so If I find futures and trend following interesting (also the easiest to understand at the moment) then basically I form this into a strategy and ignore everything else? This probably sounds dumb but it sounds to easy haha
Disagree. The market does not accommodate/reward any trader's "interest", "growth", "intuition", or "gut feel". The market is the final arbiter of price. Nothing else matters. Get a handle on that and you might succeed. If not, you won't.
You've got a long road ahead of you , Learning to predict and/or manage and monitor and follow and trade the market is one of the toughest tasks to master for any individual. -- Much less for a 23yr old jackoff video game lad like yourself. Spend the next month or two browsing and reading every major trading thread on ET, and reading alot of trading books. and skim some videos on YouTube as well from those trader clowns. Every potential trading source has an ounce of golden wisdom, for the open-minded, Being a Great/expert Trader...is like a combination...of a War General, Philosopher, video game junky, author, fighter pilot, college professor, movie critic, surgeon, painter, animal sociologist, homeless person, rich person, VixSkin dildo sex toy, Fleshlight pussy sex toy, knowing how to bake cupcakes, cook a porterhouse steak, knowing how to flirt successfully w/o looking like a scared weirdo, 2018 ET,
It's like my life's autobiography up to this point. I know I do but I also love looking at this stuff and building an understanding of it, I'm studying psychology as well so I also find the psychological aspects of trading very interesting
You are years away from having a well back tested, forward tested, real time then programmed system. I have decades of experience, and even still most of systems I develop are quite easy and very robust, meaning I can trade 30 second to monthly charts and changing nothing on half of them. But to get there, you have to learn much on charting, risk management, ability to read your stats, MAE, MFE and to fully understand when not to take some signals, when to bail out early and when to exit or reverse. Anything I trade over 29 minutes gets hedged, so learn about options and futures. Takes a solid year of watching the DOM and charts to understand there are a couple repetitive patterns and unless you have automation, they happen so quick-can your eyes pick them up-mine can't but if you program you can, comes down to being able to know what you are seeking and how to program it. You develop, then backtest over 10 years of tick data then forward test for appro 3 months, then real time very lite, then program for automation so no errors made under stresses. This of course not only way to trade, depends on personality but also great deal of knowledge and memory and at least 10,000 hours. If I knew how much time I have killed becoming me now, I would have never ventured into trading and stayed in longer term stocks, most that have made it in financial community - made it in stocks. Between fees and taxes are higher, loss of salary/bennies, trading can be very expensive for starting out this direction. Good luck.
OP: Your interest in depth of strategy is right on -- any idiot can enter trades, and any idiot can claim they know the vagaries of a constantly varying system. But when the shit hits the fan, those who have thought through a bigger range of outcomes will be the ones who have a clue about how best to proceed. (There are those here who will pooh-pooh paper-trading til the cows come home. "Simulation is not real!" they will yell, trying to find truth in their own personal cop-out: "Because I could not muster the interest in simulations, therefore no one can, and it's all fake.") The SWAirlines 737 that lost an engine (and cabin pressure) was piloted/landed by the first female U.S. F-18 fighter pilot/instructor -- take a guess what *she'd* say about simulations...fechrisakes. In any event, the magic word you ultimately want to learn/know/grok is "Expectancy" -- not some magic floob about "price action". A focus on Expectancy will entail good trade entries, exits, amounts, AND will (per Handle's post above) also have you watching your time-in-trade and excursions -- VERY NECESSARY as the market you trade today may not be [!!!!!!!] the market you trade tomorrow, and if you think the rules you put down today will hold forever, a good eye on expectancy will cure that myth, too.
Hello Nicko, How much money do you want make until you feel your strategy is ready for live cash? In other words, if you plan to use $10K trading, then sim trade with $10K til you make $10K, then go live. Then you will have all the evidence you need that you can make money trading. Or stay in sim til you make $XX,XXX money. Then you know the depth of your strategy.