Does your method show a positive expectancy? If it does do you honestly trade it consistently? Are you really disciplined? I ask because like you, I haven't been as successful as I would like in the 2 year I have been at this. Sure I can make real profits, not just sim, and I have, but not consistently, because I haven't been consistent. I make $300 one day and then lose and back and forth. Why? Because I have been trading with scared money and inconsistent scared money at that. I cherry pick trades, etc. Do you do any of these habits? Honest? You don't have to respond to me, but be honest with yourself atleast. Another trader recommended I look at the tradingauthority dot com. I am in no way affiliated with them. Todd Martin spoke to me. He said trading is so much about psychology and yet traders spend so much time bouncing from one method to another looking for a holy grail. He used to work for Anthony Robbins, who I respect alot. He said why do we as traders continue to spend so much $$$ on methods when the problems are inside ourselves, specifically in our head. I have learned 3 different methods over the last 2 years and all of them show a positive expectancy most of the time. I am not planning on taking Todd's course because I don't need. I need to focus on getting my thinking right about trading and risk and it will fall into place I know that. Sure there will be bumps, but that happens to an successful person in a field. Trading is no different in that respect. I agree with Lawrence, Brett's new book is awesome. I think better than Mark Douglas, but Douglas is good too. For me, I am not planning to spend another dime on a method, I already have 3 that work at different times. I am focusing my time and $$$ on learning as much as I can about the way I think about trading and studying trading psychology. This is a mind game, trading that is. It is designed by the pros to slowly bleed the sheep dry. Just remember to be successful at anything you better have alot of passion for what you are doing. I love trading and I am in for the marathon not the sprint. There is a holy grail. It's right between your ears.
Tell ya what. Post what trades you made today and why. Lets see if some of us can't help straighten you out.
IF you are down to $7500, then you are severely undercaptialized. No way that's enough money to make a living with. If you keep trading, you will be too stressed out to make good decisions and you'll quickly blow the rest of your bankroll. Keep your $7500 and go get a day job. You can still swing trade and maybe do the occsional day trade from your job. When you get up 20-30K in your account, then maybe try going solo again. Again, you simply don't have enough cash to run your business at this time. Sorry but that's the bottom line.
If you are going to depend on your trading income to cover your regular expenses now, then I have to say that it is better you call it quit now. If you have the luxury to trade without financial burden over the next year on your trading account, then even $6K is good enough as a training ground for a beginner to learn to properly trade over the year, provided that you really focus on trading and discover who you are, and what your strengths are. Remember, a career in daytrading that can net more than $200K a year puts someone in the salary range of a general physician or an accountant with a lot of good clients That means hard work. Good luck!
Thanks for all your post I do appreciated them, I was just showing the wife all the helpfull post.I also welcome constructive criticism. I had a $15,000 account with a back up of another $10,000 if I wanted to add more. I base my stops on 15k account at 2%, I know I should have lowered it, has the account goes down but I didn't. Anyway my stops are 2 points on ES trading 3 lots. I placed 11 trades a few winners, but most got stopped out. I didn't let one bad trade go away from me,but did forget to remove stop that cost me $280 .Stops are all 2 points, but it seem what ever I did today was wrong. I know you will get days like this, but I feel over time, day trading is not going to be easy, especially with the current volatility. I even tried basing stops on a ATR on a 5min chart. It all feels hard work for no gain. These are some of my trades I placed today that were at a loss http://quote.prophet.net//applets/j...et.net&symbol=ES0709&duration=5d&frequency=5m
Do not have any advice for you but just wanted to say good luck. It IS hard, no question, and I wish you the very best in whatever you decide to do. I know some of the more experienced traders here will be sure to make additional good suggestions for you. There are an awful lot of great people here, you included. All the best, Ansare
I see your trading in the right direction but your getting stopped out. Try this -- when you get a signal on bar X. Don't rush to get into the market -- let it come back say 60% of the signal bar. Have a resting limit order. See how that works. If its a bonafied momentum signal then I can understand jumping in -- but the majority of the time it'll come back.
That's your first problem there - you lost 20% in one day. You should be trading small enough that your worst day is down 1% *maximum*. A 20% loss should only be suffered when you get stuck in a locked limit market and it's a once in a generation 6 sigma market crash/bubble day, and you screw up by averaging down or not honouring your stops (or they just halt something on you). To give a comparison, I was long overnight and intraday when the Sep 11th 2001 terrorist attacks occured, the European markets went down about 15% in a few minutes and I lost about 8%. You are trading on a nothing-day and you are down almost 3 times that amount - that should give you a comparison for how ludicrously cavalier your risk control is. And since you are a beginner with no consistent record of winning, in fact you should be trading 1 share or 1 mini-futures contract at most, until you get at least 6 months of consistent profitable performance. Your real problem is likely to be that you have no edge whatsoever. You are probably just trading randomly with a stop. That is an inherently losing game. To sum up: 1) Trading at 20-100 times more risk/size than is appropriate, given your experience and record to date. 2) Having no edge You need to do some proper testing and research, until you come up with some *genuine* market inefficiency that you can exploit. Looking at a few trendlines isn't going to do it. Be aware that it could easily take several years of market study before you find anything.
I really don't understand why you 'play' with 3 lots when you are not profitable. Even 1 ES is too much for you IMHO. Regarding your trades...hmmm....maybe you should read Anekdoten's thread. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99283&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 It gives you a simple but effective idea how to spot and enter a trend. Maybe you can use it to improve your own methodology.