First off I want to disclose that I have yet to formulate a sound strategy, this thread will hopefully be the evolution of that strategy. Today was my first day trading (with fake money). I'm trying not to think about the fake money aspect. After all, when I go live with real money nothing will have changed unless I myself let the fact that I'm trading real money change me...and I'm determined not to. I will be trading the NQ E-mini exclusively for various reasons. My first and most important goal is to try to understand price action. As of right now I could care less about indicators. I think it is far more important to learn whats behind the indicators, rather than just relying on 2 lines crossing. In time I'm sure I will use various indicators just for simplicities sake, but not until I can see and understand them myself by understanding price action. I do/will be watching volume, but only in the context of price...e.g. what price was doing during high or low volume. Simply stated, I want to buy when demand overwhelms supply and sell when supply overcomes demand. I will try to find supply zones (resistance) and demand zones (support) and trade accordingly. A little bio- My name is Jon. I live in Denver and have been on ET for around 8 months I would say. I am still very much into real estate (development) and am trying to balance it with trading...oh and I turn 21 on thursday. Books ordered: The nature of risk How to buy When to sell all by Justin Mamis The disciplined trader trading in the zone both by mark douglas
Today was interesting. It was mostly devoted to figuring out the the hell to work Ninja Trader...I really need to figure out how to do a trailing stop (working on that now). In the midst of trading today I couldnt help but feel a familiar feeling creeping down my spine. The same feeling I get while I'm playing poker. I know that sounds weird, but its crazy to me how similar trading and poker feel. I knew trading was emotional, but damn keep your emotions in check is half the battle! Thankfully I'm no stranger to that battle (many many poker games) and it's nice to jump into something a scary and new as trading only to find myself on a battlefield I am very familiar with. Today I over-traded. About 19 trades in all, and I would like to keep it to around 10-12. I did well in the beginning of the day. Started out with a 1.25 point loss on my first trade and then the next 7 trades were all winners (9.25 points). I should have just walked away then, but I guess I thought it would be cool to lose some money. 11 trades later I finished the day up 2 or 3 points I think. I had one trade go against me by 3.5 points, besides that the worst trade took out 1.75 points. The trailing stops I feel will really help me. I tried to have a mental stop of 1.25 points, but things just move to quickly and emotionally. Tonight I will figure out how to to all that. Tomorrow I will keep a journal of all actual trades. This will help show my reasoning (or lack thereof) and help me trade less. The chart is attached.
2nd day trading. good day over-all. still getting my stop strategy worked out, but im a lot closer. anyways I made 9.5 points over all, decided to stop while i was ahead haha. charts attached.
Cool! A great beginning. What is your method? You're right though about the over trading on a 1 minute chart. Be careful to not get chopped up like a sausage. Good you're doing it without indicators. You may want to stick with that for a long time. Most people begin with indicators, then have a life long struggle to get rid of them as they realize that using fewer indicators is much better. Check out the price action journal that recently got started.
Thanks! I have been checking out the PA threads, a long with everything else PA under the sun. Today could have been a fluke..I'm not going to make any assumptions this way or that...just going to try to go with the flow. What im attempting to do is decipher where demand kicks in, and where supply kicks in. Here is an example of my train of thought..like I said, maybe I just got lucky today. Anyways: the move at 12:40 for example, it looked to me like the smart money didn't want anything to do with it at this price. To me those 3 short range bars in a row are all no demand bars, authenticated by the lack of any kind of volume. people holding it would have to sell at a lower price, and they did. eventually it reaches a point where smart money steps in a buys a shit load of it on its way down 12:54-13:00. The people who missed the up move come in late (13:03ish) and the smart money begins to unload it (13:04-13:06) on them sending prices lower yet again. Like I said, I could be way off, but it worked today. we will see if i can keep it up tomorrow.
My goal is anywhere from 8-12 points per day. It may take a long time for me to be able to do that consistently, but thats ok. With the amount of leverage in trading 8-12 points can make anyone a very very nice living, so why try for anymore?
8_12 points wtf 1 point a day will make you a millionaire 1 pt x200 contracts which the es can take without slipage %97 of the day $10000 dont be a dick 12 points is $120000 thats $30000000 plus a year
That's interesting, but I don't think that way. I'm only trading a couple contracts and I don't think of it as money. As far as I'm concerned trading is merely a game in which I try to rack up as many points as possible. This helps keep money out of my mind along with all the profit damaging emotions tha come with it.