Thank you truth101, Very well written and simple understanding. Everything you said is true. How I know its true? Cause I started with $5K cash in the market and said "forget sim, I have a college degree, this will be easy" and lost it all. lol, I been in sim every since.
I have been trading futures for 20 yrs. I have spent the last 8 years using Tradestation, having started with Supercharts. I have spent thousand of hours programming easy language studies and seeing how they perform. I'm finally at the point I can consistently pay back the money I have spent on my trading education. It has been a long and difficult road. But it is worth it. I now have a very simple robust methodology that I use that is the result of many years of tweaking. Once you are comfortable with your method then you have to pick your markets and be comfortable trading them. I have also found that the simpler the better. As far at TA goes, I found that its main benefit is to give you a framework to trade with in "the now". Not the future. It gives you the information you need to make high probability trades in the present. Then all you have to do is manage the trade. The key really is a LOT of screen time and really thinking about what is going on in the market. It does get easier and easier the more you do it. It just takes a lot of time.
Excellent post. Would you be willing to share your stats and what market you trade? Things like what your average win is vs. your average loss, and then your win rate. (ie. ES, stop is set to 2 points, average win is 3 points, 50% wins, that sort of thing). Of course maybe you're more so swing trading and hence holding for bigger targets with perhaps a smaller win rate but much bigger payoff. I'm just looking to see how your stats play out. Thanks.
Thanks. From your chart, how do I know beforehand in real time that a down trend will turn into an up trend?
At the moment my stats are nothing to write home about. However, I finally got my method down pat and working the way I wanted it to. For June Avg win-83, avg loss-109. Win rate-.76. But I have come from a deficit of 1814 to a deficit of 660 today. Total trades 71.I only do day trades and I trade CL, GC, NQ, and YM
Interesting, thanks. Having the average loss a bit bigger than the win is certainly not the best, but you're obviously still net positive with a high win rate. (and who can argue with a positive equity curve!) How many trades are you taking per day? I assume these are trades that only last several minutes to perhaps an hour max? (assumed based on the average win and loss size being less than $100)
Do you know how to draw tapes, traverses and channels? Would you post a chart of an instrument that you monitor? I could speak to it but having a chart would ground the concepts to something that you have an active interest it.