it was not a red carpet ahead of me .if someone claims he makes money out of market consistently without 3-5 years and minimum a few thousands hour of hard work, i simply will not believe that.
I trade for a living. I started 9 months ago. Only till now I "know" how to trade. 8 months prior I have just been been unsuccessful. I used to spend over 15 hours at my desk trying to crack the market. It was hard, I learnt the hard way but worth every minute and second. Don't rely on the commercially available indicators. If they worked then everyone would be rich right? I trade just 1 contract ($500) so that's $10/tick with a $4000 account size, trading the Russell 2000 Monday-Friday from the opening bell to the close - I make anything around 50-1000 pips a day scalping, depending how the Russell is behaving. Wednesday's I trade the Crude Oil Inventory and Thursday's I trade the Natural Gas Inventory. Both inventories combined I usually make around 20-150 ticks. During Macroeconomic fundamentals I trade Gold and major currencies including AUD, CHF, CAD, and NZD. Depending how quickly I join the trend I profit anything from 10-100 ticks depending on the move. My personal favourite is trading the Russell. Very liquid. I don't hold any positions overnight, I purely Scalp. So it's possible.
Great post-congratulations- I make money too and it sickens me that so many traders have to snipe at others. It's very hard to do this, and we need all the friends we can get, and some posts on forums are just damaging and best avoided. I need a trading buddy to force me to take the big bucks,but I'm comfortable being uncomfortabel with markets. May the force be with you.
Hey man. Hope you are well. Thanks for responding. I'm glad your trading is successful. Honestly - stick to one thing. I stick to the Russell and Russell only. I only trade Crude and Gas during the inventory but I don't day trade anything else but the Russell. Soybean, Wheat and Corn are new products that I'm looking into. I know I said stick to one instrument but these are options you can look into. What do you trade now?
If you wrote a book explaining how you spent 8 months trading unsuccessfully and then suddenly woke up the morning of Month 9 and accomplished the above, it would be a best-seller. I wish I'd had it so easy :eek:
Hi chfaddict, Eight months is pretty good going to "get it", but then it's to be expected some will get there quicker than others. What were you doing wrong during your first 8 months? Did you have a sudden Eureka moment? Just interested.
I have been trading full time since 2006, you would be surprised how many people are doing this on ET. Its not a secret formula its about being judicious, treating it as a business and consistent improvement.
Well 15-16 hours a day for 8 months is a lot of time invested, I gave up everything. I basically focus on price levels, profile, and momentum. I buy and sell when the big institutional players are buying and selling. I focus heavily on Daily Pivot Points, I use EMAs but not for entries just an idea where the direction is heading. But my main tools are HH, HL, LL and LH. I wish I knew how to detect these levels earlier but analysis of the above - a high probability the trade will go your way. Bare in mind I Scalp, so if I'm up 5 ticks I'm out. 10+? I'll trail my stop. My risk: 10 pip stop loss. I used to get emotional, but now I just let the trade run but moving my Stop up, free trade and anything more - profits. You have to accept when you're wrong and I was too arrogant too accept my flaws and mistakes. So I buy at the lows and sell the highs. The fewer indicators used the better. I lost majority of my money by cluttering my charts with so many indicators. Keep it as simple as you can. Seriously, that's how you'll see results. Too many will make you indecisive and that's when things go wrong. If you can nail Bollinger Bands; things should start picking up.
chfaddict, You were not profitable for 8 months and now you've been profitable for 1 month after struggling for 8 months. Here are my questions: 1) How were you able to support yourself for 8 months (e.g. did you have money saved up for 1 year to get you through the initial months of being none profitable) ? 2) This is your first month of profitability...how many hours per day are you now devoting to your trading/studying in comparison to the 15hrs-16hrs per day you were doing during those losing months. 3) Considering this thread is about trading for a living as a full time trader...I will assume this is now your primary source of income. Has this profitable month exceeded your income for one month prior to you becoming a trader ? With that said, if you can maintain consistency going forward, treat your trading like a business and you'll be able to achieve longevity in this business.