My monthly $350 evaluation fee is scheduled to be charged on AUG 6. Which I do not have right now.....That is unless I hit the $9K target this Friday. Not a "reset" -- a monthly renewal of the evaluation until the $9K profit goal is accomplished. I hope this makes sense.
It looks like you are not in a mood to listen sane advice people are giving here take a reality check if you dont have that $360 ... then stop , try and get an job and continue trading on Demo and hone your skills using same rules that your "Prop Firm" applies You say you are 44 and spent half the time on this ! so how many $360 you have spent... so far ! 10 x 360? you could have funded your small account! insane .. these Test fee funding model companies want people like you who keep funding on a hamster wheel.. wake up man OMG
Let's run the numbers... With a 25 point stop as a daytrader, I assume your R/R is at best 1:1 and possibly even inverted, i.e., risk 25 to gain 5 or 10. Simulation 1: Risk 25 ES points ($1250) / Gain 5 ES points ($250) (R/R 5:1) You need a 90 % win rate to have a positive expectancy. If you drop to 85 % you're breaking even. Can you sustain a 90 % win rate? Simulation 2: Risk 25 ES points ($1250) / Gain 10 ES points ($500) (R/R 2.5:1) Here, your breakeven win rate drops to about 71 %. You still need to hit close to 90 % to do well: Simulation 3: Risk 25 ES points ($1250) / Gain 25 ES points ($1250) (R/R 1:1) Now, your breakeven win rate drops to about 50 %. However, you can still have a run of losses that puts you in negative territory after a string of trades. So, not very robust and you're not really going anywhere, IMO. If you can maintain a very high win rate (> 80 %), fine.
IMO, you should not need more than a maximum of 10 points as a stop on ES in current volatility assuming your entries are good. Try plotting an ATR with a say 20MA on top to get an idea of the average stop size. If you're entering at the right moment, trading the edges and not in the middle, you should be able to get very crisp entries. If you can hit a 60 % win rate risking 5 ES points and gaining 10 it looks pretty good from my point of view. This does of course assume that you actually run your winners to 10 points or more and don't cut them short. Most people don't do that, so they're really running a system with a negative R/R ratio banking many small winners and eventually taking a big loss giving it all back and then some. Simulation 4: Risk 5 ($250) / Gain 10 ($500) TL;DR: Wide stops and a negative R/R ratio requires a very, very high win rate day in and day out. If you have a positive R/R you can do fairly well even with a lower win rate. No matter how good you are as a trader you can't escape this fundamental math, so it's very important to keep in mind. Of course, the magic happens when you can have a positive R/R ratio and a high win rate. That's EliteTrading and sadly achievable only for the few...
no it doesn't. for me, making a ton of money without trading made me a better trader. the converse was probably not true (I don't know, didn't stay in that state for long.)
It is official. I am officially with no active demo/live trading accounts. Had a nuclear mental breakdown this morning.
My elderly parents constantly worrying about their jobless PHd younger son and jobless older son. $575 (extra $75 from my closed Tradovate account) At least I paid rent for Aug and security (which I will now have to use as rent for Sept). Sending out crazy resumes but at this point, I'm not sure that I even want to live, We'll see. Anyway, I don't think I'll be posting here for sometime now. Thank you everyone for the kind comments and encouragement. I feel like Nikola Tesla right now.
Ok. One more time. $280 for another evaluation (normal price is $350). I have $300 in spending cash now. LoL.
It's clear that you're not really in a position to trade successfully, both practically/economically and mentally (quite likely a consequence of the first). It's not even clear if you have a valid system/approach as you don't disclose much about that and frankly have not been making money lately. It's hard to know if this is because your system isn't sufficient or if it's the pressure you put on yourself that's sabotaging you. I think you should take up @QTrader20 's offer to help you out. He's a nice guy and knows what he's doing. It could be a game changer for you. I think you should also do your best to get a decent job like you're saying. With normal job hours you still have enough time on your hands to trade successfully and make good progress. Not a bad idea to take a smaller (or longer) break from trading entirely either. The market ain't going anywhere. In order to reverse a path it's often necessary to first get back into neutral and usually the only way to do that is to take a break. Take some good walks in nature and get some perspective. There's more to life than this. You can always reach out to me if you want to talk. Good luck and best wishes!
It is clear to me that you are now a human wreck in need of psychological help before worse things happen. You are totally incapable of speculating in this state. I have the impression that you yourself do not realize that your current knowledge is completely insufficient to be successful. You've been trying to make money for over two years, but the results are almost negligible. The first thing you need is money that you can spare. But you don't even have the money to pay for the most essential necessities. That's hallucinatory. I know this sounds harsh but you have to face the reality. My intention is not to tear you down. I want to make it clear to you that in the current situation you have no chance of any success. First improve your living conditions and only then can you make a new attempt. My goal is to help you, for that you have to face the hard truth. We have a saying that bad doctors make stinking wounds. I have all your published statements, and there are some errors or missing amounts. Amounts and account balances are incorrect, but apparently nobody bothered to check the statements. That should be the first thing one does, because everything is based on those statements. I will post an excel later with all the numbers of your statements and pointing out the errors.