Tradingdreams: How about betting half the size and increasing your stop size. addition: I don't trade stocks anymore really (in my account at least) but a stop of 0.01 is way to close. Give yourself some room to breathe. ozzy
Thanks for the encouraging words. There are so much posts made here and its hard for me to keep up with them. I try to come and read as often as possible to learn from what people has posted here previously. So far I've been concentrating on getting the technical indications right. But it feels as though many of technical indications are intended to be for swing trading with time frame of about 3-5 days. I haven't yet been able to make that leap holding positions overnights. I think the reason why I can make that leap is totally pychological. I end up doing what I do everyday repeatly and overlook other possibilities. I think I need to break this habbit of just doing what I do. Its been about 3 months I told that myself but I still haven't been able to break free.
I am 27 years old. With monthly expense of about $2500. That includes the living expense and trading (rent, eating, high speed connection, data fee, etc). I trade with $500k intraday buying power. I can overnight up to $50k. I have limitation in intraday position for up to 10,000 shares. I also have problems with holding to my gains. I tried to fight this by taking more conservative approach during the afternoons. But this also frustrates me because I end up not making some trades during the afternoon where I could have made money. I donno where the balance is or if there is anything as balance.
TD, it probably wouldn't be fair of me to offer more trading direction/tips due to you trading a completely different instrument than I do (I only trade currencies in the spot forex market). guys here are much more involved in trading equities that I think you mentioned you trade. good luck with your endeavors and do msg me if you begin trading global money - so I can post on your journal again. good luck and enjoy ET! sKaLpZ
I dont want to sound like a downer, but I am a realist when it comes to the markets. I think you should prepare yourself for the fact that you probably wont be net positive consistently for at least 8 to 12 months. New traders always come in with unrealistic expectations of how fast they will be able to succeed. The best advice i can give you is to work hard, constantly be looking for ways to improve and be 100% dedicated to the task. If you are passionate about trading and your will to succeed is great, there is no reason why you wont be able to get consistently profitable. When i was in your position my thinking was that it wasnt a matter of if i would succeed but rather a matter of when. Stay positive!
I've been trying this approach.. Its a battle between my scalping self and my other that wants to improve. I began taking this approach during the afternoons to take advantage of stocks that trend. So far my success rate is at best about 20%.. 40% of the time I end up getting out as I become impatient watching every tick. The other 40% I get stopped out. The 20% that worked is when I put the stop order and decided to just go eat outside and come back 2 hrs later..
Thanks skalpz. I spend a lot of my time listening to bloomberg radio. Doing so, I've become very sensitive to macroeconomic events. I am somewhat in tune with the market knowing when certain economic data are due and what the expectations are. I feel as though I can read the futures market slightly better on certain important days where there were many macroeconomic news. For example, 3 weeks ago when job numbers came out 3 trading days before the Fed announcement day. I was very convinced that Builders and Reits will sell off till the day of Greespan makes his annoucement. I told my friend that morning that we should short these sectors. During that next 3 days, I realized I didn't make a cent from Reits or the builders. Every entry seemed far to risky and I didn't want to take that risk.. My friend on the other hand made a killing.. I tend to not follow up on my research.. I do very thorough research before the market opens and when the market opens I don't seem to trade any of the things I've done my research on. Anyhow, I haven't yet had the chance to trade currencies. I wish I would someday have the foresight and flexibility to be able to trade different trading products depending on situations.
When I first started trading, I focused on scalping thin volume stocks. I did fairly well. However, I realized that my strategy wasn't scalable. I wasn't happy with the money I was making and begun adapting to trading thicker stocks. I've been bagged many times but eventually I started to make consistent money scalping thicker stocks. However, in order for me to be consistent I needed certain market conditions. When market slows down, I can't make any money. After I going through this experience, I realized that the problem I am facing is not in the volume of stocks. It was the mentality of trying to scalp every position I am in.
I hardly ever used stops.. But I'm going to start using them far more often now. I am curious how the transition went for you moving out of stocks. I've thought about it for a while but I can't seem to make that leap. Equities became a routine job for me. I also don't have enough money saved at this point to try something new and risk not making any money for extended amount of time.
Hey: I started trading futures in February of this year (~ 6-7 months ago). I have not been successful. But I am still working on it. In the process I have learned alot about trading and myself. It's not over until the fat lady sings. ozzzy