This is especially the case with bonds which sometimes only move 10 ticks in a day. I'm afraid of position trading over days because I may wake up one morning to find we are limit down in bonds. Then my career could be over in one shot. How do you avoid the risk of inter-day gaps in price? Actually this may be a moot point since I can trade bonds 24/7.
I think I am the definition of persistence. I don't think I'll ever give up on this. I thank you for your positive comments
First a prop shop would only know about the loss if you TELL THEM. DO NOT TELL THEM Instead if I was you and your goal was to trade with a prop shop I would close my account at your firm. Then I would open a new account at another firm. Trade for 3 months with the goal of showing consistency. Then use this account to show prop shops.
I decided that bonds would be easier to trade because you can know how they will move when economic numbers come out. Strong economy ==> bond decline.....weak economy==bonds rise. That was my thinking when I decided on a product to trade. Since the US recently reissued 30-years I expected there to be volatility in this security. Being the most liquid security out there, I thought the bids and asks would always be tight. Those were my reasons. Being more of a momentum trader, I think I may need to trade something else. [/QUOTE] When looking for a product to day trade it is usually to your advantage to find products which have their daily average true range(ATR) rising. This is happening in the Index futures arena, commodity arena(gold, crude oil, etc). Sadly, for you the opposite is occurring in the Bond market. I personally know a lot of Bond traders who are leaving the business or learning to trade other products.
Strong economy ==> bond decline.....weak economy==bonds rise. Just how exactly is this a strategy for day trading? Do you have the economy on some sort of oscillator to overlay on your 30yr bond charts? If I were you, I would look into trading the YM. Just like nearly every other poster has suggested, trade one contract at a time. At $5 per tick, your $8K would hopefully last you a while. And use stops. 5 ticks, 10 ticks, whatever. Limit your losses.
oh god I hope you're still not looking to make it all back "500 at a time". Everything that needs to be said to you, Truth, has already been said. It is up to you to decide if you will listen or not. From the tone of your postings, I think you'll not, until the 8000 you have left is 0. I find it a tad ironic that your name is TruthSeeker, yet you seem to be so obvlivious to your impending doom if you continue your current trading strategy. You, my friend, are a gambler. It's ok. I used to be one too... I also learned the very hard way, in fact, and am still paying for it (literally). Look. Most of us have been there when we started... seems everyone has a blown-account story to tell about... the thing about your SOB story right now is that you have dozens of people yelling at you to stop before your account is fully blown. I know that that 30k must have seemed a lot to you. But it is a sunk cost. No matter what you do now or in the future that 30k is gone. Your actions therefore should not be 'how do I make back that 30k asap' but how to manage in the best way the 8k you have left. My advise to you, since you don't even seem to know what vehicle you'd like to trade or why, is to stop trading. Yes. STOP TRADING and take some time to learn a bit. Study risk and money management religiously. Positive Expectancy is your friend. Read some books and get different viewpoints on trading, and learn about the different vehicles available to trade. If you decide to stick with 10yr or 30yr or whatever, great. But you should pick the vehicle that suits your trading style. Your current trading style has negative expectancy... as reflected by your bankroll. For some reason or another... IT DOES NOT WORK. So stop using it. You might do well to identify things that have worked, but also things that don't work... and possibly build off of that, but it seems to me that you have no risk management strategy, so that would be what I would focus on. Do as you wish. I have a gut feeling that no matter what you post on this board about 'seeing the light', you're going to try to shoot the lights out with that last 8k. It's fine. Some of us have to learn the very hard way. Gamblers mentality does that to you. Just don't look back cuz we'll all be here, saying 'told you so.'
funniest thing is he insists wantin' to average into losers just to avoid sufferin' immediate losses....wonder with this strategy in mind how on earth he's gonna learn to cut his losers quick'n'contain his drawdowns....not a chance.
I read that somtime ago, about staying in the game long enough to learn it. That's why with my piker 5k account, I shoot for approx $100 a day, but will take $50 or whatever the market with offer to me. I have already been down TS' road and I don't want to go back.