It is all a fantasy. The following are two days of sim trades. The summary... And the executions... This does not happen in RL. It never can. There is no emotion in sim, there is zero risk. Sim is a red herring. I have been saying to myself over and over again, as I have done many times...If I had just picked the "real live" accounts instead of the sim accounts for these trades, then that would be the result. But it's all BS. It never can be. That leads me to the conundrum... If I know it is not my money, but in the back of my head know it is OPM real, could I achieve the same results? After all, sim is kinda' OPM in a tiny sense, but not really, because it is real. Dry oatmeal. I really need some Stern and George Takei tonight. Sorry Baron and Magma, I need a release. NSFW guys... FFFUCK!
You either have a workable method or you don't. If you do not know, define the metrics needed to validate your approach, validate it and then trade with real money. Personally, I have always found sim trading mostly a waste of time. Sure, it's fine for testing your software and approach but my sim account balance is not going to pay my bills.
Exactly. The IB paper trading account for me is somewhere to test code as much as possible. You don't want to create something and go live hoping for the best, although I'm sadly guilty of this sometimes. Sim dollars on screen never stir any emotions. I suppose the best way would be to do it Billionaire Boys Club style -- for someone to supposedly give you a real account and you'd believe it was real. Even then, what if you had an absolutely awesome performance from september to november, it means nothing as the sample is insignificant. You don't really see anyone paper trading for 2 years consistently to prove a concept.
And that is where the fear comes in. That is all discretionary day trading, except for the first GC trade. Why can I not do that live? I have no coding or auto-strats. Just my own head. At the beginning of this holiday season, I am very happy about that final NQ trade. I went in a direction, it started to go against, so I took the stupid loss. And shortly after that the thing tanked many more points down.
If you have a plan, you should have accepted all possible losses. I started with live acount but made it small enough not to blow up, yet large enough to feel the pain. And I felt it! I had a rule that all stops had to be taken manually (no stop orders) to prove discipline. Have max loss and ACCEPT it, write it off. It should all be part of the trading plan. If you care about making money, you are screwed. If you care about good stats, you are screwed. Only care about honoring your plan/rules even if it's not yet "perfect/proven." Never deviate until you officially change it. That is your only benchmark. I know, easier said than done!
How DARE you go that route with me. You have no idea of the pain I have gone through. There's a journal I have somewhere on this site you might wish to visit...No stop orders? Manual stops? We are singing the same song, but with different scale. Yeah, I had a max loss and accepted it. I accepted the possible losses. I did it in Aug 2015, I did it in Feb 2018, and I did it in Oct of 2018. And I did practically no trading in between that wicked triad of major market moves. I don't need some punk shit like you coming in here to tell me where I may have gone wrong, how to know my limits, and what-have you. I had a very well-thought out plan, thank you very much. But my plan was being developed during the slow and steady rise of the everlasting bull market. 2018 has fucked up that plan, because what used to work for the past 5 years, as I have slowly adsorbed those moves, is no longer valid. It took me years to develop my plan. But it changed so quickly and so abruptly, I did not have time to adapt. So I stayed out, for ALL of 2018's final bull run. I finally got in mid Sep. It worked until Oct 3rd. Then it all went ape-shit again. There's a Cylon with your name on his visor out there, somewhere. I have dropped the old swinging style and am now back to the original day-trading-only style, full discretion, in many markets, not just focusing on one market. And if you knew the truly scandalous secret about why I struggle, you might even feel pity for me.
Dude, your problems are not really my concern. I reply to other readers having the same issue(myself included). But mainly I reply to hear others question my beliefs. Why did you post? To curse out loud?
I posted a response to your response to my post. If you cannot accept the response of a reply to a reply you make to said poster, than why bother replying to said poster in the first place? "I should have accepted all possible losses." What the hell kind of arrogant statement is that? You have no idea what I have accepted. Yer' just not understanding the whole online BB thing very well.
To me the concept of SIM trading is just a lure by brokers to get amateur traders to open a trading account knowing full well the grand majority of them will blow up their account within a few weeks/months.. Back test with REAL historical data to prove your strategy works or face the $$ guillotine...