stop trading and it takes a long time to find a viable plan and even longer to develop confidence in it. don't forget to buy lotto every week too, just in case you dont make it in trading.
In the stock market nothing is what it seems... I would not hold onto this belief. Believe in the price action, it is all around you and the only thing you need.
um, this seems fairly obvious to me. Why don't you just trade on the days with fairly obvious trends, the days you have decided to throw out, and not trade on all the others. Please check the lingo you use as well, there is no such thing as "the sp500 curve," I am assuming you are talking about a chart. In finance, the only curve is the interest rate curve, which shows the difference between short and long term maturities. 5yr
Go to Strategyrunner.com or Pfgbest.com and register to practice on a simulated account. It's $30 or $40 a month and well worth it. On your trading platform , put a 9 , 20 and 50 exponential moving average .This will help give structure to the price movement .It's a visual tool .Practice the reversal of trade by putting your chart on a 3 minute mode and waiting for these 3 averages to cross. The longer time frames like 3 and 5 minutes will prevent you from putting many trades in the day, but it will be a lot safer. If you want to observe price for a few minutes put your MACD at 3,10,16 . For trends longer than an hour leave it at the standard 12,26,9. When you practice , be patient and consistent ;ask yourself what is it that you see that makes you want to place a trade. This will help you when you have a live account so you can repeat the same pattern. On 11/12/09 the day that you posted , if you put your e-mini S&P chart in 3 minute time frame , you will see that right after 10 am CST , there was a reversal . I am an amateur, so that would be my only trade for that day . Trading takes time to learn , you have to enjoy the challenge and you must spend at least 3 hours a day to see how price action behaves . Sometimes it's very fast , at other times it can be boring and very slow . The good thing is that each week you can find some opportunities. If you are impatient and want to place several trades a day, like a day-trader is portrayed , you will lose all your money because your are not a pro. When you practice , pay attention to where the 9 ema line is in relation to the 50 ema. I say this because it will help you stay in the trend even if you are losing for a few minutes. When you place a trade based on the reversal of trend , price will often go against you for several minutes ,before establishing a new trend. It takes nerve and confidence to stay in your trade, because you have seen this pattern before. In the morning, check for news events at sites like briefing.com economic calendar. The news at 10 am EST can change the direction of the market and do not trade when the Fed has a major announcement at 2:15 EST . Also read some good books, like Marcel Link " High probability trading"; Brett Steenbarger " The daily trading coach" and his blog ; John Carter "Mastering the trade". On youtube ; Markofibo has a good explanation of Macd and informedtrades. com has good technical analysis videos. Remember nothing works 100% of the time , this is a probability game and indicators and charts are just helpful tools . I hope this will help you practice one of many ways to trade and best of luck.
I don't know how I can help but I will share some of my background. I went for quite a fe trading courses. cost me > $10K. I read lots of books and I surf Internet for information. I trade morning, lunch, afternoon, evening, twightlight and night time. I burnt my weekends and my holidays revewing my trading performance and I also took the opportunity to hone my trading skills. two years have past. Guess what?!?! I AM STILL LOOSING MONEY TOO! Some of my biggest problems include lack of discipline to follow my trade plan poor emotional control to overcome fear and greed. Trading is simple but very difficult. Well, I am still trying to improve myself. So you are not alone.
I was in the same place until I made little arrows my guiding light. If I don't see one, I don't trade. Entry signals have to be mechanical, IMHO.
Erk, hope you didn't fall for the Investools pitch... "Gee, if 9 up green arrows and 1 down red arrow, what should you do?"
Investools taught me the basics about ten years ago. Before then, I was guessing. But while stocks and options are good for starters, it was time to move into some real leverage, with other vehicles. However, I still have my big green books and DVDs. I watch them once in a great while just for fun, especially the ones with Michael Drew, the AT&T executive. I care not if they are the best way to learn; for me, they were just fine, and for people starting with no knowledge, I recommend them. I would NOT recommend ANY thread on ET for an undiscerning beginner. Not even maybe. This place is a mix of garbage, people spouting half-truths and a few nuggets of gold; no beginner can filter out the gold without some experience FIRST. In fact, I would STRONGLY URGE any beginners to avoid ET altogether until they have a year or two under their belt AFTER learning the basics and have been mentored, such as is available through Investools. Investools did not cost me $10k, but it seems inflation works its way into everything, thanks to the Fed...
Actually YOUR the idiot and Standard Oil is correct. You guys are encouraging this guy to lose money and a huge amount of time/life. I've been struggling at this for 5 years OP and I've read all kinds of books and taken several seminars. If your willing to invest 5 years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars then go for it but I assure you that it's a huge learning curve and even then there is zero guarantee's that you'll make a dime. Don't listen to the people in this forum, 90% of them are degenerate gamblers or wanna bee's. Very few in here will tell you the truth about just how hard this business is because it would burst their reality bubble.
Wow, you have been a loser for five years and tens of thousands? amazing. that is really, really horrible. when you say "don't listen to the people in the forum..." you must than mean yourself. i would never listen to some guy who lost for FIVE YEARS. if you can't make money in the market after that long, wow. why such a horrible streak? why are you posting with such bad luck? I can train you for only $20,000