I opened up an account with tradingsim to help me with this. I'm hoping that it will scratch the itch to reduce the likelihood of bone-headed trades due to impatience / lack of discipline. So far I think it's helping. I don't really know what a broker sounds like, lol. I try to chew the meat and spit out the bones - not to say I'm good at it, but that's the goal. I think your advice is very good for me right now. It's just so tricky because we also need a healthy amount of "grab the bull by the horns" mentality. You've got me thinking.
How is it a waste of time? I’m up nearly 100% on the year and trade full time. Now mind you, I have read about 40 books on trading, trade full time as mentioned, spend about 4 hours Pre/post market charting using auto charting tools but it is possible. Don’t believe all the 95% of traders fail hype; I think that applies to the mom and pop guy that just tries trading for a couple weeks with $2000 or through their IRA without researching. Also, all I use are VWAP with standard deviations and 2 exponential moving averages and 1 simple moving average. Using trailing stop losses to let your winners run, and use ATR to determine where to place those trailing stop losses. I like 2x ATR for the day, but you can use what works for you. Let’s build each other up! It was my dream to live off my trading revenues and now, I do. And I am 100% sure there are others that can too!
Curious -- why do you say that? I know of more than several examples who are pretty "public"/"transparent" with their trading, and who more or less use the same approach/indicators cited. I've observed them doing this for years now to varying degrees -- subbed to chat, studied their methods, etc. Have fairly close trading buds who've traded with them in person. On Friday, one of the traders I'm alluding to made $86k -- for the week, he was up over +$150k. His many vids are on YouTube, but I won't post a link because I think it might be regarded as "promo." Also, although I'm not affiliated with his service in any way, I suspect I'll get accused of being a "shill," or get challenged to defend his method, my own trading, etc.
if trading were that simple - throwing a few indicators together and wala the money falls from the sky.... why do 95% lose... it's a true stat. basically these things fall into 2 categories - trend follow or counter trend... all that ATR blah blah is just smoke... sure you can make money in certain market phase for so long until it starts to bleed and then you are out. I've said many times - trading is not about finding something 'hidden treasure' that somehow all the other guys have missed.... you see the front page - 'found and edge'... 'found an edge now what next'.... lol.... people haven't found shit. check my thread 'trading is easy'.... you are sitting at a poker table dealing with ever dynamic situations.