I spent the better part of the last 6 years of my life trying to succeed in trading. I blew couple of trading accounts, lost lot of money and time. I felt both pure joy and deep frustration while on my path. I traded different methods and strategies since 2009 when I entered my first live trade. I traded ES, FDAX, 6E, TF (Russell 2000), NQ, YM. I am currently trading strategy which suits my personality (or it helps to counter my biggest issue - impatience). I started to trade current strategy 2 years ago on sim account. I tried to trade live last year with bad results (lost 20% of my account). As of January 2015 I am currently in a final SIM testing phase and I feel confident again to start trading live soon. I currently trade on SIM account with single contract and will start trading live with single contract as well. I hope to add second contract in matter of 4-6 weeks when everything goes as planned. I am daytrader and I currently trading NQ and YM (E-mini Nasdaq and e-mini DowJones). I am reversals trader and I use volumen profiles, SR zones, and price action to find interesting price levels to enter the markets. I am using orderflow (footprints/numbersbars) for precise timing and trade management. I hope to connect with some of you who are struggling with similar issues like me, so we can discuss them and help each other out. I appreciate any comment, question or critics you may have. BTW.: I apologize in advance for my English. You will probably find a lot of grammar mistakes. I am doing my best, but I am not a native speaker.
This week was extraordinary thanks to series of unexpected events. The volatility was high but that was not the biggest issue. All the big market moves which I am used to catch at the beginning (at least some of them) had very strange start. Like if there was something missing in the orderflow. In addition, the markets have been very nervous with lot of jumping around. This unusual behaviour led to to my frustration, which took the better of my patience and resulted in overtrading and blackout (Tuesday). Even when I came back from this during the rest of the week, it left me with bad taste in my mouth.
I am attaching also my equity curve and trade activity log from SC. The red markers divide weeks, the black ones days. Please remember those are single contract results. I had some difficulties since the beginning of this year resulting in overtrading and thus lowering my win% ratio. I had blackout also this Tuesday (16 trades). Blackouts are big threat for me. All of my big losses originated from blackouts. My current challenges are: - lowering the amount of trades - working on patience - working on discipline (specially following the Money Management rules)
Six years and still no trading rhythm, your case is not an exception is a rule, for most trading, especially daytrading is a pipedream, funny enough ET is full of stellar killer traders; go figure. You are a great example as to why people must stop being so gullible when purchasing signal services, indicators, and basically just feeding the snake oil business who offer nothing but smoke and mirrors, traders who failed but could not step away from trading tend to become snake oil salesmen, not saying you will, just lashing at them, they used to be in your shoes so don't even think about approaching them for an edge. My advice to you is quit unless you discover an edge with ample positive expectancy, that kind of edge will only come from hard research work or a well established trader willing to throw you a bone, for free.
Unless you're willing to post your trading plan so that others can give specific advice, what you will receive are the usual generic comments one always gets on trading forums. If you don't have a trading plan by now, one that's thoroughly tested and consistently profitable, then I agree with Scaleout: you really ought to quit. Six years is a long time. But it's less than ten. Or fifteen. Or twenty (yes, I've known people who plugged away at this for twenty years and never did better than cover expenses).
Thank you for your feedback. I am pretty confident I discovered the edge I needed in trading. My last year´s SIM results are clearly showing it. So the question is - why my SIM trading results show constant equity grow and why I allways fail in LIVE. What do you think? And thanx for the advice, but I am not buying any signal services, nor do I use indicators per se. I am totally aware there are many failing traders everywhere not just on ET. It is sad but this is what keeps the Industry running. New meat. Everybody thinks it´s not him and that he is the one going allways the opposite direction as the crowd. I will keep the trading journal anyway and if you want you can watch me either succeed or fall (and then you are wellcome to write me ´I told you' ) P.S.: You probably don´t see everything in my thread (it says ¨This message is awaiting moderator approval, and is invisible to normal visitors.¨). Another two posts show my SIM results for last week, and my detailed results together with equity from 7.1.2015).
Trading reversals successfully over time is an advanced tactic that requires either a) well-defined plan+superb discipline and risk management skills, or b) unlimited capital. If your personality gravitates toward reversals (picking price turns), you're better off learning to trade ranges than reversals. At least if trading ranges you can let stochastics pretty much peg your entries and exits and you can safely place tight stop losses outside the range extremes. Learning to identify and trade a trend is the easiest money available to retail traders, but the most difficult to master in terms of the mindset required because it's so counter-intuitive. The biggest problem with picking reversals is that it's natural to feel that price has gone too high or too low and aspiring traders trade their belief or bias instead of trading with the trend. Once a trader makes decisions based on belief/bias, risk management tends to disappear, along with part or all of the trading capital.
I trade reversals, but in order to improve the odds on reversals actually moving and not just stalling immediately I use Ranges and trade with a kinda trend if there is any, like NoDoji is suggesting, but just envelopes and 2 sma's. M1 guy here, no idea what you are as yet, but basically my main thing is I look for a move down say, then a cluster of candles where price stalls, then when I see strength out of that area I jump on it, either way as it can break in both ways. Tight SL, if the move out is fake, just exit save your $$$'s. Generally I'm in and out in mins and looking for another setup on 3 different items. Take first good profit you see, don't let it turn on you, understanding ranges is key to this. When I stick to above I make money, but I get bored easy and go play and give some back at times, trying to stop that, need money soon
Seems like you need better discipline. Forget about missing moves, even if hard ones, that should not be your plan, your plan should be only the setups that conform to your trading plan. You should be immune to boredom or euphoria.
Well, I traded several trading approaches/strategies in past 6 years and from my own experience I can tell you that all of them required superb discipline, well defined plan and money management rules. If you don´t have that you better don't trade at all. The system which I trade is very logical. I am seeking price levels at which I can expect change in market auction. Meaning usually those areas where big boys enter the market (funds, banks, MMs). I usually pre-plan those areas before I start trading and then I watch orderflow (tapereading) to see if they really entered as I expected. If yes I simply join them, if no I simply let it go and wait for better opportunity.