You need to find an edge. Realize that daytrading has no edge in the current market. Start swing trading and make money with premarket movements.
I would imagine you would agree that in order to go from burning to building, you obviously have to slow down with burning first, or you will have nothing to build anymore I actually view break even as an achievement, I'm doing a better job protecting my capital while I am working on defining an edge for myself. The more I work at this, the more I talk to successful traders, the more I see that it just takes time and deliberate practice to get it right, as well as a professional attitude. Its like any startup business and competitive venture. During the tech craze it didn't take much brains to trade, which is where a lot of people got the idea that this is an easy business in which you could become cash flow positive in six months or less and start making sick money. That reputation has stayed around and it has given many people a false impression of how easy this is. At the same time people ARE making money doing this, and we're not talking Quants with PhDs, we're talking Joe mechanic types. I've seen them - and just look at the intellectual level of some people who post in this forum, lol (and often I wonder if certain traders got into this endeavor because they don't have very good people skills!). The only reason I feel I couldn't make it trading is if I took the wrong attitude towards it (insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result), or simply flat out quit.
You said you use no indicators then you mention bollingers, those are indicators... there is a mentality that goes with engineering that you have to wean off of... I remember how enthralled I was when I learned to translate an engineering problem into the Laplace Space and the Z space and all that.. there is no Laplace transform for trading.. you're looking in the wrong places, creating any metadata at all from price and volume is very nearly entirely useless [afaik] and unnecessary to boot...
To the OP: Read Dozuâs 2 posts over and over again as what he says is true: 1. U better love itâ¦canât do it for the money 2. Be prepared for 10,000 screen hours to develop your skill 3. Discipline-patience-money management with no edge will keep u at the table longer with a very slow bleed continuing down 4. U better love it- U better love it-U REALLY got to love it!
I think its probably more accurate to state that its something you shouldn't do JUST for the money. If you don't need the money, then why not trade on demo all day long? Okay, but it seems the sentiment that is evolving here is that discipline and patience are not essential elements for success. If you haven't gotten your 'edge' down yet, is discipline and patience pointless? How can you even develop an edge without discipline and patience, get in those 10,000 hrs of screen time, start quantifying setups, etc?
Georg, I will agree with u on #1. On #3 your right- discipline and patience are necessary ingredients âor else you will not last the 10,000 hours!!
here is one from 15 yr parttimer closing on 10k hours: there is no consistently profitable chart patterns. Sooner or later you will pay all back & interest. Why am i sure of that : because you have all these super computers arbitraging patterns and see what happened to many of them Hint - see volume before&after GFC. Edge takes TIME, live&trade thru lots of scenarios and eventually find common denominator. Then learn to recognize it ahead of time and play them with appropriate risk control. Thats real fun. Some charting bits actually work but secondary importance. Everything goes in direction of trend Trading should be enjoyable and fit nicely with your lifestyle.
i think the truth is... most people aren't for trading. but, if you really love it... and you spend many hours... i don't see why you have to be a 'mozart' to be a successful trader. imo, you can be more of a rainman... and go into somebody's house to take their money... without all the hype and fame of a mozart. like i said, the truth is... most people should not trade for a living. not saying they should not try... 2 years is probably not enough to know. many people change their careers a few times in their life times after years of education. you are going against professionals. it's not really like david vs. goliath. it's you going against yao ming. not only is he real big... he's got all the equipment, the experience, the skills. he'll block your shot, and he'll do that little hook shot over you... just typing my 2-cents...
thanks all your response. One of you said to take into account risk/reward. It is helped me a lot. I need to take this more seriously, because I usually stoped by pattern(broken support), not by profit/lost target. I traded to mechanicaly, even for scenarios when the pattern are to narrow to catch valuable profit agains the commison. No need to hunt for young deers, have to wait for the time, when it become bigger more meat I have for the same one shot I know there is no ONE system to fit every markets and scenario, but I need to belichive there are some good systems (e.g. 5-6) to use as a toolbox for selection and adapted to the most right one into the situation. Actually I frozen my live activity-no wanna burned out slowly- and going to papertrade to gain confidence. I hope. And testing with Amiborker, using more serious, rigid risk/reward permissions.
Why would you quit? After all, you know that some people are making a living this way. So why not you? You have already mastered a field that is more complicated than trading, so you are plenty smart enough to figure it out. Therefore, it seems to me you can trade. You need to find a good system. Yes, they exist. Longer time frames may be easier to trade.