Dear Eddie, I blew out my first trading account writing naked calls on Silver futures. IN retrospect, a pretty stupid way to earn money. Since then I've come a long way & have learned some very simple methods which I've ALREADY FREELY SHARED on this forum. Essentially, the task it to eschew all those crappy indicators and DO ONLY ONE SIMPLE THING: *Buy at support & Sell at resistance. These levels can be determined by drawing straight lines; sometimes horizontal, sometimes diagonal, on the HOURLY, DAILY & WEEKLY charts. You'll probalby want to simply your trading to trade just ONE or TWO insruments. May I be so bold as to recommend the E-Mini S&P 500 and possibly the TY (Ten Year note) futures. The initial margin for ES is about $7k and for TY about $2k. You could trade a 1-lot of each until you are consistently profitable. I FAR prefer futures to individual stocks. I hope this helps. Feel free to message me if you have questions. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Why not look at it this way: Determine if you spent 250K in commission. If you spent a substantial amount less then consider the following. Your strategy, your feelings, your money management issued signals to buy and sell at specific times. You have uncovered a pattern in the market that only you know and it has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. You just daytraded for a whole year making many many trades to prove that the underlying that you trade moves in conjunction to your strategy's signals. Had you bought everytime you sold and vice versa you may have nearly doubled your account. But that would also require you to reverse your emotions or at least recognize the emotional aspect and take appropriate action. Isn't it fair to say that a person who buys and sells at specific times can be one of three things: Profitable, Un-profitable, or moving totally random with the market. The worst case senario is moving randomly but if you are unprofitable consistently there is something to be learned? I am not saying just turn the chart upside down but there may be valuble information you have revealed through losing the 250K.
I'm not so sure about this. I copied and pasted the following from a thread from last spring that was posted by bat21, the thread had been closed for some time. 05-04-08 09:50 AM What I had to learn is : Are you a trader or a gambler? it took me 5 years and about $300,000 in losses to be profitable....to be able to sit there for hrs till I see a trade and not gamble these two words MUST BE CLEARED AND UNDERSTOOD Are you a trader or gambler? theres a big diffence look them up study these words and you will make it! Ed
I agree with starting with 100 share lots and $5,000 prop I made all of the same mistakes you and many other beginners make. Don't be stubborn. If you can't be successful at the lowest levels (100 shares) then you never will be... Support & Resistance ??? If you want to support yourself with trading...you have to resist making the same mistakes over & over...
I had lost like 12 accounts before I saw the light. What I thought would be an easy game to beat since I always thought I was intelligent and I could overcome, trading was not easy, not accomplishable in several hours of backtesting, and the markets are always right. What I find time and time again, is people coming up with all kinds of money to attempt to trade, but no well tested game plan. Well, let's try this RSI today, try Stochastic tomorrow, and next day be angry cause for one you abandoned did well day after and becomes vicious circle until you make a small amount of money to bolster your crumbling confidence. Why not spend a few months backtesting and forward testing your game plan until you can simulate profitable 4 days out of 5 for six weeks in a row before throwing real money again? Otherwise whatever is left will be gone before you know it.
Sir, Only you can truely answer your question (no offense intended) I would add - Do you fully understand why you lost the first time, and have you made the necessary modifications to not repeat Good luck
I have doubts about the truth of the OP. Who throws away $250K as a starting trader??? And based on his July post: There are two terrorist states in the world which have nuclear weapons, the USA and Israel. We have another "Islam is the real victim" poster child