Before I give up these choppy instruments for good (and I have been giving them a really damn good thrashing to no avail in the last few months) are there any successful traders on this board with at least two years solid experience at this who would be willing to train me for a fee in their methods. UK/Europe or US based. I have been trading for years and have not had such a rough time as I have had with them. I get a winning trade about 1 in every 10 - very demoralising. Small losses, but chop erodes capital. Constant drawdown is depressing. When I say successful, if you have a losing day I consider it unsuccessful. Break even/no trading is acceptable. But not for the week. Otherwise it is a waste of time. And I hate time wasting. Life is too short! Also I don't want to know about TA. It simply does not work on them. More accurately it works sometimes then fails to work, the net result being zero gain. Shame because I have spent many years studying TA. I would prefer someone who is not a commercial trainer. I wouldn't want to train others for a living - only if I was crap at training myself!
if u been trading for years why not stick with the other instruments you had better results with (I suppose).
Keep trying. It's very tough trading eminis. I know I am experiencing the same difficult time. My losses are very small, I know just one trade can put me back in the black. Don't give up on TA it's the only way to trade, it's works well with the eminis too but heck it's not classic TA! Look for entry when everybody gave up. I try to focus on the morning opportunities, I find it debilitating to enter trades in the afternoon unless the market is oversold or start selling off . Also don't expect not to have losing days.
"Look for entry when everybody gave up." Tell me about it. Today was typical - 6 trades, the sixth, a short I got out of with my only profit for the day (a small one) when I saw the market produce what looked like a major turning point up at about 3.40pm. 5 losers, substancially down and a small win and I was ready to commit murder. Of course when I left my PC, had punched a few walls, and come back after the close I realised (again x 10,000) that I was right on this trade in the first place and my price target was eventually reached, which would have made a small profit overall for a most frustrating day. But "would have" is not "did". And I am therefore repeating mistakes in daytrading stock futures I first made back in 1998. I am really at the end of my tether. I haven't had a winning day for a few weeks now. What is really frustrating is that I want to trade many more contracts than the 1 or 2 I am trading. I could have bought a decent business with the trading capital I just have sitting there right now! What a waste of time and effort!
Why don't you stop trading them for a while or trade less like just the first hour and the last , I think the first is much easier though. It hasn't been a waste of time anyway. I realized that my emini trading made me understand the dynamics of the markets and greatly improved my entries on stocks for ex. I don't think you can copy somebody else trading I could not do it personally. Shorting is in IMO very difficult as as soon as a bearish pattern shows up they will fade it and try to shake you out one last time before the real dive, also bounce are very quick and sharp while selloff start slowly as people are slow to recognize a mistake. I have only recently developed and papertraded short strategies now that the market is in a downtrend. When I papertraded shorts in the uptrend I would lose most of the time and the gains were tiny. So I try to keep the major trend in mind. One new way to get short I found is simply enter where I would have cut my loss if I were long since one thing I seem to be very good at is cutting losses at the right time ahaha.
"And I am therefore repeating mistakes in daytrading stock futures I first made back in 1998." Funster What did you do before when you were making these mistakes? I am having the same problem right now (with stocks, not emini's) and just see my inability to hang on to a profitable trade, until it reaches my target, as purely a lack of confidence in my methods. I am plugging away though, and continue to work on my methods with small size, and strongly believe that the effort will pay off, as my confidence increases. I never see effort as a waste of time as I believe a trading career is a work in progress. It is frustrating. It used to be 1 1/8th step forward and 1 step back, but since decimalization its now 1.01 steps forward and 1 step back.
Funster.. hitting walls.. technical analysis doesnt work.. several weeks losing streak.. frustration.. wanting to take bigger size in spite of it all.. man, im not trying to tell you what to do.. but maybe you should back off for a few days.. refocus.. maybe trade a simulator until you are making money again.. if you try and force things youll end up in a death spiral.. -qwik
I would agree with qwick. Also, while others are saying to stick with the T/A, I would say to branch out on it. Look for relationships more than patterns.
Funster said: "I was right on this trade in the first place and my price target was eventually reached, which would have made a small profit overall for a most frustrating day. But "would have" is not "did"." I am working very hard to eliminate this kind of thinking. Kicking yourself in hindsight is a very demoralizing habit. Yeah it is obvious now but it is never obvious at "the hard right edge". "I got out too soon" is going to occur on about half your good trades and "I didnt get out soon enough" is going to occur on about half your bad trades so altogether your going to spend an awful lot of time beating up on yourself. Its uneccessary and a total waste of energy. I also know that when you are trading angry you will self destruct. You must get up and walk away at those times. I am fairly new to the game but I understand one thing very clearly: You must be in total control of your mind and emotions or you do not have a chance. You may not be able to keep from getting angry but you MUST have the will power to stop trading when it happens.
Keep attuned of the news and get dialled into the pre-dominant sentiment. It has been pretty obvious lately that the market is really struggling, I have traded only to the short side the last week. The market doesn't care about chart patterns, support/resistance etc, it moves because of fear/greed, news and discounting future events.