QT, You took the correct first step by putting a hold on trading(and losing). Alot of trades try to "revenge trade" and get back at the market....thinking the market is "out to break me". You took the next step by searching out some help to understand how the markets, and tradng, work. If you are following Nodoji's thread, a somewhat new trader who is giving great insight on both technical and mental aspects of trading, I think the MOST IMPORTANT(and most basic) thing to take from her thread is this: Go look at all of her trades this year.......99% SHORTS Look at what the markets have been doing this year........ Keeping things very basic can be one of the biggest breakthroughs a trader can make. No one ever said being on the rght side of the market was a bad thing. And when the markets are in an uptrend I BET YOU Nodoji will take 99% longs. Sometimes simplifying makes things much easier to see.
agree with trading the direction of the market (to the short side), so keep following the indexes and sentiment of each day/week. other than that, try trading smaller, like 500 shares instead of 1000 of SPY with a wider stop. dont be afraid of the L2, maybe watch it to get a feel of how Price Action moves (if you really feel the need to continue scalping). if you're looking for 10-15 cents on these moves you need to be confident in your entries and a master of PA. and if you're trying to pick bottoms (on down days)that go against you for 30 cents (ie $300 loss to you), you're on the wrong side, and need to be more patient. experiment with 3 min and 5 min charts. with 500 shares you could set a 30cent stop and only lose $150. use bracketed conditional orders with BOTH a hidden stop and a limit upper target. then adjust stops and limits ONLY when they go your way. agree that reading NoDoji and Geez's journal could help you, but look at how their styles differ and see if you can take something from each. goodluck!
I thank you all sincerely for your posts. Please keep them coming "QT, You took the correct first step by putting a hold on trading(and losing). Alot of trades try to "revenge trade" and get back at the market....thinking the market is "out to break me"." I know what you mean! Yes, I thought the right thing to do was take a break here, regroup and study a bit more. The market will be there later on.. there's no sense in continuing what I've been doing, since it wasn't working out. I need to focus more on what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.. and honestly, since I'm trading from home with no one to watch/learn from or bounce ideas off of, this board is invalueable for me. I'm glad I know about it! I now see that I have been on the wrong side of the market the past months. Swimming with the tide should help in the future. So I have definitely learned that from the forum- thank you. Elit- Thank you for posting those links- I read through that thread last night to about 4am. That was a long one- and I'll admit, I'm not 100% clear on everything that was said- I'm particularly foggy on the swing low/swing high picking details- but I will study up on that more. The waves concept makes sense to me- I just need to get faster/better at seeing which ones give the entry signal. However those posts definitely opened my eyes to "macro direction" ..that will be a big improvement for me I'm sure. I trade stocks, and I threw a 240 WMA up on my longer term chart of the stock I trade (mostly SPY) I'm not sure if thats exactly how I should apply what jjrvat was doing to my own setup, but it does seem to dictate a general market direction that I didn't see before.. or just wasn't paying attention to. The other stuff, about the fast WMA and the up/down waves will take some practice. I tried to get my charting software to do color-changing MA's but I couldn't get Quotetracker to do it. I'd love to have that though, so if anyone knows how do to it with QT please let me know. So will certainly focus more on price action, as that will help me get a better sense of when my setups are really occuring, rather than getting false signals and fakes. RE: the 240 WMA- should I just plot that out over a 3min chart to get a sense of the general direction for the day? That seemed to be the basic idea- using it as a visual guide to indicate "macro direction" .. am I getting that right?
agree with trading the direction of the market (to the short side), so keep following the indexes and sentiment of each day/week. other than that, try trading smaller, like 500 shares instead of 1000 of SPY with a wider stop. dont be afraid of the L2, maybe watch it to get a feel of how Price Action moves (if you really feel the need to continue scalping). if you're looking for 10-15 cents on these moves you need to be confident in your entries and a master of PA. and if you're trying to pick bottoms (on down days)that go against you for 30 cents (ie $300 loss to you), you're on the wrong side, and need to be more patient. experiment with 3 min and 5 min charts. with 500 shares you could set a 30cent stop and only lose $150. use bracketed conditional orders with BOTH a hidden stop and a limit upper target. then adjust stops and limits ONLY when they go your way. agree that reading NoDoji and Geez's journal could help you, but look at how their styles differ and see if you can take something from each. goodluck! Thank you for you advice Builder Those are all good ideas- and I will take your advice when I start trading again, and will use smaller lots. No sense in jumping back in with everything I've got. I will take it slower and smaller and go from there with the new info I will take away from forum. I will also try using the bracketed orders and execute more thought out trades (having the stop and the target already in place when I enter) Good point that a 30 cent loss on a 500 share lot is only a $150 loss. That does take the pressure off. What I need to do is get better with PA and pick better entries. Re: the L2- I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do with it- what I would be looking for, and what i should be seeing. I'm really a complete rookie when it comes to L2. I've used it in the past, but it always just seemed like a colorful box with lots of prices flying around that would soemtimes just disappear, and never really grasped how it could help me. Any feedback there is greatly appreciated. I will post some charts and probably some more questions later today- thanks everyone
hi Qt the basic concepts are in the first five pages of this thread. just review them often until u feel u can explain the same concepts to a friend without trying. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113456&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 and keep watching these videos over and over for price action. i know u have to deal with his britt accent http://www.surefire-trading.com/blog/videos/price-action/PriceAction-2.html
Aloha mate... (Soz that i havent read all the stuff ove rthe last few pages, but it was just way wayy too many thousands of words for my tired brain and eyes, after a long tiring day). If you want a really easy to learn and use, low risk - high reward -high probability method though hopefully this topic will help you.. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=152873 I created it specially to help traders who are struggling with the 'method' of trading. In trading knwoing the method is the easy part, its the mental pyschology that really cripples you... :/ But hopefully the topic will give you an easy and effective stratergy that you can try out and see how it works for you... Goodluck mate.
Thanks for the links guys- i will definitely check them out- looks like I've got some reading for tonight this is also an extremely difficult period to pick to try and be successful in the markets... That's actually good to hear, because it explains a few things. Looking back at the past 2 months, if I had been more disciplined with my stops (as suggested here) I would most likely be slightly in the green, or perhaps a little in the red, but I wouldn't be below $25k thats for sure. It was a handful of trades that went really bad, and I held way too long out of fear/stubborness that did me in. I've actually had been trading better than usual (for me) - so the fact that I was doing that in a tricky market in encouraging.. but really it doesnt matter if I'm not being profitable, I obviously still need to get my head around alot more stuff..