I think you need more or better rules to guide your behavior and these rules should come from your own research/backtesting - not trading literature or gurus who tend to make unsubstantiated claims from cherry picked charts. A simple example would be that in back-testing a few years of data manually, you discover that 80 % of the time you're better off waiting at least 15 minutes before initiating a signal as the morning period generally is directionless. In effect, this means you will miss the occasional large move right off the open, but 80 % of the time you'll avoid getting chopped up. It also means you will be sitting on your hands for 15 minutes or more and yes - the market may move strongly and you will miss those moves, but they're not yours to take. Yet. As for self-destruction - trading is probably not very pleasant for you right now. So deep down you may actually want this to be over and thus lose on purpose - even if you're not fully aware of it. If I were you - I'd just take the loss and go back to the drawing board to study more and build a better plan if you want to give it one more shot after this. Good luck either way.
It's finally over. Traded this tiny account for 3 weeks, which makes me really miss those big accounts I have burned over the years. If I traded small... Thanks everyone for your support, happy trading! Signing off.
Man, I feel for ya. But as @Laissez Faire alluded to above, I believe you need to go back to the drawing table and reassess. I have no doubt you'll come back stronger and better in the future. If you got any question about trading, feel free to ask. Good luck.
Sorry to hear that, @hurricane_sh. Mastering the markets and ourselves is certainly not easy. It's possibly one of the most challenging things you can do in life. At least day trading. There are other ways to make money than day trading ES - which might be the toughest game in town. Good luck whatever you decide to to next.
I didn't say it was - I said it might be. At least that's what many people on this forum have claimed earlier. It can be a bit noisy, choppy and with deep retracements, so maybe that's why. I don't have experience day trading other instruments, so I don't know. Some people have claimed that NQ is better since it retraces less and moves more, but it does not seem any easier to me as far as I can tell from my brief studies. Add to that - liquidity can become an issue on NQ during 'troubled' times.
A trader I follow just banked $134K today! Just amazing. I really need to up my game! From rough math, he's definitely trading a MUCH BIGGER account than me. Still impressive.
FALSE Liquidity will never be an issue during "troubled times" in NQ. Hell, I'm messing around in Sep MNQ now due to the incoming roll, and liquidity is not an issue, provided you know what kind of liquidity you need. On that point about ES retracing more and moving less? Nonsensical. They both move at about the same clip money-value wise.
If you're messing around with single lots of micros - obviously you've got no reason to worry? By the way - I've had slippage on MES and have experienced times where I'm not instantly filled with limit orders on 5-lots. And this have been on a regular day. Pretty much never happened on the full ES contract. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/nq-liquidity.340961/ https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/nq-jumping-around-is-it-ib-feed.341401/ It's not my statement, but one that's been repeated by many on this site over the years. I've never done a detailed comparison myself as I've had no interest to do so, but I've taken brief looks and I don't see a huge advantage with the NQ for my trading. It can move further at times though - in both directions.