Those were two different trading setups, that's why I used different tactics. One was a breakout and the other I was seeing a likely bounce off resistance. I showed the hourly chart because it show better where that resistance level is, but I was playing it on a 5 minute chart.
The very best advice is to STOP trading live capital. You need to devise a trading system and you need to prove to yourself through backtesting and paper trading that the system will allow you to preserve your account equity and to steadily grow your account equity. Position Management will be just as important as trade entry. Once you have honed your trading entry and position management rules and you show yourself to be profitable (like 15 winning days vs 5 losing days with your average losing day no greater than your average winning day) - then start trading live but only in the smallest size increments available. Once you are consistent and have confidence then leverage will get you where you want to go - rapidly. I started out trading five lots in Eurex and eighteen months later I would take a thousand lot. (DE Trading/International Trading Group). But I also had a very good spread trading system that I had nurtured on the floor and it was ideally suited to electronic trading. I sat next to a Bund scalper who started out with one lots and in a year he did a couple hundred at a clip scalping. Your only objective is Consistency. In the meantime, please conserve your capital. I wish you the very best.
The scaling in idea seems like an interesting strategy. For example, if you normally use 4 contracts say, with scaling you can start maybe with 2 or 3, and leave some if price comes down a bit, and now you can buy more and your risk will be reduced too by the amount it came down. Or you can use the scaling in to get in at a higher level that makes sure you don't miss the move.
I agree with this. I may not even do day trading or even swing trading, as I was mentioning. Tried it before and failed. But if I do it makes sense what you say. But instead of paper trading I think I'd rather trade smaller sizes contracts, like micro minis. My impression is paper trading doesn't really capture the emotional element of trading real money. Also, I don't think I can stay interesting paper trading the market. Did you paper trade your system first?
Scaling ie averaging down goes badly cause it'll run with 1 position of 3 in and make not much, or it'll crash through take all 3 positions and go straight to SL for max pain. Adding to profit is better.
Successful trading takes emotional maturity and discipline. If you’re posting as a newish member here on ET soliciting advice under a thread you titled: “Stop Losses are Killing Me” - then it might reasonable to assume that you are a bit exasperated emotionally. If you can’t take a few weeks or even months off in order to really model the markets hard and backtest - then there is no reason to believe that your trading stint this time around will have a better result than your previous failed attempts. And yes, I put in a ridiculous amount of background effort developing and refining my trading system.
He's right, I've been refining mine for 4years, but I'm getting close, but I've been saying that for about 4years and likely still on my death bed.
I should clarify that the ES trade today, the failed breakout, was actually a micro trade, several lots, so not as great a loss as if it were ES. Sorry, put wrong chart.
Go back to Demo, ( I do all the time ), it's easier to try stuff with no fear of actual loss, when you crack that, back to real Micro, then back to demo and repeat, cuts down on the paying to learn fees. Single position, multiples add up to big losses quickly.