When I started day trading, I traded stocks, but unlike most of the guys in the chat room, I found myself trading the same stock for a period of time. I felt as if I "got to know it". Also unlike the guys in the chat room I had no scanner that threw signals for the "play of the moment". I remember a day in fall of 2008 when I traded the same stock in a range several times and made almost $1000. Bighog thought I should trade futures because I always complained about losing focus when watching multiple stock charts. With futs, I could focus on one or two things. But it wasn't until summer 2009 through very early 2010 that I began to understand price action trading. Once that began to take hold, I finally realized the PA concepts would allow me to trade both directions throughout the day. I didn't have to wait for price to get to some long term level, I didn't have to scan for stocks that were "in play"; I could just watch a futures chart for price action setups, several of which occurred each day. Futures began to make a lot more sense then: easier to focus, no wash sale rules, far less risk of a trading halt, etc.
I usually have at least 6 trades a day but I'm a scalper. Where an intraday trend follower might hold through several retraces, or add to the winner on each retrace, I will trade the trend in several pieces. Today, for example, just before the pit open we were in a well-defined uptrend. Instead of buying and holding (or adding) throughout the day, I traded to the long side quite a few times. I had a few shorts in there, but not one of them hit a 20 tick profit target.
I have a short memory so let's hope for the best in the future. I take my sim trading as if it was real money. I cannot explain why but that's a fact. His performance is consistent for well over 10 years. Unfortunately I could not assimilate his method. ALMOST impossible. I agree that the emotions are different but similar. When (and not if) I go live, it would be interesting how I would react to losses. I used to trade live and lost but kept posting (not here on ET) Thank you for your advise Gabe
His actual trading and what he wrote in a manual he published were different in my mind (there were some English issues as well. as an example - if X happens do Z HOWEVER if Y happens do Z. It is not a typo. Basically do the same under 2 different conditions). Also the rules were nested so deep (if then statement like) that the condition rarely materialized. I tried to program the rules but got no output. Yet he is very successful. Maybe it was only me. Gabe
Hmmm...strange. Are you sure he was successful and not just claiming to be? FWIW, someone once told me he paid a successful trader/mentor to teach him to trade and found out very much by accident one "successful" day that the trader was sitting on badly losing positions.
I was sitting in his chat room for close to 3 years and he was posting his trades with slight delays. Unless he had an extremely rich wife or a large inheritance, I don't know how he could support himself for all this time because he was in the room most of the day (he could have worked nights but then I would classify him as a Zombie. Gabe P.S. I still could not find a way to send you stuff.
lol, you're not alone. I had exactly the same yesterday, trading nq and cl. 18 trades. 16 losses. 2 winners. down $700 on the day. So far today i'm 8 trades in. 7 losers! (all CL trades.) Don't stress, though If more people were honest, you'd realise you were far from alone!