To get a successful trader you have to go a long long way !!!! First please describe your strategy that you are trading AND in the beginning it is better to trade only ONE AND EASY strategy !!! Can you describe your strategy in a few words??? For Example: ""Buy the /ES when at the 15min chart the 5MA pointing up, the VIX 15min 5MA pointing down, the TRIN is under 3 and 15min 5MA pointing down and the RSI-Wilder in oversold(under 20). And reversly."" After you have a EASY strategy and tested it a few months with a good money managment and risk management you can get to the next step. But without this you should not trade, seriously !!! Hf and gl in trading.
Not what you're wanting to hear... but: It is IMPERATIVE that you use multiple time frames. For day trading - an intermediate level allows you to determine where significant levels of supply and demand exist (the larger the timeframe-- the more powerful the level). Then utilizing a smaller time frame will allow you to get a fine tuned entry-- such as a reversal candle or pierce of a bollinger band. Finally a large time frame level for reference will allow you to determine where price is on the curve and the overall big picture trend. It is understandable now why you weren't giving trades time to develop- a one minute chart had way too much noise for you to interpret-- moving to 5 min is indeed a step in the right direction--- but your probabilites of success will increase dramatically if you incorporate multiple time frames.
I've seen times where trades eventually worked out but the quick reversal takes out a lot of the stops which is a bummer while it moves past your initial entry position price in the direction you want in a split second. Going by 0.5% max risk limit for a stop, most trades I do are under that. I usually position 20 K in a trade at one time. Most losses on trades are around that mark max or less. If it's more, it's not by much. It's more so the ratio of win-losing trades that add up bad. Believe me, I have learned so much since I first started. I was almost really doing a roulette wheel black or red when I started a month ago only using stochastics. Basically I've looked at lines of support and resistance. If the direction goes in the opposite direction of my trade and moves past those lines and especially one ultimate one, that's when I will get out. I'm monitoring it. I think that my exits on losses aren't too bad since I'm good at monitoring it so I am acting as my own stopper. I think my exit points are ok as far as minimizing losses. I used to get out after 1 scalp pt on positive gains but now I will try to let it run a little and will use a stop to lock in minimum gains. That's what happened on the one positive trade I had last time. It took out the stop. Otherwise, I knew it had more room to run. My issue is entry points. At times, I'm too eager or too patient where the trade doesn't reach the set up I want so I'm waiting again and move in too aggressive & impatiently on the next one. Then I get myself caught up in a quick temp reversal where I get out too early. That is my problem and I've been working on it. Also part of the problem of letting trades develope is using 1 min charts. Too quick to get in and too quick to get out. I found myself exiting trades after 1-3 minutes before only to see it reverse in my favor minutes later. I'm in the process of transitioning out of it.
Pretty sure u r missing the point of risk management relative to max $ loss. Your stop isn't based on .5% of the stock -- whereever you determine your stop loss location to be on a chart-- take that amount from current price and position size so if your stop is hit you are incurring the same loss max-- which is based on a % of your account size. You should never base position size merely on a fixed capital amount (such as $20k in your case) or fixed share amount-- both of these will always vary with fixed % $ loss risk mgmt. Every trade you will know in advance what you max loss is-- and it will be the same no matter what. If u want to give trade room to move-- widen your stop-- this will increase win ratio- but understand tradeoff will be your position size will be smaller so hence the profit as well. If you want a tighter stop your size will be larger, win ratio smaller, but profits larger.
Decided to do a quick mini-scalp of GS. +4.. my only positive day since I began the day trade account. Bought 91.43 Approx: 3:53 PM Sold 91.46 3:54 PM Really nothing.. but being that I've taken losses for so long.. even such a really small gain seemed ok. Don't laugh.. I'm not an advanced trader.. This is a journal for me to read back upon.. LOL I did paper trades for a while last week and did paper trades earlier today too where I was +50.. where I was consistant. only had one losing trade in Friday. Decided to do it live for a small scalp toward the end of the day. Don't know why but paper trades all seem good to me yet the real deal has been tough. For those that don't believe me on paper trades, upon request I could take a picture of the paper trade screen shot to show that one can be good at paper trading but not in real life. Baby steps. Paper trades are nothing to brag about so I don't post trade info on them. I do try to treat them as real I can. I figure to do more paper trades in the morning and perhaps a live one later.
+6 Sold Short: $91.01 Approx 2:44 pm Bought $90.97 2:45 pm Tiny if non-existant gains.. will keep doing real small gains till I build up a base to let trades develope. Cautious, since I'm tired of doing cash transfers to keep the account alive. I'm barely above the minimum to do day trades. On the paper trades, was +104 in the 1.5 hours with approx 6 trades but decided to gamble and do a risky one & took a -80 loss. Of course, still another positive paper trading day. Being a gambler in the past, old habits are hard to shake. That's one thing good about paper trading, it's a good place to weed out bad habits.
You should try Ameritrade. The ThinkOrSwim platform at Ameritrade has a capability called 'OnDemand' where you can trade a virtual account real time based on past data of any day you chose. I find it is a really good practice and skill development tool. I think it's more informative than papertrading on the current day since you get to see immediately how the market plays out forward of the day you chose after each session. I am honing my sense of market direction and beefing up my sense of daily directional bias using it.
Right now, I use Lightspeed. Their commissions rates are great. Had I still been with Scottrade, I would've lost out because I would've had to pay $6-7 per trade (so $12-14 to enter and exit). This would've forced me to stay in positions that I normally would not have. The paper trader for Scottrade Elite sucks too since it gets stuck after a few trades and your fake account runs out of funds for no apparent reason other than being their glitch in the system. You would have to call them to refund your paper account and many times that doesn't get done until the next day or later. Their system is not good for shorting. With Lightspeed paper demo account, it is pretty much the same as their live one accept their stop orders get screwed up and their limit orders have a couple glitches. Lightspeed is fast in terms of button activations. Cancel orders quickly with the ESC key. Scottrade you have to confirm your cancel which takes time and costs money. The only drawback to fast buttons is that one can hit a wrong button. That is something I have to work on. All in all, I am very glad I left Scottrade for day trading. I must've lost hundreds just based on their rates and how I was forced to stay in trades. There's no way I could've done these mini-scalps without low commissions. Ameritrade and ThinkorSwim's rates are too high for me to do this. I figure to do the paper trade longer until I am really consistantly positive and it becomes mechanical (I've had all positive days paper trading for the last week) and do one live trade a day until say I have +100 and I step back to the more normal course of trading that I had done before when I lost 3.5K. Yes with Lightspeed or IB, if you do basically limit target orders where the price target will hit or go through it, you will get ECN rebates for providing liquidity. It reduced the commission to even less. I basically paid $1.40 to enter and exit on the last two trades. I know the gains are small but I have put everything I have into a 25K day trade account. Having lost 3.5 K, I have too much to lose if I blow out my account anymore. So the gains are small but I'm doing everything I can to minimize losses and hopefully set forth in the right direction.
You are obviously in this way over your head...never before more apparent until your latest posts... and setting yourself up for failure.
RiffRaff, I appreciate your advice but I don't think you understand my position. As I have said, I have put everything I have into this. I simply cannot afford to take big losses. Everything is relative. You may have 100-200K to do trades and simply laugh at my small miniscule gains. However you have to put yourself in my shoes. I simply cannot afford to lose even 100 bucks. Everything is tight in terms of bills. I even had to sell half of my coin collection to cover bills while I do this. Yeah, I don't relish losing everything that I've gathered over the years to do this. You can't sit there and laugh at people's small gains. Some of us are still in the 99%er group. I'm trying to increase the gains slowly after heavy losses. Please be a little more understanding. I only started 2 months ago. Think back to when you started and your first 2 months. Most people would be happy to have any positive or neutral days when they start. I'm looking at the long run and the bigger picture. Eventually at some point, I will be increasing the live trade volume. Hey, it's better than some that brag about paper trading skills or positive back test results yet don't do actual trading. +7 (All gains are all after commissions & fees) Bought 88.23 12:24 Sold 88.28 12:25 Actually was looking to do more live trades but I missed out on some profitable ones by $0.01 on the limit orders I set forth. Those would've gotten me a much larger sum than my one trade since they jumped afterwards. I woke up late today and yes, I'm a night person. So being on the west coast, it's tough for me. I went and did a demo trip with 2 trades and was +17 (should've been +34) within 10 mins., since I do double the shares as the default setting. Just forgot to double it. Paper trades are paper trades and just good for training and getting rid of bad habits. I don't post details of paper trades other than P&L because well as everyone knows, they are paper trades and worthless.