From so long ago that I can barely remember who I was then, I can still remember what I expected/hoped trading full-time would be like. With visions in my head of multiply-paned octo-screens flashing multi-megabytes of data per second, I was sure that I would need several shifts of Mark I LBFMs each day to keep my stress under control. The reality is that a single 23 inch screen with five panes and software-driven audibles is fortunately as much as I need, and so well-within my sensory bandwidth capabilities that I have trouble staying awake. I would look like Bradley Cooper in "Limitless", all neatly-coiffed and after-shaved, smartly-dressed and the very picture of uber-successful American masculinity. The reality? Sometimes I change out of my camo-jammies, but not often. About as often as I shave and shower. I would be constantly juiced by the thrill of winning, high on my own brilliance and the constant Vegas-like ka-ching of daytrading. In reality it's point-click-wait-yawn-point-click-yawn. The most urgent feeling I get is the need to hit the head. Quite often an audible entry or exit alert will catch me napping. But it's too late now. I'm not qualified to get out of the house and work at any contemporary-skilled jobs any more. Time to post on ET!
Been there....... totally agree. Solution: automation. My vision of the perfect system is a robot that I turn on in the morning, then monitor it from a big screen TV in my shop, showing the chart with system and connection status, etc. while I work on something a little more intellectually stimulating.... glancing up from time to time to make sure it's still live. (not a day trader)
gee, it must be a lot easier to automate a winning system than it looks. I see dozens here claiming black box money machines every week. Never so much as a sliver of details, cept, they can surf for tranny porn during the day without interruption as their Vic-20 pix up the ezy monee.
An excellent suggestion. Supposedly the evolving ESignal 11 will support that. I have one teenie problem in that I am still secondguessing the system, as I can't seem to make it as smart as I think I am. As to the perfect automated system, it is a gynecoid that looks and feels like a real woman but does what I tell it to. The ultimate financial goal of my trading is to buy or develop or program such a thing.
Hasn't always been the kindest to me, but it's still better than many other things out there. '99 till now. Automation is a battle in itself.
The man for the job is a computer! I can't stare at a screen all day.. I have a ten year old AMD computer that can out-trade me every single second of every single day.. I'll figure out what to tell it to do and how to tell it to do it eventually... so far it only does what I tell it, I need it to do what I MEANT to tell it.. at that point I'll have one happy computer. Talk about working cheap, the thing eats cyber food, at the end of the day [EOD to my friends on ET] I'll reward it with some bytes.. People used to ask if computers could take over the world.. I'd tell them that it already happened and the computers are trying to figure out how to break it to us...
Why don't you set stops to anticipate probable movements? This means you don't have to keeping watching over things too often (very tiring!)
Thank you for your kind suggestion. My excuse is idiosyncratic, verging on idiotic. I like system development and coding much more than I like trading. It's like they get inside my head and squeeze all the placques out of my spongy old brain as I work. Development is keeping me alive, not trading. So I actually enjoy watching all the squiggles on my one-second chart, with occasional glances at one-minute and one-day. And since I suffer myself from the mental syndromes I attempt to cure in my clients my own OCD/ADHD/etc. are entranced by frantic ever-changing screen action. Another reason is that I am assessing several other promising systems while I trade my main one, which is a scalping system and still a bit discretionary. I see things that are not yet in my software because I don't yet know how to code things that aren't really there. I prefer to trade invisible events because there isn't much trading competition there.
Sorry, I am a bit slow this morning. Lost sleep uncranking a cranky code. Should you feel the need for a consultation to support an important decision in your life, I am at your disposal. The usual regimen I am afraid, an hour a day six days a week for fourteen weeks. Things haven't changed much.