I got my ass kicked Friday trading the ym. Ive been live for about 3 months after trading sim for 6 months. Been consistantly profitable trading 1 to 2 contracts.... ............. Today I got killed and not happy.. lost 800 dollars, my average gains a week my confidence is taking a beating. Experienced guys, was this a difficult, tricky day to trade or what? The volatility hurt me with many head fakes. is this the usual reaction after fed day, and the last trading day of the quarter.. Any thoughts fellows?
you should only trade the previous days highs and lows as a breakout, price vectors inbetween can change. engage in battles that are worthwhile.
I had only a quick trade Friday then errands to run, and I trade ER2 so I cannot answer your question directly. However, I do have a bit of a rule I use. Say in a given week I have a 1000 ish day, then 3 high 2's, low 3's kinda days, then say maybe a 5K day. This trading 5's 10's and 20's. So, my rule goes like this. I look at last week, and I throw out the high and low day. Then, I average the three remaining days, and this number becomes my daily maximum loss for this week. If I hit that number, I close everything and I take the day off. I have some other modifications to this that apply to me (my psychology as I know it) but this is the general gist of what I do to save myself from myself. I mention this because your note seems to say you lost a whole week in one day. Making money is a trade by trade thing, and believe me, your mind will create all kind of craziness to justify what is just--and should remain--a single bad trade. Linking back to back to back losers must also not be tolerated. You must not let the losses grow like this. I know smaller accounts may find it difficult to make my numbers work, but even so you must make a number that is a reasonable daily loss limit and stick to it. Tomorrow is another day, and a better frame of mind if your are in a losing mentality. Good luck with it.
its friday its qtr end its month end its the day before the biggest holiday week of the summer(aka 1/2 the street is on its way to the Hamptons) volatility has been running @ high levels the market is near all time highs there were fears of terror attacks need more reasons to play it close to the vest?
So you are making 1000-5K+ on average, yeah right. Another ET who never loses money, incredible stuff guys.
I guess you are a net loser; maybe you should think this out. And I never told you anything about what I make on average, that is my business and my business alone. I will say though that I do not sit around trading one's and two's; not that I am knocking anyone at this level. It's simply that everyone advances in the number of cars they trade, or they quit and give up as maybe you should do, since someone with your obvious negativity is unlikely to attract anything but losses anyway. At 10 cars ER2 pays 1000.00 per point, and take a look at the ATR. How much do you think I am making? I have been trading it everyday for over three years; that's all I trade. With an average gain of roughly 0.5 points per trade, and say I make 70RTs in a day, that's 3500.00 gross, then minus clearing fees etc. If you think this is crazy, then you need to go play somewhere else, little boy. Wednesday was a huge up day. Those days one might make 40K. Or even more. That day must be thrown out. Similarly, if i were to have two down days, say with maximum loss in a week, I would likely have a negative value for my daily loss. I then adjust my number of cars as well; this is where my personal rules come in. I am trying to help the guy and what the fuck are you doing. Nothing. Go crawl back into your hole.
What's there to disbelieve? Good traders make consistant profits by limiting losses properly. Don't you know this?
I can say that I lost about 30% of DAX morning gains fading the train that day during US RTH. It happens, just know when to stop & trust your method if it has been profitable during the 6 months of testing, limit losses. All the best!
First of all, I know for fact this is possible via trading ER2. Also, the trader you quoted did not imply he never loses. In fact, he implied he does lose via specifically stating what $ (dollar amount) prompts him to stop trading for the day. Mark