I refuse to pay for another book, course, or mentor. Tired of it all. Can someone give me a no bullshit assessment on whether this is actually achievable or not? I have iron-clad discipline but zero strategy. Psychology has never been an issue. Not trying to strike it mega-rich at this point but just to consistently put money in my account and take a few trades a day. I'm beginning to lose my mind. Thought trading would be a good way to try and pay off medical debt but boy was I wrong. Maybe if I could swing 5 lots on ES and take 8 points a day it might happen, but as of right now all I do is lose money. Any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks.
If you have no strategy, no doubt, you do not know if what you are doing even has a trading edge? Without a trading edge, you are just gambling. Go to Las Vegas. Discretionary trading is one of the hardest things to do. What you should be doing is reading and studying how the stockmarket works. I have probably, 200 trading books. That is not to say, you will use everything you learn. There is an abundance of material on You Tube. All of it is free. When I started out in the stockmarket around 1998 as an investor, I had to pay for services just to get the data to do fundamental analysis. Now, most of the data you need is on You Tube, the internet and all of it is free. Keep reading, studying and paper trade. Backtest your strategies with atleast 500 trades to test it. If it has no trading edge, chuck it. Move to the next one. It seems you want to be successful without putting enough effort into it? Top sports athletes, a heart surgeon took how many years of study to be successful in what they do? If you are not willing to put in the time to learn, move on. You are just wasting your time.
Yes, I've been profitable for years over thousands of trades. You have to approach this like a job. You have to be a scientist, engineer, investigator, etc. No one solves a mystery or invents something by buying just the right book that told them how. Learn about business, math and software development. Learn the mechanics of markets and finance. That's your basic skill set. Once you have done that you then go do the hard work of trading. YouTubers feed on the never ending hope some people have for a quick gimmick. This isn't anymore impossible than starting a small business that is profitable. It's just work.
Trading in the first years is always gambling. I would say that you need at least three years to understand what you are able to do. Pretty much like any other job. You can't become a master at what you do if you don't spend the time. If you are losing your mind you are on the right track, but asking others if they make money or not won't help you, what you need to do is to write another post with your strategy and ask for reviews. Don't worry about giving your strategy away, even if your executions are profitable people will not run it like you, so you can talk about it as much as you can. Normally other traders will be quite nasty with your strategy and will rip it apart, just for fun, but that will help you to polish it and make it better.
Curious. Who or what gave you the idea that trading would be a good way to pay off your debts? Short term or even medium term trading must be the hardest way to earn money in this world. For the select few it can be very lucrative, but for most it won't be anything other than a source of stress, frustration and lost time and money. That's the honest truth, buddy. If you're not prepared to literally devote your life to this it won't work out for you. Even then it may not work out. If you're still fresh in this game the best advice may honestly be to just give up before you invest too much into this and will find it even harder to give up. Check out this post for a reality check: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/giving-up-on-my-dream-of-trading-for-a-living.372824/
You have no capital, no edge, debts to pay, trying to make consistent money by day-trading index futures using price action. What you are trying to do is not achievable, no. You should immediately close all your trading accounts and subscriptions, delete your ET username, etc and focus on your education & a normal career. Many will show up and tell you otherwise with the usual positive thinking blather, but probably 95% of those claiming to be profitable are liars. You've been warned.
That's incredibly well done, sir. My hats off to you. Any details on your trading operation? I.e., time horizon and products traded? I humbly agree with everything you said, but I do think trading is harder than running most small businesses.
No Bullshit Assessment Stay away from the financial markets because you stated you're trading without a strategy. Seriously, trading with no strategy is just stupidity beyond imagination. Get a job and pay off your medical debt because I keep meeting people that continue to say jobs are plentiful...statistically almost two jobs per person at a good wage too with medical benefits to stop the accumulation of medical debt. If you return to trading one day...keep your job because it will help to ensure you don't have a risk of ruin event. wrbtrader