Can you see yourself in operating room with brain surgeon, he bought the cracked glasses at dollar store cause they were cheaper, he is going to check out the hospital in between working on your brain, he wants to check out new nurse on 3rd floor, so he quickly does something to your brain and your right leg is now pointed to the ceiling bleeding out your brain but surgeon is having a convo with new nurse, HE is sightseeing. Unless you treat trading with respect and as a business, there is no place cept going down, only one who can enforce anything is you. When you have made enough money for two lifetimes, then you can become eccentric and trade off smoke signals, people will think you are quirky, that will last for your 30 seconds but in mean time, this is your business, run it that way.
ES seems to become a lot more trendy in the past several days, even in quiet trading hours. As a day trader, I never take the proverb "trend is your friend" seriously, now I know better. I used to scalp es within a small range, but it doesn't work well with the current market, it's better to ride it when there is a trend, and one or two trades would be enough for a day.
So, is there a trend or is there not a trend? Do you plan to trade with or against the trend? How do you define a trend? If you know the answer to those questions you can answer how you would trade. This is what you need to figure out for yourself and your personality and beliefs before you can define rules for a system. Until you start with these you will just be gambling like playing roulette. Only the house (the market) wins at roulette in the long run.
I think I should post a follow-up. After the $1726 loss, I made two big changes: 1. Never add to losers. 2. Always use one or two points stop loss order. Here are the P&L of second half of June: $159 $92 $161 -$99 -$273 $90 $172 -$41 -$1,485 -$963 -$1,470 -$439 $154 $103 The total loss of June is $4,464, it was a disaster. After I ditched these supposedly notorious bad habits, my trading actually got worse, much worse. I couldn't continue doing this, even these are good habits, but obviously they don't suit me. I changed back. I started adding to losers again, I don't use stop loss orders any more, I actually cut losses very very rarely. Since I only day trade, I close all positions at the end of the day, it's already a strategy of cutting loss. Here is the result of July. It's quite common for me to have unrealized $1000+ loss, but most of them turned into profit, if I can add to losers more determinedly, sometimes when I turned a 1500 loss to 100 loss, I may close all positions. P&L of July, total profit $3777, best month after my worst month. $6 $9 $243 $130 $146 $268 $243 $134 $214 $89 -$146 $113 $383 $16 $306 -$170 -$261 $269 $457 $342 $568 Although I can add to losers more calmly, I never think it's a good way of trading. I often enter a trade too early, but when I enter a trade at the right time, I only take one point profit with one contract, my earning potential is very limited. If I can enter a trade at or after the reversal with 2 or 3 contacts and let it run a little bit longer, I may be able to turn my "small loss -> big loss -> small profit" process into a "being even -> big profit" process. Hope I can have a few big winning days (1000+) soon, then I wouldn't worry big losses that much.
In volatility - this will work Try it in a trending environment - you're dead - plain and simple Learn the right way..., or keep suffering / muddling along Thinking this will end good is straight up BS As always - your choice..., your prerogative to tell me to stuff it up my ass I hate seeing this..., but it ain't my money..., nor..., and more importantly..., my emotional capital RN
Thanks, I understand the risk. I'm learning to enter a trade after the reversal, and let the profit run a little longer. But overall, I'm comfortable with "buy low and sell high", it's very hard for me to "buy high and sell higher". Adding to losers is a remedy when I failed to buy at real low, it's not a usual strategy. I often wonder if there really is "intraday trend", the trend seems to exist when looking back, but if you are in it, the trend can be changed at any time. To me, buying low (very low to be safer) is less risky than riding a trend. I'm only talking about es day trading. For stocks or position trading, it could be completely different.
I believe that there is intraday trend. I tried to find an accurate indicator to find out market sentiment even a few month ago and I eventually have found it. I think applying the concept 'buy low and sell high' is a bit abstract if you don't know the current market sentiment. The most safest way to trade is that you buy at higher low in bullish sentiment and sell at lower high in bearish sentiment.