Yes, all by hand. When you do manual bar-by-bar backtesting (revealing one closed price bar at a time and making a decision at the hard right edge based on your rules), the results you get are extremely close to the results you get in reality (there's some slippage in live trading, but it doesn't skew the results too much). My live results are in line with, or better than, the results I got in my several months of manual backtesting. The "better than" came from adding filters and additional rules over time.
Any other replies or thoughts to say on an interview/letter. How would you explain your desire, skills, etc
Regarding the thread question, I saw Cramer answer that question on one of his shows and I think it's pretty much why I started. i.e. Most retail traders started trading because their current jobs and forms of income wasn't enough for their financial situation. And the markets IF traded successfully, can add substantially to, or even surpass one's current level of income. As for having a mentor. I haven't had one yet. I've followed webinars and live trading webinars and updates. Interestingly I've tried signals and even judiciously followed signals with little hesitation. (And it turned out I lost a lot of money following those couple of signal services. I had even held onto losers because the signaller had a strict stop loss. It turned out the signaller was a scam and he kept revising his "profit record" every 6 months. I had copied his earlier records so I saw where he made profitable historical trades poof out of nowhere to hide his losing track record and failing equity slope ) Anyways, it seems to be far easier than entering a new trade following one's system or a system learned from someone else.
"We'd meet up and all they seemed to want to do was engage in pseudo-intellectual banter over overpriced lattes. " if you were truly analytical you would have hocked everything you had and bought shares in starbucks
I would like to beat the market and not feel so bad when the market is selling off while my account is loosing more the my pain tolerance.
Didn't read any of the responses. Good question. Through hard work and dedication, when the market(s) you are trading is/are loose you make quick money. Money that will make anyone you know jealous in the time period it's made. If there is no edge and the market is slow, find another niche. Whether it be trading or digging graveyards. Hope this helps.
Anybody here willing to train me? To put me in the right direction of learning. Not to give me strategies etc