Actually I'm not totally newbie. I can handle the losses pretty well emotionally, so I'm not emotionally exasperated actually. Been through many of the challenges with trading already. But you're correct, obviously I don't know what I'm doing and shouldn't be risking much if any on these types of trades.
Now that’s a positive sign. That is real progress. I’ve been trading a long time and I’ve worked with a couple hundred clients as well. I hate generalizations in trading - but the traders that I’ve seen make serious FU money in this business since electronic trading took over have put a tremendous amount of background work into their trading system and position management. And they have the discipline not to repeat mistakes. Even in the days of pit trading - new guys would stand there literally for weeks with their arms folded watching and observing. Have a plan, and work your plan. And it might be really tough to stay with a trade - especially in these days of Bot and Algo driven market noise and gamesmanship. Don’t play to their strengths. I can tell you that one of the things I’ve done is trade smaller size and become a swing trader. I don’t want to compete with the Bots quite honestly.
There is no one size fits all for stop loss. During calm market, I tighten stop loss and volatile market, I reduced holding and widen stop loss.
I am managing a small fund for quite a few years now. I will share some of what I have learnt along the way. There's very thin edges in technical analysis (chart analysis), or non-existing. Depending on the instruments. You might find more edges in indices than in Forex. Fundamental analysis will likely give you an edge if you know how to interpret the data and the magnitude of impact it creates. It takes a lot of work, time and effort to understand the market. Once you have understood the market, you still have to come up with a profitable strategy which is probably equally as hard. These are my personal opinions, might be different for others.
about day trading ... 1. you might have traded choopy untrendy market. such market must not be traded 2. your entry timing might be wrong. in most cases, you have 1 or 2 seconds window to enter. at times, you have < 1 second to enter. and at times, you can take your sweet time to enter. If you miss that 1st opportunity, there might / might not be 2nd opportunity.
That's not a valid statement as you can say the same for technical analysis: "technical analysis will likely give you an edge if you know how to interpret the technical analysis and the magnitude of impact it creates." Anything related to trading can give you an edge if you know how to use it. This thread reminds me all the time about the discussion " entries are not important, exits are". If OP is getting killed from stops he should improve his entries as that is the cause of the problem. Better exits will not help as he will never get that far, he will be stopped before. He will be stopped because the difference between the market and the entry is too big. He cannot change the market but he can change the entry.
basically you shorted ES when market is STILL going up. you were doing counter trend aka kamikazae trading. when price hit resistance line, it doesn't mean price will go down. those SR lines are adding confusion rather than aiding us in our trading. there is nothing in the chart to show market is reversing direction to go down. I used to draw thousands of SR lines till I could hardly see the candlesticks. Now I have zero.
"reading tea leaves will likely give you an edge if you know how to interpret the taste and the magnitude of impact it creates."