About myself. Everytime I look at a chart I'm looking for a reversal point to profit from. This is probably a big part of why I've struggled for so long. Of course it's not the answer to all my trading problems but I do feel it's made my trading life more difficult. I seem to have to force myself to look for trending opportunities. I'd like to develop a system where I can catch pieces of a trend as opposed to the turning point.
It always sounds so obvious when you've had a bad day and then everyone chimes in with how you need to 'follow the trend'. I guess it also depends on the characteristics of the instument that you are trading. I know a few good ES traders who are constantly fading the intraday trends and do very well. In my experience, if i 'go with the trend', i am always buying at about the high tick and then watch myself get stopped out, but tend to do quite well picking tops and bottoms, personally. Do what works for you.
The problem is, you don't seem to be very good at finding reversals. Some days, not the norm, the mkt will trend very hard in either direction. The majority of the days though, the mkt will oscillate around, showing good reversal points at least several times per day. Reversal trading works VERY well, especially in index futures. I'm sure you gravitated towards reversals because of the idea of quick money when you are right. This is very true, however you need to actually be very good at reading mkt signals. Something I believe you need to work on it seems