darktrader, After reading your posts, I believe you shouldn't trade any real money right now. You don't even have a profitable method. You have lost a large amount of money, that's good, because you have felt the pain. It's the path that must be taken by successful traders. Pain is necessary. You don't want to feel this pain while you manage millions or even billions of dollars. If you want to experience pain, experience it while you are at an early stage. Losses make you feel pain, pain makes you learn. So don't regret the losses. The money is gone, the tuition is paid, the lesson is learned. Whether you have learned enough, I don't know. If you haven't learned enough, you probably will lose more and feel more pain. Once you learn enough, you will be profitable.
nice resistance on fesx and fdax went short on fesx, stop will be -20% 89.03 + commission open of regular market is in 4 minutes, maybe I should have waited the open before shorting, they could test this resistance actually after this trade I will review yesterday's trade and replay to all the comments I received.
the trade was going in my direction, but then the market reversed and now let's see if the breakout is for real... my stop is still there... as I wrote when I entered the trade, maybe I could have waited the regular market open... and have a much better price, yesterday I made the same mistake on NQ... maybe this could be added to my entry rules. monthly-weekly-daily fesx-fdax-dax charts attached... I have an indicator that plots on a 5 min chart all the lines where the current candle will intercept the trendlines / 50-200 sma and fibs on monthly-weekly-daily charts
the structure is there learn, to chart and add market profile, you will have s/r to work off of,apply it to several markets and limit your trades to areas where there is combined support or e resistance in more than one market,you will have much more confidence in your trades and the positive outcomes will increase substantially, in the 1st few pages you mentioned several reasons for getting in and out, i thought...don't think so much ,the color commentary is just noise in your head,just trade what's on the chart
with market profile and trendlines you can short this here at 2412.5 with a stop above the 2415 high,shoot for that 2406 broken resistance line,then the 2401 high that was made earlier today, then shoot for the nips marked on the chart,when wrong get out ,but when right on short or long hold until you get to the next supp or res ,know where those are and try to enter close to that price, you will know sooner when wrong and get out for smaller losses
stop hit at 2940 and of course now it is at 2935... and I won't lye to this forum: I re-entered short with the excuse that the fdax haven't broken up yet... anyway: in my first analysis I was correct, maybe I should wait for the open to see if they are going to test the resistance again... now I switch off the monitors hoping the trade will keep going in my direction and I will post the commentary for yesterday trades (in a post I submitted earlier, I will update it, this to don't have a mix with todays activity), then I will reply to all your posts.
Hi, Am sorry to hear this but am thinking maybe it'll be better psychologically if you could go & get a job 1st, at least to pay for your monthly bill & your family expenses. i can see you're so eager to be successful in trading to prove yourself, but i think the problem is, its a marathon than a 100m sprint to be successful not just in trading but in everything. Am not so sure if you're now mentally fit enough to compete with tons of pros out there, or you're able to sustain until that day anyway, giving yourself a timestop and/or $stop is a good idea, if you'll truly accept the end result... good luck
I saw I can't update a post after 30 min I posted it, so I will put my yesterday trading resume here: Yesterday I closed at $0 I was losing $150 (commission included), a very bad day even if I ended at break even. My mistakes: - I shorted the market just before the open, and I actually commented that waiting for the open would have been better, the market was too close to my stops and very close to the high of the day, I noticed many times that when the market opens it tends to test the closest supp-res zone, so I should have waited for the open to also have a better entry price. - I added one contract at the same entry price of the first contract because I felt the resistance was very good, this also before the regular market open, I think that adding a contract to a winner or in a particularly good setup it is not a bad thing to do (as you know I lost a lot of money adding to losers, so the opposite should pay), but in this case it was a bad idea since there was a good chance that after the open with the volatility and the reasons I mentioned before my stops had a good chance to be hit - my stop was hit and I immediately was at - $120 with my max daily loss at $200, I had not enough room to tray again, I made the same mistakes as usual and I re-entered immediately, the market finally went to my direction and I managed to recover with just one contract. - I did a good thing and I reversed the position (first time in 4 years of trading) as European markets was rebounding on a support, but I placed the stop very close as usual and as the stop was hit I re-entered again twice... Finally the market went in my direction and I gave a lot of time to my trade to develop, at one point I decided to trail the stop under the closest swing on a 1 min chart, knowing that after a consolidation the market tends to catch stops to gain fuel, and of course my trailing stop was hit and the market continued in my direction without me, and of course I had a target at 1400, and I would end up the day with a nice profit. in brief: -not waited for the open to enter the market -added 1 contract near the open - re-entered immediately after a stop, maybe it is better to place larger stops instead of tight, less action and less commissions and slippage.
Hi again jokepie, thanks for your suggestion: If you are going to trade futures, you will have to be a student of its behaviour first. after 4 years of following the NQ every single day I think I understand lots of things about the behaviour. - How futures are affected on some paticular days. FED meetings, key speakers, Key earnings reports, Unemployment numbers etc, there are tons of these. this also I know well. - Futures are very Emotion driven and therefore the first bullet point and reactions can be sharper than in stocks. do you think that trading stocks is easier? I heard this a lot of time, I was actually tempted to focus on stocks, but after 4 years in futures maybe it is like starting everything again. Maybe with stocks you can trade with less size to learn. - Since it is an average, movements are limited in range. So identify the strong/ momentum trends and trade them ONLY. I don't know if you refer to intraday trading or position trading, but I'm trading intraday, trying to catch the big moves, so I would have to try to identify the days in which the market will move a lot, this is very hard for me, I actually tried with the previous day range or other stuff, but it seams to be random. - Remember that it is a highly leveraged product, so risk management (based on your account size) is key. Therefore Size in porperly, chose stop loss wisely and respect the limit parameters set. this is very important too, I know that very well after the huge losses I had, still don't know if I should trade the same size or different based on how a setup is good, in my case could be if you have a signal from only a chart and you like it trade with 1 contract, if you have 3 signal on 3 charts and you like them trade with 2, and so on... (if I want to do that I have to simulate anyway, but please let me know if it wuold be a better approach) - During the lunch or non news times futures market can dry up very fast and hence can chop around alot. Stay away from those timeframes. ok I will trade only during active hours (I use to trade when market opens) , but if I have a trade I entered during active hours I tend to leave it. - You keep saying that you will not trade any more, still enter a trade. Its ok if you have a genuine reason to do so. If you feel that you are really loosing your control and Over trading. Shut the PC down when your last trade is in with stops and targets. As you staring at the screen will not change the outcome. very good advice, I will try to apply this. - Dont trade whne you are tired or stressed ove anything. Try to reduce the number of inputs - your screens seem to be feeding a lot of information- I have felt that as we gain experience we can process more information. just like when we start learning how to drive, we should not play music or talk on cell phones.... Slowly it all becomes natural.. so I should not trade, or maybe trade sim at least when I have gained much confidence. I will post about all I have on my screans maybe later today, it will be very interesting to hear the opinion of all of you. - Do not beat your self on the losses. We all had them, even the best ones did. you learn from them and move on. Its a part of the Game. you need to start accepting your ODDS. Once you do you can manage them better. I know that losses are a kind of investment, you know if you want to open a restourant you have to invest money and losses in trading could be the same, but when losses affect your life style, it is hard, but anyway the damage is done. - IF you feel that you always focus on the results/ your future/ past...and doubt your self alot... try to do some meditation. Try the bookl power of now. there is a audio version for 7 buck and playtime is 3 hrs. you can finish it in one night. It helped me stying objective and focussed on the Trade and not contemplate million possible outcomes at each tick. I will buy this book, thanks a lot for your post