Why God of NQ?
I initially started this blog to write about trading. I figured I’d write things about trading psychology, my good days and bad days and just general thoughts. I’ve received a lot of advice along the way, most of it bad advice (though probably well intentioned). I really hesitate to give advice, make calls or tell people what to do or how to do it so this was never going to be a trading advice blog. It was going to be more of an outlet for me to express the up’s and down’s and in between’s. I thought about adding “best trade of the week” and “worst trade of the week” but that really isn’t a thing. The best trade of the week is any trade where I followed my plan, setting aside emotion. The worst trade of the week is any trade where I made an error or traded outside of my plan. Errors still sometimes happen, but they’re pretty rare. I have gotten into the habit of not trading outside of my plan, including ignoring valid trade signals or bailing early over a fear of money. Do not trade money, trade your plan. I still have this reminder plastered around my desk. Trading my plan isn’t really much fun and sometimes it sucks. Sometimes I just know I’m going to take a losing trade and I do. “Fuck, I knew it!” But I didn’t actually know it. I fight to set aside confirmation bias. I have a hard time remembering all of the times I was wrong about taking that losing trade. So I just try to react and not think too much and mess up.
But writing about all of that seemed pretty boring, because trading is boring. It’s sometimes painful and sometimes joyful but it’s still boring. Some days I sit and watch and take 0 trades. Some days I lose money. Some weeks I lose money. It sucks to end the week with less money than you had when you started. It sucks even more when it’s a month. But that’s the deal everyone makes in this game.
I am a speculator, which is a fancy way of saying that I gamble. Most people think of gambling as a bad thing, but it really depends on your odds. Every time someone goes to the roulette table and places a bet there are two gamblers, the player/sucker and the casino. Sometimes the casino loses but over time everyone knows that the casino will always win. Would you sign up to be a “professional” roulette player? Hopefully not. Would you sign up to be a casino running a roulette table? If you like money you would. Over time I learned how to be the casino. NQ (NASDAQ 100 futures) is where it started, but not where it ended. ES and CL are good to me too. I’m the casino in my little universe, only I don’t get to see the rubes who give me their money. Every dollar I win someone else loses, and every dollar I lose someone else is taking from me. That’s the game. It took me nearly 20 years to learn it. Most of those 20 years I figured I would never learn until I finally did. Once I did, it got boring. Oh well.
My NQ trades were in a month long slump until today. ES had been good and CL was so-so but at least positive. I’m glad I’ve been able to diversify a little. For quite a while I only had 1 strategy that I figured out and month-long periods of nothing or some draw down sucked more than they do today; they still happen but the diversification makes it less likely. Today was a good day. Today was the kind of day I had intended to blog about, as was the last month of working without reward, at least on the NQ.
I keep a running 12-month equity curve for all of my contracts/plans. They are all pretty good but I like the NQ the most because I found it first. I cannot express how much it sucks to do something for almost 20 years and you’re still not good at it. Working for that long and still losing money. At times it was just too depressing to think about for very long. I used to read some trading forums and people would say it will take a few years to get profitable. Some people said it might take up to 5 years. Well it took me almost 20. I guess I’m a slower learner. At least I’m persistent.
Here’s my equity curve on a per contract basis. I’m pretty proud of it.