ouch... Sorry guys but motivation will not be enough. Some serious skills are required. Giving up is totally ok, intraday trading is a very special activity.
I understand that some times it seem hard to keep a profit with day trading. In fact my first year was very hard on me and my family. I have been trying all sorts of methods and was losing my butt off. So I decided to practice on Options Trading. After I had been taught a system to follow, I started to keep my profits longer. Now I am able to invest my profits into mutual funds. I have been trading for over 5 years now and my last 2 years have been the best. I'm not sure if i can post a link but if you email me, I will direct you to the same people who gave me this confidence. I have not worked a real job in 5 years as of today due to the fact that I took advantage professional help.
Wrong! Top reason is due to lack of edge. The trader simply gets bled till he/she does not have the funds to conitnue.
If you don't suceed at daytrading, I suggest you take the lessons learned and apply them elsewhere. The principal of "cutting your losses" does not just apply to trading, but life as well. On ET the mentaility is if you can't make money short term trading then you fail at life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trading to the wise is not a singular obsession, but a curosity to dabble in. If it pans out and you strike paydirt, more power to you. If it's not working despite your best efforts, no sence in continuing to shoot yourself in the foot.
Sorry to break all the dreams, but "hydroblunt" is right, the lack of edge is the number one killer around here
There is no "edge" in short term trading as the markets are mostly random. There's just luck (rarely and temporarily) and mostly unluck. If you happen to have luck, take your profits and quit trading as unluck will follow for sure.
Garcia, just a question obviously you think or made the experience that short term trading leads to losses in the most cases. But of course there must be another side of the coin. if there are many people loosing always than there must be people winning most of the time. Or do you think the money just disapears in a kind of black hole.
All frequent traders lose money. All these losses go as improved liquidity, namely reduced bid-ask spread. A reduced bid-ask spread is of little importance, yet still a little helpful to us, long term traders. I must admit that frequent traders are a useful fools to us, long term traders.
Don't mind Garcia, he has already admitted to never daytrading so he knows nothing on the subject. Funny when people proclaim supreme knowledge of something they've never done!
To the OP, systems don't work for the obvious reasons you have posted. They may work for a short time, but by the time the consistency wears off your stuck trying to figure out what little changes need to be made to bring it back to its feet. Years end up going by and your at the same place you were when you started. Trading by nature is not complex. Price is trending up, trending down, or in a sideways chop. Figuring this out does not take 3 years. There are a few other things to identify such as the speed of the uptrend etc, but after a number of years you gain the experience to identify what is what. Once you have the above figured out it's all about managing the number of contracts bases on winning/losing streaks. Most people don't add contracts till their account shows huge gains proven over months of trading. Why should you wait to increase size on a winning streak for months at a time when your a day trader, your account shows gains on a daily basis, even an hour or minute basis. Some traders get into the ES for 3 minutes and end up 2 points. Do this 3 or 4 times in a row and your on your winning streak, up that size! Figure out what works best for you, 100% increase, or maybe only a 50% or 25%.. and keep increasing and increasing as you win! You can start each day fresh or take up where you left off the day before, whatever makes you comfortable or whatever works for you. When your streak is over go back down to 1 lots. With management like this you can scale into size quickly and make the money you need while your winning. And when you losing you lose nothing compared to that winning streak. TT EDIT: Stop reading books, or going to trading rooms, or listening to friends, stop using MA's or stochastic, or volume indicators, no one knows anything or how to make money, they all selling this crap, that's where their money comes from. Just look at price, and the trend, the rest is up to you. Not some system!