hi Padu, do you recall the handle of the poster who was advocating about market always going up and knowing it and “not having a seat at the table “
"what kind of information does the candle you watch on 5 min basis give you? is a large green bar information enough for you that can forecast the next minutes? i highly doubt it!" If you don't think it can be done then you probably won't be able to do it.
There is no easy answer on how to be successful in the financial market. First off, go watch The Winning Method of Market Wizards by Jack Schwager on youtube. There is no one method to be successful. The key to having a trading journal is the ability to go back and review each trade and learn from it. In that way, one can adjust the method and reduce losing trades. The process of documenting all the trades in a journal and adjusting the method so as to improve performance is continuous. Let's say, a saving of $100K, trade only $10K. Try to lessen the mental burden as much as possible. Be patient with the market and this will protect your capital. Keep doing and repeating the same mistakes will not lead to improvement. A shallow awareness of the market will very much depend on chance in order be successful.
Yeah, and if I shared my track record, the next thing is that it is false. Been there, done that. I trade real-time in front of their eyes. Nothing is more real then that.
Many years ago, I read a book on how to succeed at anything, written by an an unknown author but had some real nuggets of wisdom. The most important factor that controls your success at anything is your knowhow. None of us is trading the market, we are trading our knowledge of it. There is an old saying attributed to Tony Robbins -- Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. Yet, there are many here who are doing exactly this, and I suspect you are too. I suggest you put this journal on hold, and go back to your courses and actually read them. Yes, 95% of them are very average, but the 5% that have value can change your life. I too took the same route as you, via courses, but I was lucky enough to connect with the right people and the right courses. Very recently, I found a nugget in an old trading book which has redefined how I look at trading. The only reason you are not profitable is because you don't know what works. Nothing else. There is a lot of BS out there that years and decades are needed to become a profitable trader. All of it is balls. The transformation happens in a heartbeat, the moment you find the niugget I am an expert at 4 skills. In one of them I used to be in the top 5% of the country and ironically, I can bring anyone up to my level with 15 minutes of instruction, and a few hours of practice. I've seen life from both sides of the fence, as a player and as a coach, which has given me some insights on how people think.. 95% of people fail at many things because they are not willing to do what it takes. It usually boils down to money or hard work. They are not ready to pay or put in the hard work required. People look at a gem as shit, because they got it free, and shit as a gem, because they paid through their nose for it. Such is the nature of the human beast. My wife was an average cook when we got married and she decided that she wanted to improve drastically, so she bought loads of cookbooks and attended cooking classes. Net result - she became more knowledgeable but quality was the same. After a few years of this I stepped in. As a bachelor, I used to eat at a certain restaurant everyday, and over time got to know everyone from the owners to the cooks and waiters. I went to the restaurant and requested the head cook (he must have been about 70) to visit my home, teach my wife some cooking for which I paid him. A few days later he visited and spoke with my wife for about an hour. After that her qualiy of cooking went through the roof. So I asked her what he had taught, and she said that she had been doing a common mistake which he corrected. This of course raises the question, - why the loads of cooking books and classes didn't correct it? She said that none of the books and classes had ever touched on this topic, which is very common in many skills. Some of the most important knowledge is passed on only by word of mouth. Do what you've always done and you'll get what you always got.
You probably, are not suited for trading to begin with. Starting with the unreasonable expectation that you will not lose monies. If you get into the stockmarket to trade or invest, you will lose monies. That is 100% guaranteed. What happens to each trade, you have no control over. Not the best setups will change that. That said, you can control the risk per trade for instance. Risk management is job number 1 in my opinion. If you do not have any form of risk management, your chances of blowing up and losing all your monies is pretty high. Only 5% of traders ever succeed if that is any consolation to you. So, start with risking only 2% per trade and use stop losses always. That will further reduce your risk. Newbies should not be taking more than 5 trades all at once. If all 5 trades lose, you lose a maximum of 10% of your capital on a worst case scenario. Most times, you will lose maybe, 0.5 percent or even less provided you use stop losses. Small losses are not to be feared. As long as your gains are multiples of your losses. So, if you make $300 each time you win and lose $50 each time you lose, you will make monies. Important point, make sure when you place a trade, your trade is aligned with the major trend. If the stock is trending up, do not short it but, buy it. Ride the trend as long as you can with trailing stop losses. Try that.
There is a big difference between theory and practice, strategy and tactics. How often have you seen the better tactics win, even though the strategy is "lesser". Tactics are where things become reality. I suggest *maybe* your tactics are under developed and your strategy over developed. If this is the case, it will not work. Consider the difference between an architect and a builder. Architects can design things that are very hard to build, even un-buildable. Builders can make any pile of materials into something useful. IMO, one could make money with sound tactics and very little, but sound, strategy. I would also suggest that most sound strategies could be profitable with excellent tactics, while almost no strategy is profitable with bad tactics. Also don't dismiss Paper trading. Paper is where you work on execution tactics, not strategy, per se. No need to use live money getting proficient on order handling. Notice you see almost NO books are references on trading tactics, and how to implement and use them in real time. Lots of "strategy" books are available though.
Back in 2014, Getco had a monthly IT budget of $2M USD, that's a fixed cost that most retail traders would not be able to, or want to incur. So, how do you plan to trade this time? What will you do differently, to give yourself a realistic shot at survival? BTW, it's "Lose". "Loose" is how kids describe each others' mothers.