Background: I'm a price action trader looking for small time frame price swings (5 - 30 minutes). I'm keeping my eye on all the common things like EUR / ES / OIL / Dollar Index / TICK / TRIN / Key Stocks. I don't have any lagging indicators so I'm purely trying to trade on a discretionary basis. I admit it... I don't know how far a rally will go, or, how deep a reaction could get. What I *can* somewhat recognize is when their are firm sellers / buyers or the market bias has changed. Of course: even these sellers / buyers are mostly cautious about trying to fade something that - for example - has only gone up for the last 2 hours. ..And sometimes the structure of the market makes different things happen. p.s: I don't want to get into a "how to forecast the future" dialog here. My Problem: When the top/bottom seems to be set, and others traders are competing on the other side of the market (i.e change of direction happened)... At this stage I *really* want to join the rally / reaction but I'm scared witless that what I'm seeing is just another pause before the prior trend resumes. As a small time spec; I'm scared of a snap back that will hit my stop. In the end I don't take many of the best trades... Much to my chagrin. Yes! I'd like to be able to call the top, but in reality, every single tick up could be interpreted as the "final" tick that defines the high of the day, at the time. Can anyone relate to all this ? It seems that most people just depend on some "magic" system. Wow! I'd like a magic system, but I also know, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd deviation will just kill the system so much.
you don't know how to trade you don't have a plan not the one that's tested You are afraid because you know you have no edge, you don't even know that stops have to be held on your PC not on broker's or exchange you need 10 000 hours of experience and testing. THIS THREAD IS CLOSED as far as I am concerned
You are very rude. Even so, your post gives me the opportunity to add some more material that a may aid any debate. "you don't know how to trade" Well apart from knowing to buy low and sell high; I still have much to learn. "you don't have a plan" If you mean 'the market is at 100, I will buy at 90 and sell at 110'... Then, I don't have that type of plan. But I do have a set stop and take profit limit order. "You are afraid because you know you have no edge, you don't even know that stops have to be held on your PC not on broker's or exchange" Well I don't work for GS! As for your second blurb.. no comment but it reveals much about your level. "you need 10 000 hours of experience and testing" Well I have 3,000 hours of screen time and have doubled my capital in those two years. 10,000 hours ? - That's very many years you know!!? "THIS THREAD IS CLOSED as far as I am concerned" OK BYE. Any other board members care to add anything constructive ? Thanks.
By that statement alone, it sounds like your problem, possibly and likely among others, is that you're trading too many shares at a time and you cannot stomach the risk. Reduce your size until you can accept that risk in stride without flinching. How often would you say that you are actually correct on market direction, yet you're just too scared to pull the trigger, and you witness the market do exactly what you thought it would do, only without you in it?
Greetings NW, find below a response I have used twice before. But I think you will find the words are still very much applicable to your situation. Good luck on your journey. Copied from ET Thread titled: Day trading Difficulties Let me add my 2 cents into the mix, to give you âsomething elseâ you may want to think about. I have stated this same idea before in other threads. The fact that; âtrading is a game that takes place inside your headâ. Its not you against the market, its just you reflecting who you are in the market. Now before you mentally tune me out, concluding that Iâm about to indulge you in some âhalf baked psychobabbleâ, please open your mind to hear me out, for I do not intend to go there. The fact of the matter is that the market just transmits ticks. Thatâs essentially all it does. The game being played, and the meaning assigned to those ticks resides inside âyourâ head. So therefore, you donât see the market as it really is,â¦but as you really are, which is, the sum total of your own market knowledge and experience at the current moment. What else could it be? From my perspective, I do not believe that you have a âpatience problemâ per se. As I see it, you have a consistency problem that is affecting your âpatienceâ. I believe you are allowing what is basically a doable technical analysis risk control problem, to stand in the way of your maintaining the consistency necessary for your success. As I see it, in your specific case, you have created your game unwittingly, in that you were not cognizant of the consequences of your initial choices for your game, technical or otherwise. You built your method unaware that there were âconsequencesâ to every choice you made. So now, if the game that âyou have unwittingly createdâ confuses you, guess who âbuilt inâ that confusion? Remember, the market just transmits ticks. The game you create with those ticks is inside of your head. You see, the confusion is not coming from the market. You created your own market experience by your choices! The market is simply reflecting back to you the consequences of your choices. But all is not lost. The best part is that, now, being conscious and fully cognizant of the types of choices you make, you can just as easily remove the confusion, doubt, and fear, anytime you desire. Decide right now to improve the quality of your market choices. Right now, you can just as easily say to yourself; âIâm going to create a game that I can win over time, that is easy for me to execute, and that doesnât confuse me, or engender fear and doubt, in the processâ. Notice how an "internal decision" to improve the quality, will now affect the technical choices that you will now make "externally". It comes from within! You are not trying to get something from the market, you resolve to reflect who you are in the market. As a start, just take a look at the chart âyou choseâ in your last submission. Since, I believe you are using the âstructure of the marketâ in your decision making, just take a look at what that âstructureâ, on this chart is "speaking to you" during the day. It is changing its bias and direction so frequently, that, in your own words; "the chart leaves you full of fear, doubt, and indecision". Confident decisionmaking is virtually impossible with this kind of structural basis. Remember, you did this to yourself by the unwitting choices you made when you chose this chart! From what I can see, you have chosen a main action chart, that is âspeaking to youâ much too often, and in indecisive terms. In one minute, it is telling you that the bias is up, then the next minute, itâs telling you that it is down. I donât believe that this is a personal problem with your patience. This is a problem with the âmarket experienceâ you have unwittingly created for yourself. As one technical suggestion, in order to improve your market "read", if you were to move this bar chart systematically to an incrementally Higher Time Frame (HTF), I believe a âuseable realityâ would soon appear. One that provides you with the âreadâ consistency you desire, and at the same time, provides you with the decisiveness you seek. It will âspeakâ to you, in a manner that you can readily apply! Then you can use the timeframe that you currently have on this chart for risk mitigation upon entry. But,....you only allow the HTF chart to do the talking to you. The sole purpose of the LTF is for risk mitigation, once the HTF chart has spoken,.....that is it. In making these types of qualitative improvements, you will have thereby âcreatedâ for yourself a consistent game that you can win over time. One that is well within your comfort zone, because you have built âyour comfort zoneâ into the method. Since you will now be decisive, and playing a winning game, the market will merely reflect this fact back to you in the results you seek. Just my opinion. KDASFTG
this is all bull$hit he didn't come here to learn he came here to vent if he was willing to learn he wouldn't have ignored THE MOST important line in my post "not the one that's tested" the dude is a beginner trader and those of you who don't see that are beginner traders yourself you either get serious or you fall in this gig, thats it I am done
You're scared because you are competing in a timeframe where most moves and patterns are random. Only in longer timeframes, like hours or days you can get patterns that are not that random. In your timeframe your emotions and limited skills compete against the skills of professional traders who are better informed than you are. You got no chance if you do not increase you timeframe. You will always be scared and size traders will always take your stops and profit at your expense.
ChDong This man came to this forum looking for help,......and this is how you respond to someone in need? Who are you to judge what his personal circumstances are, or his current state of mind? As the market is a merciless mirror of what is inside of each of us, so too are your comments a direct reflection of who you are as a person. For your own personal sake, I suggest that you get "some help" as soon as possible, before you eat yourself alive, from the inside out. You have already demonstrated to the world who you are,.....and anyone can see that it is not a pretty picture. I wish you well in your recovery. KDASFTG
Discretionary trading is not for you based on your post.You are trading your emotions , not the market. Devise a rule based system like this http://www.oileryouknow better.com
If you trade price action, what do tops and bottoms have to do with anything? Can you elaborate a bit by posting a chart where you saw a trade setup for one of your "best trades" but you hesitated and missed it? If you're scared of price hitting your stop, then the trade is either outside your defined trading plan or the setup isn't yet clean enough that the stop you want to use makes sense. That happens to me a lot; there's a valid setup, but the price at which it will be triggered means my maximum stop loss (per my trading plan) isn't "survivable" (meaning the S/R level whose breach would invalidate the setup is deeper than my max allowable stop). My trading plan provides for three choices in those instances: 1. If the position is in the direction of a well-defined trend, I can take a 1st entry and place my max stop because chances of it being hit are low. 2. Alternatively, I can wait for a 2nd entry where the price action on a smaller time frame sets up a higher low or lower high to use as a tighter stop. Downside is in a solid trend 2nd chances to enter may never come. 3. If there's no well-defined trend in my time frame, I always wait for a 2nd entry setup and if no such setup occurs, then I miss the trade.