Jul 19, 2013

Taking It All Off

Hi Ed,

I had an emotional climax this morning evidenced by feelings of joy, jumping up and down, and fist pumps. I took this as a cue to take all my crude oil position off. I think in the future it might be better to take it all off just before I climax.

Thank you.

Jul 19, 2013

TTP In Therapy

Ed,

You might like to see this note from one of my former patients.

Jul 19, 2013

Helping Others

Hi Ed,

Kudos to the contributor who is brave enough to share the intimate details of his exchange with his wife (Wife and Ex-Wife). I wonder if I have the guts to do that! Life can feel so much safer in the filtered version ...

My feelings about the exchange he reports take the form of experiencing waves of energy between him and his wife. He emits feelings towards her, and they are feelings about her and what she is doing. She emits feelings in response, and resists his attempt to overtake her with his demand that she express the feelings he wants her to express. The waves oppose each other and so they clash in the middle, with much energy expense and no movement in either direction.

His responses to her almost exclusively take the form of "Yes...BUT". She says, "I need to feel your willingness to explore your own feelings as well as mine" (my translation), and he says, "Yes, BUT you are the one with the problem right now." She says, "I need to feel validated" and he says, "Yes, but I have been validating you." And so on through the entire exchange.

I wonder if he makes the decision to phone his ex-wife without first discussing it with his wife. This is Preemptive Living at its finest, since the attempt to avoid conflict leads to even worse conflict.

I feel a great sense of closeness to this man, and also to his wife, since I know how it feels to want to help, being so sure I know what is best, and I also know how it feels to believe that the person insisting on helping me doesn't hear me at all.

I now remember a moment when I feel so certain that I must "help" a fledgling bird under my care to drink some water that I actually kill it.

Jul 19, 2013

Banjo Video

Hi Ed,

I hope you enjoy this Martin Simpson banjo video.

He uses some interesting tunings.

http://goo.gl/qBEf3.

Jul 19, 2013 at 4:23 AM

Daily Trading Routine

Hi Ed,

I have now written, printed and laminated my Daily Trading Routine.

This is written in a simple easy to follow set of instructions.

I find it useful and use it as the Trading checklist.

This is a simple idea that came to me from the book 'Checklist Manifesto' by Atul Gawande.

Have a good Summer.

My intentions are still good.

And I relish my emotions.

Jul 19, 2013

Video of Throwing Money Out the Window

Ed,

But I search for it through Google Images - and find this,
parody of the recent policies of the Fed:

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5049fdefecad04a361000008/throwing-money.gif

Jul 19, 2013

Checking In - Golfing and Fishing

Hi Ed,

All is well here. Stops are in, and so my free time is being spent golfing and fishing. I'm coming up on 5 years of trading client accounts as of the end of this month. Hopefully about another 30 years or so to go!

Hope all is well with you,

Dear Respected Ed,

17th July 2013 is the day when even without any law background or degree, I present my divorce case on my own in the family court. This is my first experience in court.

Everybody gets what they want concept. I just love this.

All these days I have been feeling my feelings and taken positive intentions out of all those. Thanks Ed.

The result has been satisfactory. A very good beginning I say. Judge keeps on instructing the OP's lawyer to stick to the point and talk only about relevant things. We are given only 23 minutes. She is over burdened. I get only about four five minutes.

When my turn comes, I am ready in that present moment of now, fully focused, the moment am waiting for!

I feel like looking straight at Honorable Judge's eyes while presenting my facts, without referring to my notes. She also looks the same way. It feels very comfortable while I am presenting my facts with feelings.

It feels human, natural and so simple.

I realize the importance of feeling the feelings, thanks to your FAQs and guidance you have provided.

OMG, there is so much to learn from you Dear Ed.

Best wishes,

Lots of hugs n love.

July 18, 2013

Pain Management

Hi Ed,

Occasionally I have periods of intense emotional pain. During these periods I find it difficult to stay present in the now and fully experience the emotion.

I wonder what your process is for staying present during painful emotions.

Thanks

July 18, 2013

Trade Like Jesse Livermore

Ed,

I know you like Livermore. You might like this book, online:

http://os24.org/files/a-z/speculation/Richard_Smitten-Trade_Like_Jesse_Livermore-EN.pdf

Ed,

During the third Austin tribe we have a HS that is concerned about hurting feelings if HS doesn’t hold back. HS is sets up the session concerned about hurting feelings if she really let’s go. We go through the process and I wait for her to "go off’ on someone during the process. It appears she has learned that she must always keep calm and keep things within in her.

This is her first time to ever go through a process and I remember my first time and being fearful that nothing will come to my mind or that I won’t have a positive outcome somehow. I felt her fear of that and how she wants to organize everything so the outcome is just the way she wants it. I have that same desire to control things and living in the now and be OK with whatever happens is a feeling that I want to turn away from and not feel.

I think that feeling for me growing up with a lot of uncertainty and working hard not to have feel that feeling of un-knowing. This may relate to some feeling I get going into someplace new or meeting people for the first time. I can’t control the outcome or there thoughts.

Getting back to the HS, it just occurred to me that being free to express your feelings freely makes setting boundaries very easy. The HS is very confident in her abilities and may fear if she is open, people won’t be able to handle her thoughts and be hurt. I very much like when people are willing to bluntly put their feelings out. It certainly helps clarify the relationship and then people can get onto other things.

The other HS is feeling frustrated in his relationship with his wife. It appears to me they feel validation and intimacy in very different ways. I wonder if HS has looked for other ways his wife can feel intimate instead of just talking about feelings. Sharing a quiet walk or a slow dance can communicate beautifully.

In the last process HS feels like he is in a box to live the correct way and likes to get out of the box every once in awhile. This feeling comes from his parents of wanting him to live the ‘right’ way and not get into trouble or more importantly not make them look bad or make them uncomfortable. This process is similar to the HS that is worried about being blunt and hurting others feelings. They both have a ‘box’ they felt they had to live constrained in. I feel they both realized they don’t have to have a box and when they do get out of the box, they really don’t go wild, and they are still wonderful people.

Today I am feeling tired, overwhelmed yet energized and worried. I am in the process of doing things in business that worry me, make me feel the unknown. It isn’t as bad as I thought it may be but I worry about making a mistake.

I notice the fear of making a mistake doesn’t prevent me from making the decision. I have some advisors in business but I feel worry about engaging them too often and overstaying my welcome. I am branching out into a new business that I wish I had someone there to truly advise me. Mentors are truly a blessing. In tribe we have visited about yoga and meditation, I think I am in some sort of need to utilize those to get my mind to calm down.

This morning I was on the phone discussing a Right of Way agreement across a property with a lady. I just couldn’t communicate what I needed though I tried.

I finally said, ‘ I am feeling frustrated’. I felt somewhat better but it certainly didn’t help the situation. I could have asked for her willingness to hear my feelings but I didn’t. As the conversation continued to go forward I simply told her I am frustrated and going to get off the phone and discuss the issue in person with someone so I can explain and express myself better.

Just saying “I’m frustrated” helped me handle the situation much better.

Take care,

July 17, 2013

More On Day-Trading Addiction

Dear Ed,

I want to share my progress since my email on July 10. I do no day trades during this period. At times I have a strong urge to do day trades, I remind myself of my intention to trade longer term and to follow systems and this seems to help.

I notice the urge comes after a thought about “I do not have enough money” or the thought “I lost a lot of money and I need to make it back fast."

What I do is work on my trend system instead of day trade. I take a system trade and get stopped out. I notice this feel good to be following my system even though it is a loss. I take another entry (different market) and place the stop, I notice this feels good even though I do not want this loss I remind myself it is like breaks on my car. This trade is still open. I remind myself that I will make money from this style of trading and day trading has not made money. I know it is only a few days but as the children’s book says “I think I can, I think I can”.

Here is some more info on the trend system (it is a break out system); I rechecked the system over the 20 futures markets I originally test it on. I find that a few show poor results including Oil, RBOB Gas and Heating Oil.

I decide to test it on these alone. I purchase more date on a wide range of futures markets back to around 1980. I run tests and adjust parameters for the energy markets on the new data. I get to a point I am satisfied with the system on this data. I then test it on the data I have through TradeStation (TS) and there is a big difference (it fails on the TS data) this puzzles me.

I look at the data and do some visual checks; they look the same or close to being the same, same up and down moves. So I do a trade by trade comparison and quickly find that the data is not the same, the differences are subtle but cause an exit with a loss vs. a big gain in some cases.

At first I have anger over this and am confused, I then relax a bit and get into my feelings. I come to the conclusion that I have curve fit the data I optimize on and the fact that the system fails on the TS data shows this. Further, I reason that the there is a difference in the method that the 2 data sources use to construct a continuous type contract. I decide to use the TS data as “in sample” (considering it as the correct data) and split the new purchased data into 2 “out sample” sections and retest and optimize.

I reason that this will produce a robust system if it tests out over both sets of data. Each time I test a parameter I check it on the 2 “out sample” data sections. I have 9 parameters that I test/optimize, 3 for entry and 6 for exit. I do this on all three markets combined as one for these tests. Yesterday I finished the development and the results tested well on all the data when the 3 markets are treated as one. However, when I check each of the 3 markets separately I find that Oil is fantastic on all data and RBOB gas and Heating Oil only test OK on the “out sample” and fail on the TS data. At this point I feel I still have an element of over fitting the system to the data and need to do more careful and “robust” development. I wonder what your thoughts are on my testing/optimizing procedures.

Thank You for all of your work! I feel that I could not get to this point without the help of the tribe and your commitment to FAQ and all of us!

July 16, 2013

Men and Women

Perhaps men and women differ on the definition of "feelings" and so they don't connect even when they think they really want to!

Hi Chief,

I am hitting the wall of pattern recognition algorithms in my system design. I feel slight suffocation in my chest, stiffness on my shoulder and numbness in my palms, some blockage feeling inside forehead, and tightness in my throat. I say hello to my rocks of shutting down, turning back, running away and distraction. Now I am sticking to the wall.

Sometimes the tribe processes help me breakthrough paper walls by simply sticking to and experiencing it.

Thanks,

Dear Ed:

I got to the tribe meeting tired having slept less than 4 hours the night before. I wonder why this keeps happening as I want to be fully present at the meeting.

I continue to fall asleep or get into a dazed state during the meeting. Then I suddenly am fully awake. This continues to happen throughout the meeting.

The tribe meeting flows differently - its just flows - with no control - things spontaneously happen.

One the members on the hot seat is concerned that they might hurt the other members if they are truly themselves. The tribe members give permission that they are willing to be hurt and tell the person on the hot seat to "go for it".

The person on the hot seat tries - but its wimpy with no teeth. They try again. Same impact. Clearly this fear is not real. Its a phantom. Then it flips around - the person is actually shut down because they got hurt by the father. Strange how the mind flips things around.

Another member finds themselves in a box - they can't express themselves. We work on defining the box and breaking out of the box. The person in the hot seat tries to use profanity - initially its hard but then they loosen up and let it out. This goes on for sometime - however, I fell asleep till the end, so I am not clear what happens.

I sleep well and am fully refreshed the next morning.

Hi Chief,

While busy on designing and testing my trading system, I realize a simple fact, that I have been trading the markets for 9 years, without a system. |=)

Thanks,