Quote from trader198: if you struggle 5 yrs, finally prove to yourself you are a loser, does not prove someone else will struggle five years, then prove himself he is not good at that. someone is born to be a trader. Tell that to someone determined to be good at the roulette wheel. Almost everyone loses. If you start off this unrealistic, you will only crater sooner. everyone is unique. if everyone will be a good profitable trader, then who will do farming, who will do construction work, who will do 8~5 work to support the basic necessities of the society? That has nothing to do with trading. You have no concept of what you are getting yourself in for - borrowing to trade is suicide, and your statements are the noose around your throat. someone is not made to be a trader. but someone else will be! Millions of high school "athletes" want to turn pro. But most of them don't get scholarships. And most of the scholarships are to obscure schools. And most of those at the known schools. sit on the bench And most of the promising starters at the good schools will never make the pros. So if you have millions who want it, but hundreds who make it, you will start appreciating that this is not a 50:50 proposition. If I want to be a movie star, I know whatever I try, definitely I will fail, it is totally a waste of time or a joke. You can put whatever parable you want, but your wants above are not much different from "I wanna be a star, and I have an even shot at making it" It is easy to predict that in 10 years, you will almost 99.5% guaranteed to fail overalll, like others. Your proclamations and total lack or reality make that closer to 99.9%. You seriously have no idea what you are doing, and should bail out as soon as possible. Perhaps you will remember that in 5 years, I tried seriously to warn you. When you are making payments on your sizable debts and trying sell off your Trading Made Simple books on ebay while working at Wendy's, perhaps then you will remember, after it is too late.
trader198...Good luck man! I'll be watching your thread. Congrats on your courage to undertake this task & to honestly post what is going on here in the forum. It will only make you better & understand more. It appears as if traderzones is trying to help you, no matter how harsh he comes off. Now that I think about it, what he is doing is great, because think about how many hounds are out there licking their chops at the likes of me & you on a daily basis. I'm not giving you any advise, lest traderzones back-hand me but it takes the monkey off your back when you have a job & are trading. I'm a newbie, but I've been lucky in trading for about 5 years (very part time) and I can't imagine what it would be like to try to make a living doing this. I'll be watching your thread.
0.68 point gain on ABIO (100lot), bought it at 5.55 and sold it at 6.23. could not believe it! actually I hesitate when it passed 6.13, thought it would shoot to 6.8+, glad my caution kicked in and wrote a limit order just at the morning top. did not trade crude, since I felt after yesterday's big jump, today it will be traded around some tight range. while when it hits new high, I may try to buy it and afraid of shorting it, in this kind of day, I will get burned hard. still monitor the screen, if afternoon, there is some meaningful opportunity, I will try again.
0.3 point gain on crude CL/QM, shorted it after the report (second rebound) 1 tick gain on QG natural gas, shorted it at premarket at 4.060 (my kids got up early, I need take care of them, I kill it, it should be a good trade). school spring break, I get lots of noises around me, I could not trade. off this afternoon
so far my account value is at $5136.57. I will set this number as my new starting point as April begins tomorrow.
march's performance (most gains are from my former account before 22k withdrawing). after the withdrawing, roughly gained $1k
account value moves to $5512.67 long natural gas after the report, gained 8 ticks on QG, should not use limit order to take profit, quickly hit. shorted crude at new long-term high, gained 0.28 point on CL/QG. I thought most people are scared of the new high, me too. I should buy it when the market opens. done with crude today, can not deal with uncharted territory
analysis of friday's employment data, looks to me it is positive and encouraging. check out next week's economic news schedule and marked on my board. reviewing my last week's trading. I discovered several spots I need improve. 1. take profit too early, hold "hit the lottery and run" mode mental status, while not take profit based on the invalidation of the initial trading idea. I should take profit until I see the reverse bar of the intra-day trend. 2. sometimes trade without hard stop, still afraid of stop hunters or random market moves. that will lead to lousy trading and loss out of control. I must trade with strict hard stop. mentally I need tell myself: if I am stopped out just after I entered a trade, that means my entry is a little bit early or late or I assessed the market conditions incorrectly, I must improve my skill to assess the market conditions correctly most time, and I must be patient enough to enter a trade when a clear setup is there. 3. enter trade a little bit early, because I want to make money and profit from my idea immediately. that means after I entered the market, I immediately saw red. I must work on that in the following week to make sure 80% of time I will not see red when my idea is right, 100% time timing correctly is not realistic, so I just myself to do 80% of time timing correctly. from next week, I decide to post my trades after the market closes, so you will see where my stop, order placing,holding time, exit etc. . any peer critic about those trades is welcomed. suggestions such as TRADERZONES are not welcomed, this journal is used to nuture a baby trader into a mature professional trader, finally beat the market daily most of the time.
My only suggestion if you have not already done it is to code you rules. For example in a Word or Excel document, write down what a winning trade looks like so that when you see that, you are able to take the trade. Also, if you have not already done so, create an excel sheet, where you enter in for each trade (this can be done after the trade is finished). date of trade, reason for trade, did it win or lose, and then comments after trade is done. For example, I write why I took the trade, if it won or loss, and then if it worked out, I may write good trade. If it did not work out, I may write why I think it did not work out, for example, did I chase, did I move my stop or target. Then end of day, I go back and analyze all my trades to see if there is a pattern on why I had a losing or winning day. This way I can see if I keep making the same mistakes or not. I hope some of this helps you.