Really, please consider automation, you have way too much to overcome on your own, years of self study whereas you can program, back test then have it running. If it losses, you internally don't lose but the coding or system lost. On longer term, if you semi profitable, think in terms of credit spreads exiting one to two deviations away. And not the weekly options, more like 3-6 months out so if you pick wrong direction, you leave yourself time for spread to work itself back to breakeven. 86% on the entire account? Do these % make you warm and fuzzy? I tell you what floats my boat, DD percentage, how close to zero can I get at end of the year, cause how much I make is never more important than drawdown to me. If the account not going down much, more likely on good trades it is going up.
One thing I have noticed is that making a winning futures trade based on pre-known fundamentals gives a much greater warm-and-fuzzy feel than just pure TA. As if homework paid off or something. Very satisfying. Unfortunatley, energy fundamental news can go counter-intuitive because of all the other hidden bits we lowly folks don't know about. Alas.
I hope you took some trades on this Friday Zela, today as yesterday have been nice trenders on the NQ.
Interesting. In theory, I'm an intraday swing trader for NG, GC, YM, NQ, JPY, ZW, ZN, and occasionally stocks. I say in theory because sometimes I get out in seconds. My best trades are hours and even days or months. But most of the time it is intraday. Thanks for words of encouragement. Today I actually physically put in stops. Strange thing is when I put in stops today I didn't get stopped out or suffered any losses. The minute I think everything is Ok and didn't put in stops for ZW the announcement came out and wiped me clean for the day. But I think Handle123 is right. I should stop. I just requested a paper trading account. No point burning through more precious capital when I can't get the right habits down yet... Practice. Practice. Practice until I get rid of all the bad habits and install in the good ones. Then go back to real account. The market will always be there. But if you lose all of your trading capital then you can't trade. I'm far from that happening. Better to stop, diagnose, and fix the problem before it gets to that point.
Prudent Risk Management is the only true edge in trading. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ment-is-the-only-true-edge-in-trading.292728/
Yes, I was up 86% on LFIN trade in an hour. Not the entire account! I guess the account could have been up 86% in a hour but that would be imprudent. Too much size. Your perspective is wise. I have recently started looking at Quantopian and Quantconnect to start programming up my systems and ideas. Much safer and intellectually more interesting. Also, it will overcome all of these emotional and psychological bias. On the job front, I'm still interviewing and have more next week. It all looks very promising. Something else interesting came up. I'm seriously considered scaling a business idea I have. It has already been profitable on a small scale. I'm working on scaling it up. My late wife always said I should do something on my own. She always encouraged to start my own biz. She told me a while back to stop interviewing for corporate jobs. Yes, you read that correctly. At the beginning of this thread she was still alive. Long story... I'm really attracted to the idea of running my own biz rather than going back for another corporate job. This fits my personality and lifestyle better. Also, it will give me time flexibility to trade or design trading systems during the day. I'll keep you guys posted. Maybe I can do all three. Get a steady paying corporate job, trade for an hour in the morning, and run my biz on the side. My biz idea is not time intensive yet still profitable.
You made $200 today...I thought you were an ET, extraterrestrial trader,...that's not enough to buy alligator boots. Well...maybe just one boot, of an off-beat brand.