Xspurt's comment isn't gonna help you much. He's also being cryptic, but that's how I like it. . I'll admit that some of my breakthroughs were discovered by accident. Almost by pure chance or luck. It's not like Thomas Edison, where you can put in enough time to systematically test out hundreds of materials and eventually find one that can be used in a light bulb. But more like Isaac Newton, who got the idea for gravity from watching an apple fall from a tree. Designing a trading system is like looking for a pirate's buried treasure chest. To find it, you have to know where to look otherwise you're wasting your time. Study and experience are means to help you figure out where to focus your search. If I didn't had that six years of experience to guide me, I wouldn't have been able to develop a working system this year.
Um... from reading your thread I tend to question the statement that your system is "working" "...when we last left our hero, he was down 110$ on five trades..." http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=205222&perpage=6&pagenumber=39 IMO (and don't take this the wrong way, but I know you will)... you do not have a working system. What you have is a losing system that you have convinced yourself is temporarily suffering some abnormalities, which you are trying to rationalize in order to convince yourself that "if I only tweaked this bit or that bit, it would be a winning system"... Whereas in reality you just cannot admit that spending 6 years trying to develop this 'system' was actually a waste of time. All IMO. g
You seem to forgot about my first winning streak in early August where my account grew from $700 to $2100 in two weeks and is documented here: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=187235&perpage=6&pagenumber=209 The system works great, but wasn't good enough to counter the disadvantages from being too under-capitalized. As people can see I was trying to trade with an account under $500. So right now, I'm in the process of rebuilding my capital base. If I could do what I did with $700, imagine what I could do with decent capitalization. And no, I didn't waste six years developing the system. Six years were spent dabbling with stocks as a swing trader. Most of what I'm using for day trading was developed during the last five months from May to October.
It took me a year and a half and about a 20k draw-down before I started being consistently profitable. Whether I've been on my game or it's just the markets doing their magic. I originally invested 5k and lost it, and then did get training and some coaching which was another 5k. I lost that too. It then took another 10k for me to develop my technique. Then I took 20k from another account and put it in prop. Trading was relatively easy, learning the business is the hard part. It's easy to be overcharged fees, not get full ECN rebates. Just learning what's worth what and how to get my costs down as low as possible. I think a large part of losing 15k was I was paying high fees and had some services I didn't really need.
Bullshitâ¦. X was not even a little bit cryptic â he is simply speaking in a language youâve yet to learn RN
Alright. I am going to explain why I think your system is not a winning system. Let's start with stages that a trader goes through... Stage 1: frequent losses, mostly losing trades. Most noobs start here for months to years. Stage 2: Mostly winning trades... say 4/5 trades are winners, but either poor money management, or averaging down, or just plain bad trades cause that 1 trade out of 5 to more than cancel out the winners. Some newer traders get here, but many give up in stage 1. You are likely in this stage. It is also in stage 2 that most newer traders spend trying to convince themselves that their 'system' is one tweak away from being a consistent winner. Most traders never get out of stage 2 Stage 3: Winning trades ($ value) outweigh losing trades ($ value). There may be more losing trades than winners, but the aggregate amount makes the system as a whole a winner. Now at what point can you say you are firmly in stage 3? Well, that is subjective. You definitely can't say it after 20 trades, imo... You probably need somewhere around 500 trades to 1000 trades where an independent observer could say "Yeah, that trader has finally made it". Not surprisingly, most traders never get to stage 3. If you look at your post that I am replying to, imo, it is fairly clear that your "system" has not proven itself to be a winning system. Sure, every system has it's run of wins and losses, and imo your run from 700 to 2100 was just a lucky aberration. Your system also has severe weaknesses if you can blow that 2100$ up (as you apparently did). That is why I say you are in stage 2. Will you ever make it to Stage 3? I don't know. But I think it is clear to independent observers that you are not there yet. g p.s. I don't know why you say undercapitalization is causing you to fail... what amount of starting capital do you think you will need? And how do you plan to get it? How much does your real job pay?
No, I understand what's he saying with those one word descriptions. Only because I can relate from experience. For newbies, one words are not enough to fully understand his meaning. Hence why I said he's being cryptic. I'm at the stage where the system design is finished. The next stage is to start testing it out with decent capitalization. Until then I'll use sim for a while. The system was design where one does not need huge capital to make good money. That is all I will say.
One word is sufficient as many â for no amount will ever provide the experience necessary to understand either's meaning We're just trying to help you, and all like you, survive in this business long enough so you can understand - then apply it Based on your journal - You still don't.... RN
Disagrees with jinxu... :eek: I appreciate xpurt's remarks and think they are good for newbies and non-newbies alike... if nothing, it was entertaining and a good read. for the record i've been on et since '08. Also disagrees with the remark on Edison. At one point, both Newton and Edison made a decision and took advantage of an opportunity. Just some random guy without any knowledge in physics or mathematics would be able to devise the laws newton came up with. Also, just any guy who randomly tested resistors would find the one material for the lightbulb. At some point, both these guys made a decision and imo, found their way based on more than "pure chance or luck".
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=<B>29</b>97546#post2997546 the url has 29 in the postid, and 29 in the post href, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Answer= means u an idiot