So you're saying it is IMPOSSIBLE to scalp and be profitable with an account of my size? And no no no no no, when I said 30+ hours slip away, I meant 30+ hours (actually since im down about $320 in total make that 42) at my fucking minimum wage (7.50/hour) CVS job, where I (almost) had not spent a penny all year long, SAVING for these 3 fucking days, just to see a chunk of it just vanish. No, I love the market, like my sister who doesn't exist, why else would I be risking all of this for....?
I remember the first week I went live. I kept seeing things that weren't there. My setups kept appearing "all the time". My worst draw down was a trade where I was sure I had identified a classic pullback and convinced myself to stay with it, even though the market clearly had reversed and weren't going to continue the prevailing trend. I had a 5k account and traded 1 lot. As the market moved against me I kept adding to my position (a surefire way to go bust) finally ending up with a position of 4 contracts in the ES, with a 5k account. For every tick it went against me, I lost 1% of my initial 5k. When $500 had disappeared from my account in a couple of minutes my stomach couldn't take it anymore and I closed the trade. You bet I felt like shit afterward... I had to get some fresh air to keep me from puking. All rules and all knowledge went straight out the window. I was convinced the market was going in one direction and couldn't see what the chart right in front of me was screaming to my face. I would say that was a real eyeopening experience for me. Until then I thought trading was all about finding the right spot to enter and to exit, using whatever information the market could give you, and the rest would come as a result of superior timing. Before you even can consider fine-tuning your entries and exits you must first get comfortable with trading real money and stay with you plan, no matter what. I would also recommend some of the trading psychology books mentioned earlier in this thread. Sure, these books aren't as sexy as books like "Price Action Trading for the Millionaires" or "The Secret Undergorund Indicator of the Wall Street Kings" bla bla etc. , but I bet you will be more aware of this aspect in trading after you first week with your own money on the line. Hopefully you will learn from this experience and come back stronger than ever after a period of studying these aspects of trading. But, as always, you can't learn everything from books. Something you have to learn by doing it yourself, such as you are doing now. It's all so easy in hindsight, but when you're there, at the right edge of the chart with real money at stake, your mind can really play games with you.
Glad this journal has continued. Hope the OP keeps it alive. Maybe I can help. I monitor my p&l purely in terms of points or cents I take, not in terms of real $. The reason i do this is because I get too hung up on the dollar amounts. I once f'd up big after a large position limit increase and liquidated myself at a low. My mentor said "never trade for the money and never get stopped out for the money." In your case this would mean trying to think in terms of straight points and put out of your mind real dollar amounts or how many hours you worked that cruddy job to get the capital. Could you you scale your system to a wider time frame using ETFs, maybe daily or weekly? Avoid the leverage/commissions and make the $ last longer. Good luck to you.
I dont trade futs, but I do understand that the dollar value per tick is higher and it moves faster, but if you can, try and hold through the retracements (unless scalping) because you sell the lows and the market rallys higher, so learn a little bit about fib retracements..even though it may not be your style, learn them anyway so you'll now what other traders are looking at. If it were me and I missed one of those moves up, id wait for a 38 to 50%...possibly as far as a 61.8% before getting back in the market. Instead of getting scared because its going down, look at it as a buying opportunity. This is where account size comes in...a well capitalized trader might decide to hold through these pull backs or even add more. Is scalping your primary trading style? ** Question to futures traders on this thread: Is scalping most popular style in futures markets? Good luck cm69
You can do it. You have the guts, well done. My opinion: move back to YM and look at 1200 vol bars. Use 5 min chart of INDU to help you with longer trend. Could also look at P and F likewise. Also, as has been mentioned, look to ES and fine tune your entries with maybe 400 vol charts (YM). ADX for trend, trade big moves only and widen your stops. You may survive, if not you'll learn alot. Win, win. NQ is a cunt at times.
It's not impossible but trading with scare money and limited experience are recipe for a blowout. Why make the game harder than it already is by scalping? Learn how to read market action, chart patterns and try to capture the major move of the day would be my advice to all new traders. I am sure there are successful scalpers out there but I have not met one yet. Maybe after many years, you could be the best NQ scalper out there. Good luck to you whichever way you go.
Not to beat a dead horse but if you are wanting to scalp once again you should check out stocks. It is a lot easier to cross the market in stocks, you pay less in commision and you can learn on much smaller size. All the successful traders I have ever talked to have said they don't know a single succesful off floor futures scalper.
Hmm... that's really odd in my opinion. I would think that the index futures would actually attract the most scalpers out of any instrument due to the instant fills.... But I can't do stocks. Know why? The fucking PTD rule, last summer was so hard swing trading because once I made 3 mistakes I had to wait 2 days to clear the rule so that the SEC wouldn't attack my ass. And all of you guys who replied to this journal and managed to keep it very popular, I want to thank you for giving me your time and advice. I have thought things over, and going into tomorrow I truly expect the ball to get rolling. Maybe I won't make $200 or even $120 but I think I will come out net positive, and that's all that matters to me for now. Anyways, it's amazing how these three days have taught me more about trading than 5 months of combined paper trading. I always laughed at guys who said there's a huge difference, but now I just feel silly and wiser. To everyone who tells me to stop scalping, that's the one thing I won't do, for now at least. Looking back at my charts (as you have seen today's) I know I can make the best of this situation. I just need to come in with a totally clear head and identify my targets before my mouse even thinks of clicking that buy button. My stop will remain at 2 points as well... however I don't know how easy that will be seeing as price has previously blown through this stop. So, thanks guys once again for your thoughts/opinions, and we shall see how this tale plays out tomorrow.
Oh and I adjusted my average profit target to 1.5 pts, but with my win % I think the win/loss ratio (1.5/2) won't matter.