iceman, Rest assured my Mother did teach me manners and i have responded and thanked Bombadier and the others as well. As far as my lack of success afer a year i'll forgo the discussion of objective goals and different measures of success and simply say, past performance is not neccesarily indicative of future results. THANK YOU
with all due respect... YES IT IS ! Unless you make a meaningful change - WHAT changes have you made in ONE YEAR??! I bet you cannot articulate any! But it usually takes most a long long time to accept that reality. Kind of like watching the show Intervention. Gotta suffer enough before you wake up from the illusion of addiction ! Just trying to help. But what do I know after 25 years. Here is what you said over ONE year ago. Why have you not made it over the hurdle yet. The markets this year presented TONS and TONS of opportunities! Short Long and sideways! You could still be holding NQ and ES from a few months ago and still be profitable. 11-16-10 05:29 PM "Hey Traders, Like many i feel I'm close to becoming a more consistent , profitable trader. Still, i can't quite make it over the hurdle." Bro, let me explain what gambling is to a trader: It is making RANDOM rewards (gains) and then from that creating the delusion that this represents real progress! You get random rewards playing craps, too! But that does mean you know what the dice are going to do on any given roll! Write that down.
Many thanks, iceman1. That was quite an accolade. I'm amused about your comparisons to craps Sadly, it is true. Traders are too often deceived into false beliefs of consistency. The market is a master in tricking the average trader. If something cannot be told in words convincingly enough, let me illustrate my metaphor in a simple picture. Took me a little time, but I hope you get the idea even better with this. We are not bashing anyone, just here giving some precious advice that will help the rookie skip the hardship of massive losses. One important job of a mentor is to put a mirror in front of the trader to show what energy is put into relative insignificance in terms of the overall perspective. See the forest for the trees.
With all due respect to Jas....You guys can preach all day long..., but newbies will be newbies. Then after enough pain, and screen time, they'll get it. If they're still into it, that is. But it seems like Jas has what it takes to make it, so good luck. Schaefer
I don't know Jas but hey he's only been in the journal for 1 year. How long did it take the pros here to become profitable consistently? I'd say if he can't get it together after 5-8 years, then hound him. Even the most elite gurus here where people worshiped them to death and are always missed here have admitted to very painful beginnings and blew through their bank accounts except they didn't make journal entries about them. 95% of traders don't make it but I suspect it's because they get blown out in the beginning and give up. At least he's hanging in there unlike someone promoting and talking up un-tested products based on backtesting and paper trades. Hopefully people won't be hounding me on my journal in a year or I can actually survive for that long.. LOL I think it's easy for those who are used to making money to forget how tough it was and all the second guessing they did when they started. From the looks of his chart, he knows what he did wrong. Wasn't that trade a profitable one for him? As long as he was profitable. Looks like he missed some opportunities but they'll arise again. He just needs to be consistent and eventually mechanical with it. Just my two cents.
Iceman, Yes, it's a fine line between positive self talk and denial. If you're offering me a reality check then thank you (sincerely). i certainly do question my progress as well at times. As far as changes; i'm always reviewing and keeping notes. Some of which end up in this journal, some don't. Suffice it to say i've got a list of areas to work on. Are they meaningful changes ? To me they are. We'll see. Hmm, maybe next year if still no improvement then i'll just try trading like i play craps. With a Jack on the rocks instead of coffee.
Bombardier, thank you again. Impressive chart both from a trading perspective and from a how-do-you-cut-and-paste-all-that ? perspective. Certainly swing trading has it's own set of hurdles; albeit on a less hurried time frame. Too soon for me to throw in the towel on this time frame but you've got me thinking. Schaefer & Sfbayarea, Thank you both for your post. Very much appreciated.
Although, it may seem as though there are a lot more opportunities (ie quick money) in the 1 min time frame, it's harder to manage. Prices move too quickly. By the time you set up your limit order or get in your market order to exit, the price has already moved past or reversed. Unless you have a computer algorithm or you are extremely quick on the draw, I would recommend going to a higher time frame. That's just judging from my experience. But what do I know? I'm only 2 months in. LOL
After reading your notes on your chart, I think you are making a very big mistake to ignore the larger trend at work. Just because you are an intraday trader, that does not mean you can ignore them. I can tell you right now that the big money (or professional money as I like to call them) put their emphasis on the larger trends at work, not on the intraday action. So first you need to understand market bias from the perspective of the larger trends. The 60 min and daily chart being the focus here. In the 60 min chart I hope it is quite clear to you that the trend, bias, whatever you want to call it, is down. If it's not clear to you, let me know and I can explain in more detail. So in your long trade, you were playing against the trend, which is ok if you understand the need to get in early. But you got in after price had already ran up 40 handles and approaching resistance. Look at wednesdays action and tell me you don't see sellers stepping in at the 2183-2185 area. Then think about why your long trade is a losing proposition. Now to those people that only trade the 60 min or longer time frames, thats great, I'm happy you guys are making money. But Jas has decided he wants to trade intraday, so if you don't have anything to say that will be helpful to his trading, why bother... I mean why try to force your own trading style onto someone else?