This guy is trading the Es on the simulator, so there is no liquidity issue if you buy the ask and sell the bid. That will make it a little tougher to become profitable and that's when the emotions come into play.
This might not be the right forum for this but you asked and this is one guys opinion..... traderkay, I can smyphothise, simpothize, simpo..understand your dilema. I have been there as most who have traded sims have been. I am fully convinced that trading is 90% phychgological and method is only 10%. Let me reccomend a different simulator http://www.futures-trader.net/ This will allow you to trade real-time simulation with trades being hit at the appropriate time. i.e. If you put in a limit at the bid you most likely will not get a fill until the offer is there. Markets however are filled at the nex trade. I have found that one to be the best simulator I have ever used. Playbacks have the inherent drawback of - you know what the market has already done. The real battle is in the mind and the knowledge that YOUR methodology is in fact a money winner. For many years I knew my system was a winner - but I felt that I didn't have the money in my account to find out, (and I really didn't) so I get selective on the trades and select the losers, then not take the next trade and so on and so on..... Then I did the unthinkable - I BORROWED money (credit card - transfered to 0% card for just over a year), then I thought I could take all the signals and make the money the sims told me I could make. And it worked! I haven't done quite as good as the sims, but I am profitable. It was all in the mind, and I refuse to accept this defeat. I am trading the same system with real $ as with the sim - but I have the confidence to take the signals - just because I can take the few losers and still hang in there. Make 'em pretty, Chris
What do we watch and listen for? Too many opposing views, ideas, or styles which might all be correct or profitable in the infinite scheme of things. pretzel
Yes and no, I've learned to take the counter trend at a further distance away from the 20, to keep losers to a smaller %. But mostly I am learning to take continuation trades (in the direction of the 20). I am however concentrating on the ZB and ZN as it has always been where I make my money; just wanted to play in the ES as I thought that was where the big boys play and if I could do it there then I would have "arrived", but I haven't been able to do as well as I would like and thus do it mostly late in the day. Thanks for asking, Chris
I remember when I first started visiting All Tech in 1996 or 1997 and I used their simulator. They had a guy in their home office in New Jersey who would handle the simulators running at all the branch offices. About 95% of the time you'd get filled and every now and then they'd fire a message back like "the market has moved above your price" or "no market makers left to SOES" etc. In any event it was fun to watch the markets move in real time prior to actually commiting capital and starting to trade. And I never knew anyone who lost money on the simulators ... heck, that was a big way to recruit new traders ... where the aspiring traders had a false sense of security.
I lost $$$$ in the simulator before starting for real cash. I tend to show lack of discipline when I trade simulation and more discipline with real $$$$. I'm part of the 10% that loses. I'm not good at masterb*ting but I'm good with the real deal. LOL Trend
Do ES. It is liquid and makes money every day. Quietly look at several bar durations. To make this reponse more helpful I will suggest one to look at. If i didn't you would actually choose one to focus upon. Do the 5 min. Only use price and volume. See that the days go by in a repeatable manner.
Observe these daily items: Activity. See the day begin with it and see it resume. Inactivity. May be you will tune to either price or volume but at some point you will see that there is a connection. This connection is well defined. To get the connection you can either watch enough or you can listen to the standard statement. Either way, you have the necessary breakthrough for designing anything you want and it will make money for you. What this represents is how people and the market connect. If you continue to watch, you will see that the market goes through changes in an orderly manner and doesn't just jump around. This might lead you to make lists of the market going through changes. Native Americans plant corn this way. Because you are watching on a scale and pace of 5 min bars, you will see that most days you have 3 to five list completions. One of the list could be making the high. Another making a low. there will be a list for trend beginnings and a list for trend ends. another good list is how a non trend moves along. I've watched traderkay blow it for months now. It is rare that she makes a comment that actually involves a sequence that occurs in the market as she doesn't see it yet. If you find out that the middle of the day is not active, then you know that after the inactivity, the market will do something in the afternoon. Set up a bracket entry and take the trade the market begins for you. it mightbe possible to observe that after the low volume period ends, the volume picks up then the price moves. You might watch and see that when the volume gets up to a good level, then the market price trends. It bumps into your order. On the other hand there are failures to breakout because the volume poops out. The prices do not get to your orders. This kind of elementary watching will lead you to understand the P, V relation. When you do know this fundamental thing, you can see that all formations follow the relationship after a while. By watching, you do learn. If you listen to people who are actually describing the market only and howthe market works, you can catch on to stuff. traderkay is a learn by rote person. she lerned arithematic from a teacher who said do this do that. she never got to the place where she came to understand that arithematic is different for each numeric base and that arithematic is something that deals with the coefficients of a power series that is relate to a specific base. You can imagine how hard it was for civilizations to invent the place holding concept. before that, no civilization had a form of algebra. The Mayans wre very accurate guys but they went astray by changing bases once they could count the days of a year accurately. What will traderkay ever do to break her spinning along repeating failure. It appears to me she is going to have to watch and listen at some point to begin to use her potential. It isn't nice to be left out all the time.