LOL. Yes, this has been a great thread for adding morons to the ignore list. Idiots telling the kid to get a job. Betchya a Bennie none of them even trade. Piker fuks, LOL!
The ignore function is the only thing that makes this place tolerable. Why in the hell would I want to waste my time processing garbage like this (below)? It's not a matter of discipline, it's a matter of eliminating what you know to be garbage before it gets ingested.
listen son, this is how it is.... we all come in a wonderful array shapes, sizes and colours. likewise, the trading style that suits any individual will be as unique as the trader himself. good trading education recognises this, and will allow you to find your own style - be that scalping or long term investing. if they are forcing a scalping methodology on you, it may just be that youre not built to be a scalper. dont worry, maybe be youll find another approach that suits. as for the stops, i guess they are mandatory in the early stages, but later, you (if running positions) dont want to have stops in the market at all imo. you want to exit when the probabilites are no longer in your favour, not on some fake move caused by a scalper somewhere running the market for some stops/pennies. now are you starting to understand where you should be looking to get in/out in the scalping gig? look at where those ta books suggest you get in, thats where you want to be getting out of your scalp....? try fading the bo of a 5min bar (off the top of my head; never tried it) - assuming its not trending of course. be lucky.
I have to agree with this post. There are far too many losing traders on ET to allow each one access to successful traders. There is a reason they are the house losers. Stinking thinking bleeds onto posts. Kudos for those who are successful at chewing the meat and spitting out the bones. They are winning at time management and trading. Trading is about discipline. Knowing who to listen to, and who to ignore, is just plain common sense. I know to expect both discipline and common sense from successful traders, but this is ET, and I would not want to alienate the majority of posters here.
I'm in a similar situation as you... being in a prop and fairly new, but here are some simple suggestions that may point into a better direction: - What are you using as buy/sell signals for AMR? I would obviously watch all the other airlines and the XAL. I personally prefer to trade sectors and not just individual stocks, so in order to trade AMR, I would have to bullish/bearish on the XAL... and then I would get in 4 of these airline stocks at once... choose four that are relatively stronger if you want to get long and vice versa for getting short. - Watch oil very closely as airlines obviously trade inversly to crude. In addition to stalking XAL, you should be monitering the crude oil futures contract. If your firm does not provide future's quotes, watch USO (not OIH or other oil ets as these stocks frequently diverge from crude). As a side note, never call tops/bottoms in commodity moves... support/resistance in my opinion is less relevant in commodities as supply/demand is more rational. That said, don't go long airlines when oil is ripping at seemingly absurd prices. - Are you allowed to trade pre-market? There have been a lot of upgrades/downgrades in the airline sector recently (today CAL was downgraded and I think UAUA was initiated with a Buy). Anyway, the guys that trade some of these airlines at my firm seem to make their money getting in pre-mkt and then selling shortly after the open after decent moves. Today (Dec 17), airlines had that mid-day reversal you could've potentially traded, but most money is made near the open. And especially because these stocks are lower priced, they generally get in a narrower range by mid-day which makes them undesirable to trade (unless crude does something wild). - I can't really see any time you should have a 3 cent stop in AMR. That's way too tight and you will get stopped out repeatedly of potentially winning trades. Enjoy paying commissions. Today (Dec 17), AMR had a 50 cent range. WTF is 3 cents for that stock? Now on other days AMR has a narrower range, say around 20 cents, those are days you shouldn't be trading AMR because you have no edge as a day trader. In other stocks you can trade support/resistance on consolidation/resting days, but judging on the daily charts in these airlines, you have no business doing that... unless you want to buy at support and hold for a several hours... and you can't do that with a 3 cent stop. So point of the story is to not have a 3 cent stop. If your trading a chart pattern that warrants a 3 cent stop... move on because it will rarely justify your commission fees. - Don't call tops or bottoms in airline stocks, especially on futile support/resistance areas. Those stocks can go up 6% intraday and your like "wtf that's too high"... then they go up to 12% and then your like "really, these stocks def can't go up any higher "... and sure enough they close up 16% and near the highs. To add to this point, don't get into a sucker short because you see one big red (sell) candle and try to short. Watch volume very closely. Don't sucker sell a big red candle stick in the middle of the day on low volume. And never, never, never fade moves with large volume. - You said you are reading a lot of books... we'll books won't teach you how to trade. The only relevant books when it comes to trading are those that have to do with psychology and those with general market information. To become profitable, you need a strategy. No trader would be foolish enough to publish a successful strategy. Maybe it worked several months or years... but why would someone expose his trading edge? So focus more time on studying charts and your own trades. Everyone says it, but keep your own journal and daily records. Write any thoughs throughout the trading day. If you do not, you will fail. Writing stuff down after the trading day is almost worthless as you will forget many points. - Although it could be otherwise, ignore fancy oscillators and indicators. I've never met a single profitable trader that uses oscillators of any kind. As for indicators, most guys do use a 20 day MA... in addition to some other days. But they are just one piece of the puzzle. Don't create buy/sell signals from some loony oscillaotors and indicators. Keep sh!t simple and watch price action. - I lost money in November because I failed to recognize trending days as opposed to sideways days. If you haven't done so already, learn about bull/bear flags and use them to your advantage on trending days. If the S&Ps are trending after 10:30am/11:00am, it's a good chance that so will your stocks. Also knowing that the XAL index has been raging on the daily chart... favor getting in on those bull flags. Also, learn about other simple patterns. But remember that charts can be deceiving and big market players manipulate them to look a certain way. Then a fakeout will occur and you'll get stuck on the wrong side. Look for volume to confirm breakouts of patterns such as triangle. I use 5-minute charts and I always wait for the candle to close before getting in. That way, i don't get in a stock and get stuck in a tail. Also, don't fall in love with too much candlestick patterns just because I mentioned them. They are largely irrelevant to day trading. I just watch for tails and signs of where the candle closed (on high of bar?). Take it easy with all those three soldier patterns. Just ask yourself if the candle is bullish, bearish, or a neutral doji. Feel free to PM me with some other questions. I'm surely no expert but what I wrote has helped me in December thus far.
I am in the same boat as you. This is actually my second go at stocks trading as first time that was simply a joke. At least they do not give you a boot after 4 days of trading and losing only $20 daily as it was the case with me. Yes, daily loss limit was and is only $20. I am again with prop firm but this time looks different. Same stop loss 3 pennies. Daily loss limit $20. Last time that was loss after loss and I trades simply went against me whenever I entered. This time is different as I have not had a single losing day so far. Once lost 3 pennies but most times I just close at 1 penny loss and wait for the next opportunity. I have been there for 6 days. Made about net 190 ticks so far. I actually have no idea what a difference is, but I think a year and a half of Forex trading and watching markets 12 or more hours a day did have something to do with this. Psychologically I am ready to trade.
Trading seems like a thing that requires a lot of time to figure out. do not listen to those who say to quit.
I dont know what happend, but Ive been getting better over the past 2 months. I do about 100-200 share lots, making about 5,000 Volume daily... averging 30-70$ dollars, 2 days + then third day i lose maybe 10-20$ max... and it repeat... I like using the 5 minute bars the most, coz I like going for swings bigger than 2-3 pennies... .10 penny + is what I aim for. But my firm is putting pressure on me , saying I dont trade enough / dont do alot of volume....they want me trade more, idk how to counter that 'coz I dont see setups in my favor that would make me add more volume at this point.....
You see! Never listen to those who say to quit. Especially you are a young guy with no family. I am sure you will be more than fine. Just keep it up man!!! I have just started with this branch. Next week it will be interesting. since I am moving from Demo to Live, but I already made few live trades and still got money. Did not feel any difference and since I have been trading live funds in Forex for more than a year, so, no psychology involved live or demo. I have just closed my FX trades and going to nap. Than back to office. I like this sh*t. Really love to trade, but since I am doing same things every day it might be a little boring. Unlike Forex there is a lot of companies here. I started thinking which companies to trade. I guess I will go with those that have good big capitalization and also very high liquidity. I really want to reach the level when I trade really big sizes nand liquidity is not an issue. But for now. i will stick to my 100 shares