Well, after 52 pages of content this may get lost but trading can be as easy as this. There are two types of markets. Volatile and non-volatile and the volatility or lack of volatility is concentrated within a certain time period, which you have to assess. Let's go back to 2007 and 2008. On a daily basis and intra-day the markets were all over the place. Trying to "time" this type of market is next to impossible. I used a money management, multi-entry, very wide stop method (not easy to do -- very hard on the heart) and made more money in 2008 than I made in 2009, 2010, and so far 2011 combined. I made about 90% of my money in the first 2 hours. Trend following and tight stops didn't work. There was no trend and putting in a close stop is like sticking your neck out with the Guillotine in the raised position. Fast forward to current day. No volatility, surf's up. I generally wait for the first hour to pass to assess direction but lately I've just been buying at the open and letting it ride. The market goes up every friggin day. Don't over analyze. Just buy until this method stops working. Looking back at 2009, I still used my counter move method that I was using in 2008 and started getting fried. I made the mistake of ignoring the radical drop in my volatility measurement tool. Light bulb goes on. It was time to go back to pre-2007 methods. That's basically where we're at. Keep buying until that stops working. When that happens, stop and re-assess. Has anything happened to change the character of the markets? Here's a hint. It comes in the form of news. Surf's up baby. Buy the open, go take a nap. If the first trigger don't work, be patient. You'll get another. And to all this bullshit about HFT killing day trading. That's complete garbage. The market hasn't changed a bit. If anything, HFT is helping the trader by putting liquidity out there. This is just another excuse for a loser to use. "It's not a level playing field. HFT'ers have the advantage." What advantage?? How does a sub-second entry of less than a penny hurt you?
Sounds like a good plan. They key is to find the balance between stop size and winning percentage and sim is a great place to do that while risking zero. I have never traded nq. 1 year in YM and 5 years in ES. I wish you well and my pm box is always open if you have questions or need any help.
Thanks for contributing. Do you have a stop loss somewhere? thanks. I agree, HFT is not the issue here at all.
Best Loser, I`ve been reading many of your posts and I identify with a lot of what you write. Just like you, I`ve swinged a size that`s been too big for me in the learning phase. It seems wise of you to take a break from live trading. I`d recommend you to start doing an end of day bar by bar analysis like NoDoji has written about over and over again. It`s an exercise I`ve neglected myself due to time contraints, but now that I`m also taking a break, even from sim trading, I will do this religiously. I`m also considering a new market myself, but I want to make sure I don`t use it as an excuse instead of not confronting my real errors. The NQ does not seem to trade that much differently from ES. I believe the ES is perfectly tradeable, but CL might offer more opportunities and better risk/reward on average. Good luck now! Best regards, LF
LF, thanks for stopping by and I\\\'m planning to continue doing bar by bar analysis. The plan is to find the trade, put stop loss and target cover and then study price action. NQ is a bit smother then ES less fake outs and it\\\'s smaller $ per tick.
I\\\'m still hear, was taking a little break from trading, still setting up my new trading software, but just for emg sim trade: long 3NQ if we break 95.75 of DB on 5 min. stop 86. Target 96.75
actually moving buy stop to 2296. Need to wait for confirmation before jumping on a long trade. So far no confirmation.
in emg tradition - trade canceled. new low for the day invalidates the set up. waiting for the confirmation saved my ass. thanks for the lesson from to NoDoji!