Day Trading don't work I been trading for a few years, I have read all the books, seminars, Spent hours and hours and I mean hours!!!!..Spent 16 hours on weekends studying testing. Today got me thinking, my account is down 50% I've blown 2 accounts in the past, I don't want to blow a third, this is my last chance. I use stops I don't over trade I stick to my rules. Yes, I know what you are going to say, its my method, "well back testing it works great," but every time I trade for real it don't go to plan, I've read all the books but it seems I still do not know how to develop a sound trading plan...or maybe I do, but day trading is so hard most do fail. I have bought or sold, and been right in the direction which I thought it would go ... but I still lost money on the trade? ... Today I felt depressed and felt like giving it all up and keep what little money I have left. $7500 in my account after the close tonight, I lost $1525 in one day...NOT GOOD FEELING. I feel sick with the thought of trading tomorrow, I may have a day off. To anyone who is looking to trade full time, take it from me it's tough I've been trading full time for 1 year. with 4 years of study. I'm writing this to warn others how hard it is. Im giving it till December, if my account don't show any improvement I will knock it on the head and will not look back. I will do something else far less stressful than day trading ES & ER2. Then you get the rainbow merchants who sell you the dream of making money day trading for Just $1,000 or $299 a month...I asks these so called Gurus if you so good, why do you want our money. The whole day trading game, is a corn, even your broker will tell you there are people making money from day trading/scalping, They only say this to make commission off you. Had to get it of my chest and tell someone. Bill
Your experience is common for a lot of people who cannot identify their own strength and probably trade in a way that is not compatible with their personalities. Read the book, Enhancing Trader Performance - Proven Strategies from the Cutting Edge of Trading Psychology Written by Dr. Brett N. Steenbarger. Until you figure out what instrument(s) and style that really match your personality, you will not be able to find success in daytrading. Good luck!
Bill, as much as I would like to keep you in ER2 until you're broke, I'm going to tell you a simple fact of life. Now, I know you know this, but here it is: not everyone can be good at everything. If you have really put that much effort into this, and you are still losing on a consistent basis, then I think it safe to say that you should start thinking about the next challenge/phase of your life. If you are still here beating a dead horse because you feel you cannot do anything else, then that's not gonna work either. Realize, most people fail at business. Trading is a business. That means NET profits. No profit, no business, waste of time. And while I'm on that, suppose you only had 4 months to live? Would you still do this till December?? One last piece of advice. There is a wonderful book originally written in 1910 by "Rollo Tape" called Studies in Tape Reading. If you haven't read it, get it and read it. With your experience I am sure you can learn much. Maybe even enough to turn your game around. If you have read it, then quit now. Free advice, freely given, maybe worth nothing. I hope this helps.
Medicine does not work! I tried to perform my own surgery after reading all the anatomy books and wathing the Discovery Channel but I keep messing it up! Yeah, the typical, "I cannot do it so it must not work" lament.
Try this... Stop trading with real money and just observe the ES / ER charts for a month. If you don't see anything that stand out, and I mean obvious patterns that exist everyday then just close the account and go find a real job. Chart reading is an art, find beauty in it because that's where the $$$ is. Forget the books, seminars and so forth, I got ideas from them to know what to look for in a chart but the most important part is knowing yourself and the market to make it work. If it was that easy, I would've blown a few accounts myself. Good luck,
Hi Thanks guys for some of your comments. I should say this I said to my self and my wife a few months ago, if I don't make any money worth talking about by December I will stop trading.....But like you say why wait till December. Well this quote says maybe I should hold till December as I planned, it goes something like, "Many of lifeâs failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." By the way the account have been up this year, but I have given it back to the market. I feel day trading is making a little then giving back more to the market. Basically I would like to see if anyone else thinks the same about day trading as I do. I think the saying is 95% lose could be true over a prolong period. Regards Bill
I'm sorry your going through this, but if your relying on daytrading to pay the bills, its unrealistic, it adds pressure to perform and you end up overtrading when the probability patterns aren't viable. Also if your starting out with a small sum, its also unrealistic, since any derivative that your trading, the position sizing would be less then 1 contract for the derivative your trading. Plus infrastructure costs, are pretty hefty, and you need appropriate technology to filter the info and make decisions. Lets take ES for example, average range is usually 20 points minimum on a active day. Thats about 1 grand per contract fluctuation. If your starting out with less then 10000 in the account, your talking about more then 10% fluctuation in account equity day to day. Also if your trading with small amount of equity, commissions will become a major factor. If your average stops are 1 point in range, thats less then the minute to minute fluctuation or 'noise' for that derivative. 1 point stop is .5% of acct equity with 10K account, if your wrong on a trade your immediately down more then .5% including commissions. If you make 5 trades and your wrong on 5 trades your down more then 2.5% on the day. Lets say you flip a coin, heads long tails short, and your W:L(win:loss) ratio is 50:50, but you alter R:R for each trade to 2:1, meaning your looking to make 2 times what your willing to risk. If your stop is 2 points and target is 4 points, and you win half the time. And your willing to make 4 trades on a given day and stop. 2 x 4 = 8, 2 x 2 = 4, you should be up atleast 4 points on the day. Lets say you lost on all 4 trades, you would be down 8 points or 400 dollars, or win half, make 200 dollars(probably) less from commissions. If you had a bad day you would be down 400/10000 = 4% or more on the day. But if you had a even day you would be up 2%. So if you could only make 4 trades, and after that call it quits. How would you go about making those trades. Some people pick highs and lows, or grid numbers like 10 point increments. Or significant published pivot levels, or indicator breakouts. Some people pick orderflow gaps, to place trades. This is grind work, and not too appealing, so instead of daytrading some will opt for swing trading entries. Using the same size stops, people sit and wait for months till a key level is approached, such as yearly high or low. And they just keep hammering it with those 4 trades. But R:R is shifted to a explosive number like 40 points or (20:1), 40 points on 1 ES contract is 2000 dollars, granted the absolute sum is not much. But its certainly better then the grind work day in day out. So some will opt for even higher R:R (40:1) or eighty points, these trades are rare and the opportunity is only there a few times a year. This gives time, for a fixed job, and other things in life, and you would only need to spend an hour or so, looking at the prices in reference to where they are for the year. This is actually more attractive method, but tradeaholics must be doing something all the time, so they pick daily highs or lows to hammer it. These are just some thoughts on how I would approach it, buts it can still be very stressful and expensive when your trying to do the grind work day in day out. But very inexpensive for long term method and all you need is a computer internet dialup to check prices and place orders at the end of the day. If prices approach a key zone, maybe you can take the day off and watch it that day for a trade. After years of doing this, your account should grow over time. I hope this info helps, and you know yourself better then anyone. And you should quit if its breaking you down mentally.
if this happened, and the stock wasn't halted, or the futures didn't have a surprise interest rate / terrorist attack / etc... you were either overtrading, using bad stops, taking on too much size, or something like that. there is NO WAY to lose 15%+ of your account (absent one of the market oddball events described above) unless you're making a mistake. sorry for your pain, but did you ever think it's not for you? if it was so easy, everyone would be doing it.