understand Al Brooks, and a website by a trader Jagadeesh, which is very good explanation of YTC. My trade areas are Previous session High and Low, and 30 min pivots. I have decided not to trade anywhere apart from these trade areas. Let us see if I am able to follow a disciplinary approach.

About my trading rules, I have defined some very basic stuff, but cant document each and every thing i have read and hope to follow.

And as I am not a full time trader, i will update the thread only on those days when i trade.

Looking forward to your trades.

Good luck :thumb:

Record all your trades, be it as oer the setup or random.. If not here then atleast on a personal note.. They are surely helping to improve..

First 2 trades were as per the system, there was just some move in my direction after the entry, but no follow thru. Hurried for the third trade, which i was looking at as BOF, but should have let it come down the pivot level. And as for the second trade, wanted to keep TSL as per the pivots, but didnt want to take too much risk.
So net some 4 points minus brokerage of 3 trades, which is 4.5 points, so
net -0.5 points.

Sorry, brokerage per trade is 2 points, so total brokerage is 6 points. So,

net = -2 points

Was reading the interview of Zerodha trader Madan, and to my surprise, he has advised the same thing for newbies:

Develop an important virtue called ‘patience’ and learn how "not to trade" at your every whim and desire (very important)

very true..this is the same reason even i have opened my trading diary here..discipline (or psychological maturity) plays the most important part..system seldom looses..trades without setup often

Sold low of candle A with target as low of candle B.But when price started reversing from a little above of low of candle B, tried to modify the profit booking order, but by mistake modified the SL order. After realising this, i panicked and squared off from F11. But in this mix -up, forgot to cancel the pending SL order which was triggered later. Came to know that while checking F11 after some time. Again panicked and squared that off from F11, which wasnt getting executed so looked at net qty and squared that off by giving a market order.

Entry 335.85, target 334.50, exit 335.20










These were too many trades for someone who had decided to trade "selectively". So closed the terminal and called it a day. The mix up in TS trade and the unwanted AB trade made me lose some 1.5%

Net equity UP by 2.5%

Dear BL

just a small question?

do this kind of scalping really fetches anything in long run? i used to do this till 2 years back and dint got anything except losses..

conversely...same kind of setup on daily charts shall fetch better returns playing positionally... my few cents

treat this advice as from someone still novice.. cheers

If you read my first post carefully, you will get the answer, that i am not qualified to answer your question

Still, for sake of your convinience, I will repeat it here:

"I am not an experienced trader, just doing some Intraday trial and error stuff in live"

And btw, when I or any trader takes a trade, does he know that its gonna be a super-duper trade or a scratch, or a "scalp" ?

And as for trading positionally on daily charts, thats not my cup of tea, as I am not ready to face bigger SLs