Aphi, From my personal experience, preserving capital is very important at the beginning. Not just you will have capital to trade later, more so not losing a lot of money has psychological impact on one's confidence on his method as well as on his trading ability (understanding the market/stock, controling his emotion and sticking to what's best action). Darkhorse's suggested that trade stocks (in your case would be QQQ) is a very constructive one. I suggest you list pros and cons regarding trading ES (or NQ) vs. QQQ and make a rational decision (from so many posts seems that you like to think rationally). Good luck.
i think the problem with the qqq's is that aphie wont be able to really daytrade this as the PDT rule will kick in. So he will be kinda limited, but then again maybe it will be good for him as he wont be overtrading. Either way good luck aphie. I've been trading futures lately as well and i must say that bracketrader or in your case your Jasper helps out a lot. i preset the parameters, 2.5 stop or more on the NQ, then a predefined target in points and then i just time my entry and let the trade work out. Once in a while i'll adjust the stop if the move is not going like i thought it would and tighten it or jsut close the posn. But it is a lot less nerve wracking trying to figure out ok im in, now i got to palce the stop, then maybe my target, etc..... this way most of the time i just do my entry based on my tradign plan and execute and just watch. I love it!!!
lol....yes....sweating buckets in the winter.........wait till you start a losing streak and you feel this sinking feeling.....I actually used to feel like I would pass out....lol... nick
Dark, I agreed with everything you said in your previous post, but IMHO, this is not good advice [ at least it seems to have been for me.] I started at the MERC in the TB pit. I then went to work for a hedge fund to program mechanical strategies. This got me into spending years trying to come up with a mechanical system that I felt comfortable "trading." In all honesty, it was a huge time drain and a waste of time. There is nothing like learning to trade as a discretionary trader from the outset. Then, all the money you win and lose are directly impacted on your learning curve. I have found that if you are one of the lucky ones that learn to trade, you are better positioned to write mechanical systems. I have never in my life met anyone for which the reverse was true... The only assumptions I make when I state the above is that you are disciplined and have a nack for learning things. If you do not have either one, then perhaps your only choice to try to trade a mechanical system...I am reasonably good at picking things up, and I am also very disciplined. Inspite of that, I went the mech route. That is because I also have a scientific type mind and the allure of this type of trading is so great...In all honesty, I wish I had learned to trade first, then write or trade mech systems second... nitro
my o my. nary a day has passed and already 5000 views. at this rate aphie will be having dinner with the president come thanksgiving. now that you're trading real dollars, i expect every tom, dick and harry to chime in with their "do this, don't do that"s. obviously if you try to follow evey bit of advice u hear you'll soon go crazy (and reduce yourself to a leaf blowing in the wind). at this stage the only thing worth doing is tightening the screws on that trading plan of yours (assuming you have, otherwise hop to it soldier) to please that martinet uncle of yours. (and then trade according to it.) (of course a plan is no panacea, but just look at the testimony of other ET journalistas pre and post plan; perhaps most noticeably that of Mr S. Pants) re yesterday: most people's first day's are a dutch treat. much better that way than to get lucky and think you're a genius.
You may well be right nitro- I hesitate to give trade specific or method specific advice to people since methodologies and personalities are such individual things. In recommending a mechanical beginning, I may have strayed from that discipline. But the reasoning for it was not to promote one style of trading over another, but more in the interests of initial discipline and intuition development. Remember the Karate Kid? If the market is Mr. Miyagi, then starting mechanical is kind of like 'wax on/wax off, paint the fence' imho. Walking the path of excellence is like walking a balance beam; lean too far to the right or the left and you fall off- maintain equilibrium and you move forward. Some people are too overeager to jump in before they can swim and trade wildly from the start; others are overly cautious and rigorous to a fault, hesitantly moving forward an inch at a time and fighting their fears every step of the way. So, good advice for Jim might be terrible advice for Joe and vice versa. It was my impression that Aphie had such a surge of emotion that it was like getting clopped over the head with a sledge hammer made of silly putty, and that he was responding to it by reaching out hither and thither (the salad bar analogy). The advantage of starting with a mechanical approach as I see it, even if only for a short length of time, is that it gets you through the adjustment phase- like training wheels on a bike. Emotions might always be an issue for some traders, but no matter what they will always be more of an issue in the very beginning and tone down a bit later as newness is replaced w/ experience. Thus following a rigid system for a little while- getting a few dozen trades under your belt, executing under a set of systematic rules- gives a chance for that initial fear / euphoria blast to wash itself out while protecting the newbie from anything too crazy or dumb (as long as he is following the system). It also seems to me that we learn by riffing off other ideas and putting our own twist on them. Great novelists grow up reading other great novels; great musicians have heavy musical influences from other great musicians etc. A common question from the beginning trader is "where the @#$% do I start?" I say, why reinvent the wheel? Find something that appears to work in real time, something robust enough and straightforward enough that it's very hard to screw up, then just observe it in action for a while. Observing a simple system in action, and thinking about it constantly as you observe, is like planting a thought garden- ideas will spring up over time, and those ideas will help move you in the right direction as defined by your skillset and mindset rather than anyone else's. Some might get even more mechanical, others much less so. Some might move to even shorter time frames, others to longer time frames etc. But you have to actually trade and observe in real time- books and simulations don't count- because You are a key element of the process. Maybe it's like a science experiment. There are three chemical compounds: the market, the method, and YOU. What happens when all three are mixed together? This has to be found out through real time experimenting, but you want to do so in such a way that the lab (your trading account) doesn't blow up. p.s. I personally am in the discretionary camp by most anyone's definition, but what I do feels mechanical in a lot of ways because there is so much structure to it. Dichanical? Mechscretionary?
Today I intend to do one or two trades with SPY and/or QQQ (lower leverage) sticking to my system. I am going to automatically place limit and stops to remove some of the anxiety. I may attempt 1 or 2 futures trades, depending on how I feel the market is shaping up and if I get a good signal with my method/system. I will be attempting 1 or 2 +1 ES scalps with a -1.5 ES stop loss. Once the trade is placed, Jasper will set the stop and limit automatically based on my fill price. I find that entering the market without any reason is a setup for disaster because you don't have any idea what your target is or when you've had enough. It is akin to loitering in the middle of a battlefield with no clear purpose in being there.
Here's something our protege must master, said a thousand times before in a thousand different ways by successful traders on ET, but primarily by the pretenders to the throne of "I've got the secret to trading." The most succinct form of this oft given advice comes from Kipling: If you can dreamâand not make dreams your master; If you can thinkâand not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; Sounds like ol' Rudyard could have been a seasoned day trader.
Alphie, Glad to see that you are up and trading. Buy jumping around, you are just trying to find a place that you feel comfortable. Only time and experience while following your plan religiously will provide this comfortable feeling, not jumping around till it occurs. You may recall Huios jumped around with different time frames trying to find a place where he felt comfortable, and unfortunately he never did. I have read that you may do this and may do that today. IMHO, you must have a plan for each day. Your first job is to create a plan that will be profitable over the long term. Then, your job is to execute the plan properly. Two people could have the same plan or system and one could be wildly successful and the other a failure, because one executes the plan like an "iceman", and the other jumps around constantly trying to "find something that works everyday", therefore bending the rules of the plan. All this Psychology stuff is just trying to help people follow there plans and not let the market make them feel uncomfortable enough to make short term decisions that are against their game plan. When this occurs, it is just one chunk out of your amour, and you only have so many chunks till it is gone. Resist those impulses and follow your plan!! Those that can't resist those impulses are the ones that fail. The reason that Vegas Casinos are profitable long term is because they never break the rules. They know that they have a plan that gives them a small percentage edge, then it is executed by the rules without fail. If the dealers etc were constantly changing the rules of the games throughout the day, that edge would be lost. Following ones rules religiously is our edge. Just approach the market and say, you are going to execute your plan exactly and let the chips fall where they may, and realize that some days you will be profitable and some days you will lose money. Your goal should be to execute your plan properly each day, and sooner or later, you will find that the money will take care of itself. I do wish you luck. Sean