I'd recommend focusing on shorter term intraday trading. You should mostly focus on watching the depth of market though instead of just charts. Go where the volatility and liquidity premium is. Fantastic volatility in CL right now. Really good volatility in GC with a good liquidity premium. All the things you're going to be trading off as a discretionary trader are going to be subtle complex abstract things you learn to identify through experience.
Thanks man. Yea I know resume gaps are bad. I have a background in the oilfield (drilling fluids engineer/ "mud engineer") so if it's booming I'm hired, if it's dead I got no chance. Luckily I have enough cash flow from assets that the basics are covered...And that's the real secret for people like me imo...save your money and buy shit that pays you every month. Primary goal is just to keep collecting property that pays and focus on net worth more than anything else. I also get what des was saying earlier in the thread about negative edge...and my only real shot is volatility or macro trading...but damn both of those really are overwhelming. I feel like I have about the same chances swinging futures as I do finding edge in options or macroeconomics...slim and none lol. @poopy I have "trading volatility" and will start reading it in my down time. No reason not to I guess but i don't think you realize just how big of a worm I am with options. I'm real bad. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/ucVGeHUT2aE?si=mGVSQvnhBogkH7uC
Thanks for the advice. Maybe i will revisit eventually but I Spent 2 years on intraday trading CL almost exclusively. Learned a lot, lost plenty of money. Don't want to day trade anymore. Don't like it. Devoting that time to lower risk investments.
Just curious. Did you have a clear and objective set of rules to trade it, such that the criteria would be repeatable by someone else looking at the same data/chart? At least insofar as the entry and protective stop are concerned. And, if so, did you test it, backward and forward, for viability and reliability?
what you quoted is misleading. It reads like i was grinding in front of the screen day in and day out for 2 years straight and that's not true...more like: work to put something together and test it -> trade it -> lose money -> stop trading for a bit -> research new ideas -> put something together -> etc... I never really got a system locked down. one week I could enter on momentum and get enough follow through to make something...the next i found myself getting stopped out nonstop. went through several methods but it all just ended in frustration. HERE is an example of some of the stuff i was doing during this time. I remember that week well...i remember the week that followed even better where I made some of the most common, basic mistakes possible in trading and gave most of that money back. I am good about keeping a trade journal, notebooks full of ideas and tracking results, ex: this is what supreme frustration looks like lol: Also, backtesting for setups is deceptive most of the time IMO...lots of pitfalls i became aware of when doing it by hand. live price movement makes it difficult to see setups that are plain as day in hindsight viewing static bars...or what looks like a setup live is a trap as you enter on a beautiful trending bar that turns into the ugliest doji of all time. I think this is especially true for intraday.
I've never used an ongoing, still forming bar to act as setup, confirmation and entry. In fact, I cannot imagine a setup and entry on the basis of a very few bars. But maybe that's just me. And, sorry, I don't know anything about dojis nor do I wish to; I find candle bars thoroughly annoying. Anyway, I wish you luck, and I hope you develop a robust approach that suits you.
if you want the simplest strategy trade breakouts and scalp out. when a bar closes put a top above /below the high/low and scalp out for a point. rinse and repeat. and failed breakouts
dont give away the whole store buddy. start a trading course and charge people $1,000 for that post. all you need is 1,000 pupils and boom...a million bucks. easy for you. "sign up today for the great PaduTrader's course. 20 years experience. Expert in the art and science of scalping".