[KateMoloney]

That’s great Nick. Taking your wizardry to the next level.

[KateMoloney]

Onwards and upwards!

[KateMoloney]

ASX momo 0% – CASH
Growth Port 0% – CASH

US TLT -1.56%
US Momo +2.38% (about to go 100% cash)

MOC systems
TB -4.27%
WP -9.87%

All longer term systems will be cash for March.
Great lessons with the MOCs this month. They would have achieved a much healthier return if it wasn’t for blondie here! Been discussing the lessons at length with my husband today, so definitely getting value from it in and will be banking that value later. Took about 2 days to fully get over it, feeling no remorse or guilt now.

One insightful thing my husband shared is that if you have certainty with your system and back testing performance etc, then you are more likely to stick to trading it even through the volatility. If you are uncertain with your system then you are more likely to over ride it. So the initial back testing & research period is critical to gain that certainty and trust.

A while back I printed out the daily non compounded P & L and put it on the fridge. We have been discussing that a lot today.

I can also see that during periods of volatility, like now, the day trade systems thrive while long term strategic holds and longer term systems lose money. So you are being tested with your non day trade strategies and in a way need to have your head “in the right place” even more so than “normal times”.

In the future I will be even more ruthless with distractions that take my focus & attention away from my trading game, especially during periods of volatility.

Have also come up with a potential solution for day trading during holidays or personal leave. Mum said she is willing to learn to run explorations and load the trades. In 3-6 months I’ll set up video instructions for her and see if this is a feasible option to try for short term periods.

Onwards and upwards.

[KateMoloney]

Great work Rob, having a nice run there.

[KateMoloney]

Nice work Terry, having a good run.

[KateMoloney]

And just to add, whilst I had done a daily non compounded P & L as Nick had instructed, mentally knowing the ups and downs VS actually handling them are two very different things.

So we did some work on that too, especially with some of the up coming volatility, I want to be able to handle those outlier loss making days without flinching.

[KateMoloney]

Last week … what a week !

Flood waters in Brisbane are predicted to have peaked this morning …. stopping 3 doors down from our home.
Getting back into my usual daily trading rhythm now we know our home is safe.

Had a session this morning with my coach working through my “oh fuck” moment last week. My biggest learning was that taking that night off allowed me the space to honour and grieve my friend who had passed away. Had I participated in the big win, I wouldn’t have remembered all the business wisdom and lessons he taught me. I would have covered up my grief with money.

In a few years, I’ll be much more detached from monetary gains & losses, but right now I’m still a new trader and stumbling along. Being able to make over 10%+ in a night wasn’t in my reality 6 months ago. I am still learning elation management, especially for those extreme winning days.

Another realisation from my session is that creating a system and trading it each day can be quite mechanical. With the timing of my friends death and the impact he had on my life, I’ll be naming this new system after him and trading with him in mind (from a legacy perspective). He told me his children were “managers and not entrepreneurs”. He wanted to pass on some of his entrepreneurial lessons and wisdom, so he did so with anyone who showed interest.

It might sound silly to some, but to me, trading with meaning and a purpose in mind makes us better traders.

So, other than Nick having a wee jab this morning (joking) I’m all good with missing out on the profits last week.

[KateMoloney]

Welcome Mike.

Welcome to the program.

My Mum is Swiss, from the swiss-german side of the country. Bavaria is a beautiful part of Germany.

Hallo, wie geht’s dir ?

[KateMoloney]

Terry, thank you for your message.

Spoke with Craig this morning who reminded me that traders take time off for holidays, flights and personal crisis. Then he suggested not doing back tests when you don’t trade. Its a good idea, I think I’m just in the habit of doing them daily which is why I did it.

Been pondering the lessons this weekend as well as the other “stuff”.
As much as we are here to make money long term, from a process perspective, I did the right thing. My husband and I have been grieving this weekend and being present for that is more important than the money.

The money will come, and it already has. Already profitable and its still year one. Perspective.

[KateMoloney]

Nick fuck fuck fuckedy fuck

It really does help!

[KateMoloney]

Update on trading.

Trades are in TWS for tonight. More work to do on my mindset around the lost profits. So grateful this happened early in my career, it will not happen again and I am already thinking of potential solutions.

Goal for tomorrow is to talk to Craig and keep working on my third day trade system.

As my late friend Randy Clare Hall would say, “get back on the horse and don’t mope around too much”.

The man was worth USD$20M in the late 90’s. He sold his company for $1M in cash and $19M in shares that he could cash in 12 months. He said when you have $19M coming in 12 months, you live like a king. Then the 2000 tech wreck happened and his shares were worthless.

He went bankrupt, moped around for a bit and then started a new business in his backyard. The new business had a better bottom line than his original company that turned over $100M pa. He revolutionised his industry in so many ways. His past failure didn’t stop him from succeeding and living very a full life.

Tonight, he is my inspiration to keep going.

[KateMoloney]

Well done Steve !

[KateMoloney]

Todays post is going to be a long and vulnerable share.

Last night was a big lesson for me. To add context, the last few days I have not been on my A game, I have been very distracted. A family friend died last night, and I’ve had challenges to sort out with two family members. Usually one issue on its own I would have coped fine, but the combination of three issues has stumbled me a bit with my mental trading game.

The last few weeks the market has been volatile, and it hasn’t bothered me one bit, but as the issues in my personal life have intensified, I was not in the best emotional state last night. I had loaded the day trade orders into TWS, but was not feeling myself and didn’t think I could cope with a financial loss on top of all the other stuff I was dealing with in my personal life. After thinking about it for 4 hours, I made the decision to take the night off trading, the first time I have ever done this. I made this decision from a place of wanting to be a trader long term, and not wanting to overload my mind with a loss and the personal issues.

So I cancelled all my trades and closed out the Trade Long Term portfolio so I could focus on my personal life.

As murphy’s law would have it, the day trade systems missed out on a record night and a very healthy profit. In the backtest this only happened 3x in 17 years.

Day trade one system would have had a 65.15% return since November inception, Day trade system two would have had an 80% return since Jan inception. Ouch ouch ouch ouch! Or should I say f*ck ! f*ck! f*ck!

My first initial reaction was to cry, I felt very ashamed of myself for missing out on such a stellar night when all I had to do was leave the trades on in TWS.

Here is what I have learned so far this morning;

1) I made a decision to put my mental health / personal life before my trading business. Trading will always be there in the future. Family and friends are more fleeting. Life happens and sometimes we have to prioritise other things outside of trading. Despite it seeming like I made the “wrong” decision to not trade, it was important for me to take responsibility for my decision to look after myself first.

2) The next thing I did was discuss it with my husband, Mum and Dad. We are very close and although they do not the push the trade buttons, they are my support network. In the future, my husband will hold me to the trading game when I say I don’t want to trade. I have been educating him on what I have learned from the chartist. When I have the big down days (which will happen) he will be there to remind me of the bigger picture. Of course, this certainty and long term focus needs to come from inside me first, but on the days where I am not on my mental A game, he will be able to remind me to stay the course.

3) After this process, I started looking for the blessings from this situation. Firstly, I find it ironic that our American friend, who was larger than life, chose to pass away on such a highly profitable night that I missed out on. It seems even in death, he is still teaching me to stay on the horse (he was a cowboy and a highly successful business man).

I also looked for where I got six figures of value. If I’m not going to bank six figures then I am certainly going to get six figures of value from this experience!!

I looked at the drawbacks had I made the money.
Main drawback is I would have ignored the family issues and used the money to cover up my emotional state. Using money to feel good, long term, is not healthy as a trader.

Another drawback is that I don’t think I was really ready to have another big win so early on in the game. I could have gotten cocky and started thinking I was a genius. 80% return in 2 months would have been amazing, but I could have come to expect high returns quickly in the future and become addicted to the quick wins, rather than focusing on the process of trading.

Then I looked at the benefits of missing out on the profits. I found many, but main benefit is the knowing my family has my back unconditionally.

I still have more work to do to process, integrate and appreciate what happened today. And I will get there.
To be stupidly honest, I still feel a bit vulnerable about this whole experience, but mainly because of the other things that are going on as well.

As for tonight, I am back in the court and putting on the trades and leaving it alone.

[KateMoloney]

Did you wait 30 – 60 seconds? Because mine did that and was fine after.

All trades loaded, seems be working normally. Fingers crossed.

[KateMoloney]

Known problem, use https://download2.interactivebrokers.com/installers/tws/latest-standalone/tws-latest-standalone-windows-x64.exe .

[Author]

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