very discouraged by trading performance, very confused, not confident about trading signals... Real-time Account Net Worth $25,116.54 Real-time Realized P/L (Today) ($91.50)
If one starts learning how to drive a car, he will use his common sense and drive his car in an empty parking lot first. I doubt he will drive his car on a busy highway and cause traffic accidents. In trading, a trader learns how to trade on PAPER. Paper trading is equavalent to driving in an empty parking lot. Use common sense. Trading is easy, don't make it difficult. Don't listen to those who try to discourage you by saying that paper trading is not the same as real trading. Of course, paper trading is different from real trading, but paper trading is where your start your learning process. To make myself understood better, let me be redundant. When you start learning how to drive, your neighbor tells you that driving in an empty parking lot is not the same as driving on a highway and that you should try I-10, what would you reply to your neighbor? Your reply must be: You are fxxking nuts!!!! Most of the time, it's these ET nuts who make trading confusing for new traders, intentionally or unintentionally.
Paper trading is like sitting at home on sofa pretending to be inside a car driving it. Trading small with real money is driving in the empty parking lot.
My honest assessment is that a trader who is learning what indicators to use and what kind of charts to employ should still be paper trading. You have to build up to small time trading first.
Real-time Account Net Worth $25,017.52 Real-time Realized P/L (Today) ($110.50) Real-time Unrealized P/L $6.00 Carrying 300 QQQQ overnight, cost $51.45 Had 400 shares...before close sold off 100 at 41.50 and carrying the rest overnight. If these were out of hte money I wold not have carried losers overnight.. CPI numbers coming out tomorrow...expecting a pop and sell into rally. If numbers are good. more later.
I believe your account balance will be around 24,850 at tomorrow's close. That will limit your day trading freedom. I suggest paper trading.
you should stop and take a breather. the biggest mistake I see is that you seem to have started as a intraday trader and have justified holding losses overnight. with CPI coming out the next morning, that's asking for trouble. take the advice of paper trading for a while. live fire makes people do things they otherwise may consider risky. with something like CPI or Fed announcement, I find it much less risky to take on a position AFTER the number came out. if you have a position going in, you have no edge and it would be similar to gambling. your position sizing may need some work. why take on 300 QQQQ's if you're tweaking your system. 10 or even 1 QQQQ will be enough to see how your plan works out. if you go below 25k, you lose day trading rights. then someone will probably say, hey, try futures. no 25k requirements there! then you'll probably start trading 1 contract. lose some money. then try to make it back by doubling up. then it's down hill from there. or vice versa, if you stick with equities, you lose day trading privileges. so you get 3 trades every 3 days iirc. then you justify yourself into a swing trader. hold positions overnight. double up on Q's to make back your money. etc etc. take advantage of tradestation. backtest your ideas. since you're basing it on moving average, it should be easy enough to program into easylanguage. even if easylanguage programming is a pain and takes time to figure out, and even if you don't ever make heads or tails in EL programming, at least the time wasted will SLOW YOU DOWN. which may save you some losses. read up on some methodology. plenty of people you can pay for it. or just try to pick up what you can here or there. do anything to keep you distracted from losing money. until you get close to 50% winners. right now, if you're losing money every day, it may be better to tone everything down.