Today I had one of those days where trading just seemed really easy. I was calm, confident, careful. I felt like I could read the charts like a trout fisherman can read a stream. It all just seemed really logical & clear. It's not the first day I've had like that; in fact it happens quite often. Just not often enough. I may be like that for a couple days in a row, but then something happens. I wake up, turn on the computer, look at the charts & I just feel confused. I feel stressed. Everything just looks hazy. I make stupid decisions & it seems like no matter what I do it doesn't matter; just about every trade reverses as soon as I enter & turns into a loser. All the profits I made on the other days dwindle away. It literally feels like my brain is malfunctioning. If I could see clearly every day as I did today I'd be golden, but something goes wrong & I just don't get it. At the end of the bad days I'll look at my entries & exits on the chart & they are just pathetic, random, slop; I can hardly believe it was me that placed the trades. I have plenty of experience to know better. Anybody else ever have this experience?
1. Are you a Day trader 2. What do u trade 3. So if you traded on the days you were confident, you will be profitable !!! is this a clue ? 4. DO you trade in familiar stocks/contracts all the time ?
Yes, daytrader trading CL-oil right now. NQ sometimes. I'm familiar with both. Yeah, don't trade on the days I don't feel calm & confident. That is a tough one. It's extremely difficult to sit out the entire trading day; I feel like this is something I should be able to overcome. I just don't know why it happens. It's just strange. Comparing my brain to a computer it's almost like I have a virus some days.
Would you jump from 10th floor, because you lived through the fall of fthe side of the bed. Just because clicking is easy and trading is exciting, does not mean you can keep executing useless setups. Now some calm words.... Sit down in quite and try to understand what this Business is all about. What is that you do. What is trading to you. How do you make money. And the answer is what ever you get .... Then you ask your self if I do something that is not suppose to work or is not familiar setup should i get PAID for it. I know wht i said is an obvious thought you had manytimes over - everytime you make the mistake. If this is the case that the only fact is that you need to take up some meditation and put some control over your mind monkey. I personally hate futurs for day trading as for the most parts of the day - R:R is never quite profitable. Also, if you have a small a/c you will use higher leverage. Plus its harder to manage size if you are trading 1 or 2 contracts. I am not going to tell you wht to trade yet. coz it seems like you hav not fully understood what is that you do for your living.
The "useless" setups don't look so useless at the time. In my mind I justify why it's going to go up or down & I enter the trade for a specific reason; afterwards when all is said & done I can see that there was no good reason for the trades. Meditation may be a good idea. Maybe I'll give it a try the next time I wake up & everything seems hazy (before I place any trades). What I do is simply place a bet where I think the odds are in my favor based on my experience & ability to read the market. There are lots of details that go into it beyond that, but for me it's basically gambling with the odds in my favor. (except on the "hazy brain" days).
If you are sport... Tell me in least amount of words, preferably one line and use only 6-10 words - "How do you make money in trading"
On the "hazy brain" days, do you lose because you violate your trading plan/rules or because the price action that day is difficult? If it's the second situation, then analyze the price environment surrounding your trades on the easy days vs. the hazy days and identify the patterns to avoid. As I was developing rules for a particular trading strategy I found that it failed frequently in a certain environment (chop/range around a flat 20-period moving average). I learned to avoid the setup in that environment. I no longer have 5 or 10 worthless trades a day like I used to. I didn't like sitting around waiting between setups because I get very easily distracted. I'd screw around in consolidation, scratch trade after trade, get frustrated, leave my desk, miss the Big Move. I trade intraday off 5-min chart and I wanted more out it. I studied intensively what happens in the chop/range around a flat MA and I noticed patterns in smaller time frames. I learned to trade off those patterns. I learned to profit from that unique price environment known as consolidation, which tends to occur after every strong trending move. I also found myself positioned for breakouts every time because I learned how to utilize that price environment to my benefit with very little risk. That isn't necessary, though. Once you define the environment in which your best trading occurs, ONLY trade during those times. Find something engaging to do in between (maybe most of a day will go by without a proper setup) that allows you to keep your eye on the screen, or automate a signaling system to alert you when a setup is forming. Exercise is always good choice when your job is deskbound
Scroll your chart back to the hard right edge and learn to recognize what you see and why there was no good reason for the trade. You will learn to avoid these mistakes. It takes a LOT of daily analysis.
I just make stupid decisions & I don't know why. I don't really see price action as more difficult from one day to the next since I've see it all before. For instance a thin market on a Friday before holiday is what some people call difficult, but if you know it's coming & you've seen it before then you should know what to expect. What I tend to do is almost concentrate & look so hard that I convince myself that I see a good reason to take a trade; then after the fact I'll see that there was absolutely nothing there. One of my biggest problems is too often holding on for a bigger move. I'm always trying to make the wins huge & the losses small. But since the markets tend to range so often I'll be up significantly & then convince myself I'm disciplined by staying in & going for the big win, and then sure enough price reverses significantly & stops me out. My nice gains turn into losses, breakeven, or tiny gains.........all pretty useless. Thanks for the advice.