Yeah Brandon, I realize that I should really tone down my optimism and play it safe.... What was your experience trading for the first year if you dont mind sharing? Did you trade retail or at a prop firm? Thanks!
Seeing a stock on a constant plus tick and going with it is called momentum trading. I've been doing momentum scalping since December of 06 and I must have traded every possible momentm strategy. Trust me it's not that easy. The whole point of this game is consistency. I was green in month 5, month 7, month 9, month 11. I remember this kid who was green month 2, 3, 4, 5!! He was very good at momentum trading. He was extremely disciplined. He was humble, but he thought in month 4 that he had it figured out and it was kind of easy. I was so very jealous because he didn't have any of the emotional issues I had, and he never broke his discipline. He followed the rules he was told to follow, and he saw the setups early on, and made money. He's no longer in the business. In his final months, he was having trouble cutting his losers quickly, he was fighting stocks, and he was revenge trading. It wasn't until my 17th month that I could begin a streak of more than 3 consecutive months, (I had 10), which ended when last month ended - 2600 (i traded 1/3rd the month). Nonetheless I must go back to the basics. Once you learn to string positive days together, which you can't do yet, you will need to be able to string positive weeks togethers. Once you have your first few streaks of those, you may or may not have a positive month. However, just because you have a few positive months doesn't mean shit. Only multiple positive years means anything, and even then, if one bad year can put you out of the business, you still haven't "made it."
I was unfortunate to have early success. Unfortunate only because I got greedy and thought I had it all figured out. I knew nothing about Money Management, Risk Management, etc. My first 10 months Retail/FT trading, in 2003 I was profitable. I just knew I could do it. And frankly it was just too easy. Then BAMM, I blow up my account. Back to the drawing board I went. So for me I was killed in my first year by Money Management, Risk Management and lack of Capital (For your eventual for Drawdowns/Diversification)
The first 2 weeks I traded on a cumbersome sim platform(it was TOS) that is horrible for futures trading. I swear to you guys, I averaged a 500 dollars per day/per contract somehow? I was just using HH/HLs, fib retracements, and Keltner bands. Buy first pullback on every trend I saw. At this time I knew not too much about how futures moved, nor was I used to them. I had no good exit strategy. In TOS, at the time, you could see your P/L as the future moved. I literallly got my entry, then switched from the chart to the P/L screen, and exited when I thought the P/L was high enough, and when the P/L started dissapating more than I'd like. Looking back I can chuckle about it. I was thinking I could do this everyday? This was about 2 years ago.
WOW. Talk about what happens when you get too overconfident and fight reality. "Revenge trading" lol, first class idiotism, but I'm pretty sure most, including me, would be susceptible to something that. Thanks for the heads up!!
Thanks for sharing lucky! I see how the same could happen to me at some point in the future, it's all up to me though to make sure it won't! So now taht you're more cautious and knowledgeable, you're prolly much more consistent profit and emotionally wise?
Thanks for sharing man. I also saw the P/L move as the stock moved. That was the most exciting part for me lol. How about now if you dont mind sharing? You're still in futures or you trade equities too?
It's easy when you are winning, no pressure, no big deal. It gets infinitely harder when you don't have a job, and the market is the only way you can make money. Having a small stake won't help any. Then every once in awhile, you will be tested, you will know that one mf'ing trade that is just dead set on killing you. From the moment you hit that entry button, it starts to run against you. If you fight it, and hold on praying it will come back, then that when it has you by the balls, and you end up losing big on that 1 trade whether it just nosedives away from you or you compound the problem by averaging down. Then the fear will take over, and you will start second guessing everything, and looking for the holy grail. As part of your new system development, you will filter out all the bad trades, but also the good trades. You will be a discipline freak because you know the consequences of not following rules. And this is where people are stuck in perpetually until they find an edge. And this is why it takes so long because edges are not easily identified, especially by a newbie. And most of the time, every system snake oil salesman is luring you to some unprofitable system, and everyone has their own opinion of what the right way to trade is. You have to wade through all that garbage. Some take a few months, while others take years, or never. In trading, the amount of time you put in does not equal success, it does involve work, but also a lot of luck, intelligence, and discipline. So maybe momentum trading is your thing, you may be the lucky few that is successful from the start. Just know that at one stage or another, you will go through what I just wrote. And after all that if you make it there, then you have a chance.
Yep, consistent now (Mainly because of my diversification). I dont know about emotionally wise though.