aph, i wanna let you know i think it's GREAT you are admitting your trading difficulties. i have to say, with all the attacks you received from this board, i thought you would be hesitant to reveal your losses. i don't say this because of your character, i thought it because i figured MOST people wouldn't..and i don't really know you. so anyway, i just think it's great you're willing to admit your losses. that is the way to do it. pretending you're a great trader isn't going to get you anywhere (i don't mean you, specifically). if you want to learn how to trade, admit you have some problems and seek the answers. I'M PROUD OF YOU, DUDE. CONGRATS...
I am going to disagree with Old Trader here too. And I am going to agree with him too. Disagree: Trading 100 QQQ or SPY is not useful. Agree: You are going to have to trade much more than 3 times a week or swing trade to learn this daytrading business. I have stated before how I think you can do it, but here it is in a nutshell (as stated by several in this thread) TRADE SMALL TRADE OFTEN
I must say, this has definately been a real experience. After getting my ass kicked by losing $200 in 30 seconds on one trade in YM, I have a new appreciation for all the traders on this board. Now that I'm trading real money, I feel like I'm part of this big family. I'm not keeping a journal for attention and I'm certainly not keeping it to show the world how good of a trader I am -- I'm keeping this journal as a series of snapshots of an evolving new trader and trying to show others that it is both extremely difficult and extremely easy to trade. The ease of trading sits just behind my emotions, which is a hurdle I must learn to overcome. The advice and opinions that are being offered in this thread make it, in my opinion, one of the most profound threads on ET. Oldtrader makes a lot of valid points. I am not lieing when I say I have successfully traded futures on a simulator, taking into account slippage and commissions. What pisses me off is this "emotional wall" that I construct in my mind that suddenly makes my system seem so much further from my ability to execute it flawlessly. It is almost like there is a treasure chest of money in front of me and a big sheet of glass between me and the money. Some of the advice I am hearing is to just run full-steam ahead and bust through the glass. "Will I get cut?! Will it hurt?? Will I bleed to death?" These are questions I ask myself. There are others who suggest walking sideways until the sheet of glass ends and then just going around it. "Does the sheet of glass ever end? Can I make it to the other side? Which way should I walk?" Part of my problem is that I am trading in an office with no windows. This may sound really stupid, but I think one's environment plays a crucial role in their ability to act. I love sunlight and having a window reminds me that there is more in the world than just trading. However, within this 12x8 office with no windows, I feel boxed in. The color of the walls are orange, too -- which I think is screwing with my head. I don't like these colors. This environment just makes me feel "off." If I could, I'd run an extension cord outside and sit outside in the sun and daytrade on a laptop. I'm going off on a tangent -- but this journal is definately turning out to be rewarding for me and hopefully many others.
Another thing: It seems to be that if any of these 5k to 1000k people are actually legit, they must basically buy or sell ES and then walk away for hours and days and hope they are correct on the direction of the market. The really amazing thing about futures is that you can basically randomly select buy or sell, walk away for a few hours, and come back to see your account wiped out or doubled.
Yes... and no. That sounds vaguely like the kind of question a therapist would ask. Are you going to ask me to lie on the couch?
No, I'm going to ask you why, if you "know" of these things that will be problematic, did you not resolve them before you started trading. Doesn't make much sense, unless you are just needed some things to use as reasons for not performing as you expected.
Gordon: Well I admit I just skimmed this....that was VERY long! LOL. But if I may sum up I believe what the guy said was that he thinks he is wrong when he enters a trade, that the market must prove it right, and if it doesn't, he gets out rather than waiting for the stop. Actually if you go back and look at some of my prior posts, I can remember that in one of them I talked about the trade "running according to form". (More horse analogies). That sounds like what this guy is trying to say. I don't enter into a trade thinking that I'm wrong, or right for that matter. To me I just make a trade thinking it's going to do some particular thing. Once the trade is on I will have certain expectations. If it starts to act contrary to those expectations then I get out. For example, I noticed on the one minute ES chart on Friday at 14:11 EST the ES was trading up near 884.00, threatening to breakout of a consolidation pattern it had been in with a top at the 884.00 area. Theoretically then, a trade to 884.25 would break this thing out. However, I see a large seller at 884.25....600+ contracts offered there, or maybe it was 884.50. In any case, I watch as it breaks out, takes the sellers offering, then trades to 885.00. So far so good. Now what would be normal, running according to form, would be perhaps a brief test of 884.00....and then accelerate higher. It got a brief test, trys to rally, then fails and acclerates back down through the breakout point. Had I been long, that would have been all I needed to see to close my position immediately. And if you take a look at the chart you'll see that it took a decent little drop. It is probably the OLDEST tenet of trading.....if the reason you put the trade ceases to be true, you close the position. Again, I call this running according to form. Now what this requires of course is KNOWING how it's supposed to "run". A guy like Aphie right now doesn't have a clue, so he has to wait for his stop to be executed. This might give back more money than necessary, but the bottomline is that unless you know what's supposed to happen, you can't know when it isn't happening, now can you? I have suggested getting Edwards and Magee Technical Analysis of Stock Trends for most people....the bible. This will acquaint you with some patterns. Then if you closely observe the charts, you'll see those patterns repeating....some working, some not working. And you'll begin to see that when something stops working that's a big red flag. The best trades usually work immediately for me. They are trades that start immediately in my favor, never creating any "heat", and do all the right stuff. I stick with those. Selling out of those quickly is almost always a mistake. When it's running according to form, or perhaps BETTER than form, ride it...these will probably turn out to be your biggest winners over time. OldTrader