I know I'm new here, so I don't mean to be offensive, but I disagree. What do you think will happen to the thread starter if he's not profitable with stocks and makes the move to a LEVERAGED product? He needs SOLID money management skills, and he's clearly not ready in that category. If he moves to futures right now, he'll blow his account 5 X faster in my opinion.
Basically, I look at a chart for a nice tight pattern with higher than average volume. I try to follow the trend. If the stock is trading between a bullish upward channel, i try to base my entry on the support line and give it a "mental" stop outside of this line of a few cents. I am finding that i keep losses for too long. i should exit immediately after 5-10 cents, but sometimes i let them run for -25 cents. very bad. However, i dont want to depend on stops...i dunno, i feel like i'd rather exit when i know i'm wrong. I hate getting stopped out and having the stock run up one point. I also try to look for aggressive seller/buyer action based on prints. I find this pretty hard.
i think you should stop trading with real money for a while, you will not make any money trading like that using just your feeling Pick a system and follow it religiuosly
Try a basic MA crossover on paper and intraday chart study. Watch 1 and 5 minute charts for correlation.