OK, I LMAO now, I think all he's saying is that if you are undercapitialized for the instrument you're trading, find a different instrument or (you might as well as) flush your $$$ down the toilet, AND if you are that emotional that you can't take what seems to be decent advice albiet not what you want to hear, I for one will be willing to take the other side of all of your trades, for 1/2 whatever commission you currently pay*. *Legal issues asside
Aphex, Just another thought for you. Whatever you do, you must get an account you can trade in and out several times a day if need be. You don't HAVE to trade that much all the time.. but there will be times that the trades dictate you get out - in - out - in til it works out. There are only 2 ways to have such an account. Have your $40,000 account, BUT trade ONLY 50/100 shares til you are consistantly successful... Get hooked up with a prop trading firm (for less money) and do the same. You cannot trade enough stocks suffering from the PDT syndrome to ever get sufficient experience to learn. You will be old before getting it figured out. You cannot start with futures contracts (even 1).. you will be broke well before you get it figured out. I am following my own advice.. been trading 50/100 shares .. forever... it seems. I am a slow learner, but I still have capital.
aphie, why dont you just go back and read all of the advice you were dishing out before you started with real money.. you had so many more answers back then.. i mean, if it was good enough for your fellow trader then isnt it good enough for you now? -qwik
yes quik you are so right. for god sakes aphie you told us you had a "chart" that turned your computer into an ATM machine right in your living room! what happened to it? now that you are trading real $$ you've abandoned all rhyme or reason, doesn't make sense so we called you on it.
Aphie,, I am new at this as well as you, however, I have 2 years and 700+ trades. I am telling you that this stuff takes time and DO NOT RUSH IT! You need to be patient! You have received a wealth of advice that I wish I had when I first traded. Take advantage of it! Do not rush into funding your account with the 25 K! Its good that you are limited in your trading whether you want to believe it or not. This will help you be more selective and observant which is what you need to do. If you fund your account with more money you will feel like you have more of a cushion of loss, therefore you will lose. Your smart! Come up with a strategy to make the best of what you have now. If you lose 2000 while learning, its better than having a 25000 account and losing 10000. Take it slow and have fun with it!
aphie, you had to expect the crap you are getting. But I for one am very impressed that you are starting to put your money where your mouth is. I believe you are going to make it.......but "real" trades sure are different, huh?
I'm not going to stop. I got a little "pissed" at some of the posts on here but then realized that a lot of people just don't like me. Well, F*** THEM. I can't get emotional on ET, either. I've got to keep my emotions under control. I will be just fine as soon as I get in phase with real trading. It may take a couple of months, but I'll get there. Yes sdtrader, trading with real money is an astronomical unit away from trading with fake money. However, if I can tame my emotions and not "freak out" every time the little line moves the opposite of where I want it to move, I'll adapt. In fact, today I made some simulator trades and tried to convince myself it was real money. At one point I actually started to feel my heart rate increase and that's when I said, "well, isn't this cute, I'm learning to increase my state of anxiety." Yeah, I can be outgoing, crazy, maybe a little quirky. However, we've all got our own unique issues to work with. What separates me from a lot of other "cowards" on this board is that I'm not afraid to expose myself to the world. So, now that I'm home, I'm going to relax and start writing down my method/system. I'll do something constructive with my time. It would not be fair to the people who are genuinely interested in my progress as a trader to just stop my journal. Why penalize the good people because of a few rotten apples on ET? I've got to get beyond that. Sometimes they get to me but this all goes back to controlling my emotions.
Aphie - Take a look at AllenZ Journal - he's also daytrading the e-minis and putting up pretty good numbers. he explains his trades well and is very informative. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9429
I read Allen's journal. He does a very good job controlling his emotions in my opinion. Honestly, and I don't mean to sound like I've discovered everything from two days of trading -- but it seems to me that trading really is 90% emotional control / discipline. You could take any system with a slight edge and use some creativity to get ahead *IF* you can master your head. Before I started trading, I told myself I'd be calm. Well, you can't just switch off your emotions. Many of you are experienced pro-traders and probably have a lot more control over your emotions than I do right now. However, I sometimes get this feeling that, when I get in the market with ES, that some great pit will open up underneath me and the market will fly away from me and I will get hurt bad. I don't feel anxiety trading SPY or QQQ. I don't understand it. I can sit there and calmly trade QQQ and SPY and make small scalps effortlessly, but as soon as I enter into the market with ES, I feel like there is a loaded pistol pointed at my head.