Thx for the input JimmyJam Same story year after year - papertrade, make money - go live lose money - market dymanics change - start over - develop new method - papertrade, make money - go live - lose and repeat
In BT you can trade sim and live at the same time, just place your order in sim mode change to real mode and place your order should be no difference unless you are scalping for some ticks.
I agree, its psychological. But BT is about as close as it comes to reality; I even once cursed the 'marketmaker' for running my stops, until I realized that I was on the sim . Maybe we should ask Hoi for a feature to switch between sim and live at random during the day, without the trader knowing which mode is on. That way we could neutralize the burden of feeling exposed. Ursa..
Ha..Ha... a good one ! Actually I had it happening to me, that I thought I was playing (and testing) in Simu-mode for more than an hour, and made a nice profit without knowing that I actually was in real-trade-mode...Oops... The strange thing was that I was mad about it...although I made a nice profit, I was shocked that I didn't see it from the colors of the Grid and Strategy (which were clearly not the ones for Simu-trading).....but you have a point: I was free of "fear and stress", which was partly the reason for the profits.
If it's a system problem, then here are a few public systems which are being explored on ET: S/R Thread good thread, caters to the newer trader. lots of conservation there, but you can pick some thing up. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69230 Trading the Pivots (mine) working out a few concepts, developing a system for public usage. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74860&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 ES Journal guy's very talented at what he does, trades multiple markets consistently, over and over again. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64965 If you're sick and tiered of trying to bang the do-it-yourself drum, try these guys. Intraday Dow, S&P and NQ Trading nice system with an adaptive algorithm that tracks the market, consistent public performance record, i recommend checking it out and seeing how it works with proper money management. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70418 The Chronicles of Rennick total black box system, but it totally kicks-butt. the thread starts out chit-chatty, but then he starts posting calls which are something like 20 for 20. i personally don't like black box systems, but if you wanna give it a go with very little backtesting required, send'em a PM. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65265 Cosistent profitability is the holy grail, and it's a pretty tough nut to crack. give any or all of those threads a shot ... happy labor day. Jimmy Jam
There is an rather well-known SF-novel called Ender's Game http://www.amazon.com/Enders-Game-E...=pd_bbs_1/104-4901215-6295939?ie=UTF8&s=books in which a group of kids are trained on a computer game to fight an alien race. While they think they're doing their final exam on the trainer they're actually hooked up to 'live' machines and fighting the mother of all battles in which they beat the aliens. I really think it is a good training method to be unaware and even uninterested in whether you're in sim or live. If I set the colors in BT identical and remove the toolbar, and I would be able to toggle between S and R a random number of times losing count, it would be possible. Interesting. Ursa..