In the end, every successful trader approaches the market different than another trader. It's the byproduct of human nature. Be proactive, persistent, and relentless. Find some way - ANY WAY, to grind tics out of the market. Think small. Just a couple tics a day. Your biggest goal is CONSISTENCY. Just a measure of rational motivation about what to accomplish- if you can make $200 per day on average over an extended period of time - you are golden. Lever VERY slowly. Your sizing bumps should be modest enough NOT to cause you to unconsciously create feelings of doubt. Naturally, the most angst is caused from going from a one lot to a two lot (I do a lot of hand holding and late night Skype sessions with clients). Bumping from a 5 lot to a 6 lot or a 10 lot to an 11 lot is much easier. This is much easier if you have another source of income than trading - and you can give yourself the required space and time to develop. In fact, IMO that scenario is ideal for the lone wolf. This is where I seriously part company with those ET'ers who think it's mandatory to start with $100K. Bullshit. Consistency is the key. Find it however you can. Work for consistency. The worm will turn once you find it and then establish a serious position management and growth regime.
Nice cut-and-paste job there. Do you not have any original thoughts for each situation? https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/crude-is-screwed-man.307208/page-28#post-4429250
My intent was to start a discussion about grinding out tics and becoming consistent. Scalping, swing trading, Spread trading - let's discuss it all.
*rubs temples* I see what you did, with the double-quote response on those two-threads. Touche' Let's call uncle here, and agree to disagree yeah?
I'll throw something out first. From 1998 until 2002 I traded prop futures at DE Trading/ITG in Glenview, IL. That shop was limited to DTB/Eurex - that's all that we were enabled for. Furthermore, house rules stipulated that we were to be flat at the end of the day. Since my previous experience was yield curve on the floor of the CBOT with my own account - I instantly traded Schatz/Bobl, Bobl/Bund, and Schatz/Bund spreads. At that time the order flow changes were inefficient compared to CBOT. I started trading 5x10 and in six months was at 300x500. The management there was very good, very supportive, and very aggressive. By the end of my first year I was trading essentially what was bid or offered. Given those circumstances, my goal was to make two tics per day. That's all I wanted. If I made my two tics by 10:00am I got up and left. David Ellis loved it. I didn't want to stray from that simple goal. That's how narrow and focused I was and for a period of about six years that trading style worked out really well for me. Make two tics on a stupidly large Eurex spread, then leave. That was my trading strategy. Times did change and I had to adapt and evolve, but I had a good run with it. I had a very modest expectation, managed to do it every day, and David Ellis dogged me into levering the piss out of it.
Get started quick. Journal wins and losses. Take screenshots and annotate the titles. Common mistakes will appear. Common successes will appear. Paper trade for a month or two. Then start with real money. Paper trading is meaningless. A trader must feel the sting of losses to force them into more profitable pastures. This is critical. Only way to stop the pain, is to know which behaviors are creating the pain. That's why journeling, introspection and real money trading at the keys to success for the beginner.
..."a month or two" ....I studied/watched/paper traded the market for like literally Five years -- before I gained my nerve again to jump back into the market. I jumped in, as a beginner, and lost 40% of my account within three or five months...and pulled out. And really took a long pause/learning experience. Today, now, I can make up that 40% loss...within a week -- given the right instrument and strategy and skill and risk appetite. I'm not saying, or implying, that Five years of paper trading will make you perfect, but that's just my unique case. If you ever get to that psychological mastery trading point...where you don't really think of numbers/money no more...But just the pure 'process' of the trade...that's a beautiful, Jedi point to be at,
I encourage my clients to paper trade and meet with me one-on-one to discuss the details about each trade entry as well as position management. In fact, I use go-to-meeting to dissect paper trades and performance metrics with clients. I guess in that sense there's some accountability to it and some reasoning and discussion about it. I totally get how paper trading in a vacuum might not be as productive or as honest as it could be.
Difficult aspect of trading is learning emotional discipline, thus I find paper trading meaningless; my recommendation for newbies is to trade as small as possible till consistent.