The visualizing is an interesting idea I might try but as far as DEMO, no I entered my orders and use the same broker for LIVE. The experience is VERY similar so much so I thought live gives me a break sometimes that demo did not... As far as when I paper traded, the reason I was able to do well is exactly what you mentioned, I'd never let it run 7-8 ticks against me but if it went 3-4, it didn't bother me in the least. In fact, if the system said still said it was all good, I'd buy more and say thank you for the lower price... What boggles my mind is it does't make sense to let a $100 loss bother me when it's a $25,000 account....
Following up badger's post, Pattern Daytrader rule would be a problem with exactly $25k, as once you fall below it you'll get some sort of alert from your broker. That said, trading ES and being scared will likely dwindle $25k in no time, whether it's one fell swoop or death by a thousand cuts. IMO, trading 1/5th the size of ES with a 100-lot of SPY would be a better way to get your feet wet trading the S&P live and without trading as scared money. Even if it means adding a couple thousand as a margin buffer, cause seriously, ES will take that away from you in a heartbeat anyway if you have a bad day.
Some of use are just not good at implementing a system. It's just the lack of talent for doing things that leads to fear and further inability to implement.... I can't enter orders in a hurry after staring at a screen waiting for an entry, I can't even see the entry signal when it happens after staring for a while... I can't do car repairs for that matter, I just don't have the hands or the mentality for succeeding...
Trading on a simulator for 6 months...many things can fundamentally or psychologically change for you in your trading or personal life that is now present while you're live trading that wasn't there when you were paper trading on the same trading platform. Also, I'm going to assume you had been paper trading with 25k that would have simulated your live trading account. Simply, it's very common for traders on a DEMO with an unrealistic large capital to be scared or fear when trading live with a trading account much smaller than the DEMO account. I've seen this often and I'm sure something has changed in your trading environment when comparing your DEMO trading to your REAL trading. You're going to need to give yourself an honest review to determine what has change and how to set it up so that it's present in your real trading. Last of all, the volatility now in the market is dramatically different than it has been for the past 6 months. Simply, if you're a decent trader...you may be reacting to that different volatility without realizing such. Mark
The short answer is, this is not going to work out for you. And this will be an answer you won't appreciate. But it might set you thinking as to how you might construct something offering high probability with high profit outcomes. Lots of stuff appear to work theoretically and they need to work much better than "profits weren't huge".
HI Michael,you either have to become a mechanical trader or look at trading from the same perspective that Mark Douglas looks at trading. His book Trading in the Zone is a Classic.
Can you define mechanical trader and can you give me a 2 sentence summary of the premise of the book?
If that is in fact one of your criteria for entry...buy into a rising RSI...then you may be up against a market environment that didn't exist during your demo period. We've been through a long period of unusual strength that supported trading the long side. A change in conditions at this point would not be unexpected.
Stop ES. Start FX. Reason. You cannot blow up. That is what you fear isn't it? At the end of the day? You fear blowing up. You fear getting kicked out of the arena. Trade FX. If your strat is robust, instrument should be irrelevant.