You have a clearly defined trading framework and the ability to trade it with a traderâs mindset (the ability to trade all valid signals because you realize there is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge). After interfacing with dozens of people over the years, this combination is possessed by less than 5% of them. Youâre already a member of a rare class of trader, whether you're trading manually or are able to let an automated system go without interfering with it. Your plan is simple, but a bit too simple. The ingredients you seem to be missing are: 1. Contextual filters 2. Time of Day filter 3. What kind of day trader you want to be: intraday swinger, intraday scalper, or part scalp/part swing scaler Contextual filters are what help you avoid chop and catch the stronger directional price swings. The way I developed contextual filters was to first âeyeballâ the price action leading into significant directional price swings versus small range-bound directional price swings to see if I could identify any patterns that occurred more often than not. A pattern in this sense could be a price action pattern (such as an M or W formation, commonly called a 1-2-3), or a relationship of current price to the overall price environment (proximity to a previous dayâs key level, or to a trend/channel line in a higher time frame, or to the range of a price bar in a higher time frame, etc). Then, Iâd perform a thorough statistical analysis of favorable and adverse price excursions surrounding these patterns to determine whether or not my âeyeball analysisâ had any merit. Once youâve done this, youâll have more ammunition for developing your profit-taking plan. You may find that by implementing certain filters, your current simple plan becomes significantly profitable without any other changes. In fact, even without doing contextual filter research, your current plan may be fine by implementing something as simple as scalping part of your position and letting the remainder run or stop out. This way, the scalped profit pays for part of the loss during choppy conditions, but youâre able to catch those nice runners when they happen. My recommendation is to evaluate your results over the past couple months applying these scenarios: 1. Scalping N ticks on every trade (no runners) 2. Scalping N ticks on half, letting the other half trade as you have been 3. Identifying contextual filters and applying them to your current plan 4. Identifying contextual filters and applying a scalp/run trade management approach. Consider adding a 20EMA to your chart to determine if it provides a useful filter (I found it very helpful on the 1min chart). I also recommend analyzing whether there's any significant relationship between time of day and net results. For example, maybe the first 2-3 hours produce solid profits and the remainder of the session produces flat or negative results over time.
you lose because you flip coin. if you do not use your brain to trade, you flip coin: strike luck. that is a losing game. how many people can make living by gambling? most people do not realize they are gambling. your signals are just like that.if tail up, you enter, if head up,you out. but in reality,if tail up, sometimes mean get out not get in. or vice visa.so fruitless to search the solution. theonly way to stop: stop betting based on the coin flipping rule. since what heck of the headup/head down with relationship to your trading? or in another word,what the heck of EMA crossing/MACD divergegence etc. to the actual market going up/going down or trending up/trending down or range-band/random walk? NO. there is no logic line here.so forget about gambing!
what I heard about trading is: master the exit means you are a trader truely. if you do not know when to book profit that means your exit plan is vague. if you donot want to let a winner become a loser, see a winner, book profit. that is it.you violated yourplan because you want to make more, or you did not monitor your exit signas or conditions closely. otherwise, you will see the exit. I have this problem too. when Iget a winner, my greed kicks in, and I forget my plan, did not monitor the exit conditions closely,leave the desk or figget about moving my target, think about letting profit run hard, all are irrelated to the trading plan and trading activity. missed the best opportyunity to book profit, then stuck in a nine ducks in, and wait for the lostone, ...finally I end up losing. discipline and focus is hard. tempteations are everywhere. just focus on my bull is not easy. cheer up,vetern traders have this problem too. you are not alone.