Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Hi, I'm just getting back in to trading after taking a few years off. I had some success before but then drifted away and got into other things. Happy to find this forum and looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Thank you Mike for giving us a place to come and learn from each other. My name is Kou, I use to be a Nasdaq Market maker. I made markets from 1994 to 2004. I not only made markets, but I learn to take on positions with well defined stops. As a result, my performance became improved and I became one of the more productive market makers on the desk. However somewhere in 2001, I realize that with decimalization and the tech bubble, I will have to take more risk, and overnight risk as well. I have to be a position trader for the Swing or Trend time frame. And so I began my journey to do so, with disastrous results. At first it was okay, and then I ran into a month where I allowed a very healthy profit to become zero, and I still had the positions. At the end of the month, I realized something changed in my psychology, and I do not have an answer, not that I really did in the first place. I carried that long position in 911 and covered a day or two after 911. I road a losing position for nearly 1 1/2 months, that would destroy or alter many good habits of the past. It took me a year before I made back all my losses, but I find that I keep finding myself in big holes relatively easy. I use to be a very consistent market maker/trader. I had a streak of making money every month for nearly 4 years. After the debacle, I could not find consistency, and I felt lost. Eventually, without a solid plan for success both internally and externally, my losses became too large and I had to part with, what was once, my very favorite job in 2004.
I left the market for a while and then in 2007, I started trading again. I thought I had taken enough time off for the pain to heal. I picked up very close to where I left off. I was very much counter trend and with no solid plan for success, externally and internally. I went through a lot pain and I did many things that only someone who's lost it would do. There were days where I would lose 20K because I wanted to make 2K. I tried options and all its strategies, I tried day trading again, and I tried everything. I even reached into the detachment principles of Buddhism to help me find success. It just occurred to me that the road to true trading success may have been even longer for me than the average person, because I carried so much negative baggage with me. It was around one year ago that I thought of idea to test the market and I started testing with very good results. I started to see better day trading results, but for the life of me, I could not make it work. I just had to mess with it. I could not contain my thoughts, therefore my emotions, and therefore my actions. I usually ended up eventually losing more money than I made, usually much quicker as well. It is like Mark Douglas said, I became a boom and bust trader. Hey that's very good, at least there's the boom before the bust. However that doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. I decided to test my idea on daily patterns and found out that it works just as well. I then constructed a trading plan around it, and have since tested the idea since 1999 until 2011. It gives me pretty consistent results every year. I have two accounts one for SIM trading and one for options trading, mainly for leverage to keep from being bored. They are both to test executing my back tested idea over time. For the first time in a long time, or ever, I feel good about my prospect in the market. I have barely any real funds to trade now, but I know that not having any money doesn't matter. All it matters is how good you are. I feel that I am finally being able to understand what makes the market move and also that it takes an internally balance me to execute my plan to make it all work. Yes, the Buddhism philosophy does help. I still get mentally distracted from time to time, but I am able to pick myself up much faster. I am able to look back on my trades and see where I error and correct my actions. I finally understood why my journey from market maker to position trader failed so miserably. I wanted success in a psychologically tough endeavor without having earn it. I thought I could do it, because I am use to taking risk all the time as a market maker. Like many others before, I learn the hard way that the way to trading success is paved with hard work; without it most will fail. This year, I will dedicate to learning my system. Thank you very much. Best wishes to everyone.
Hi all
New to the forum and new to the trading world (I mean Forex mainly). I am a part time sports trader (just trade to pay some utility bills), but the last couple of months I have moved to Forex. My aim is to blow the minimum number of accounts during this journey and then to break even and then….
Big Mike thanks for this fantastic forum, the Phylo post was the first rude post I red since I subscribed.
Only one rude post in long time is a victory.
I showed up on the site like looking for some NT indicators one night. After looking around I can see this is really a cool place, and it's probably worth sticking around!
I used to trade back in 1998-2000, mostly day-trading 1000 share blocks of 20$-40$ stocks (40k acct). My strategy was some simple technical analysis and mostly discretionary. Shorting at end of day after crazy momentum run-ups and reversals was my go-to bread and butter idea. Never blew out my acct, and was able to make a living for a time.
After the volatility of this era kind of dried up I was unable to land on a new strategy that worked for me. So I went to work as an IT professional. I've read & learned a lot over the years, but haven't traded much since then. Fast forward to today - I'm wanting to start trading again (small, probably 1 ES contract once I've sim traded something successfully for a while).
Want to do it right this time - with proper trading plan, better money management, and some tested setups. I've played with Amibroker, TradeStation, IB, etc and have recently gotten into NinjaTrader. I've also struggled with getting data and coding ideas in Perl, Python, and R; and system development and backtesting can really get me lost down a rabbit hole sometimes. NT seems to be really promising and simpler to use, and maybe C# isn't as scary as I thought. I'm looking for guidance toward better ideas, and now maybe thinking of just re-adapting some existing LBR (or other) strategies as a new starting point. I am also aware that money management and psychology are even more important than setups & indicators.
Big Mike - I really appreciate what you've created with this site and the community. I feel like I've come across something special. It will take some time to catch up on reading some posts, and getting my own game back together, but I hope I can also contribute some value here in the future.
I have been so engrossed by the "My 6E Trading Strategy" by cjbooth and all the other posters that I totally forgot to introduce myself. Sorry about that..
I am a beginner day trader who has tried several trade rooms without much success, Ok, no success...
I'm also a professional photographer who has enjoyed a fantastic 25 year career. Unfortunately, photography is more of a luxury item and with the economy, our business has taken a huge hit.
I have learned a lot about price action, support and resistance zones, fibs and wave counts. I know that for now, my comfort level is being in a trade for under 20 minutes, anything longer and I usually exit even though if I had sit tight, the target was eventually hit. So, smaller targets (2-5 points on the ES) with at least 2 to 1 risk reward fits my personality well.
Enough about me, what I really want to say is "Thank You!" This is a great forum and I will be joining the Elite membership this weekend.
If you know of any posts on good Trading Strategies that are well detailed, feel free to send me a message and I can start reading them this weekend. I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction. Thanks for your help!
Hi,
This is my first posting but I enjoy the site very much.
Has anybody had any experience with Ablesys charting? If so how did they rate?
Regards,
Kenny
Thanks Big Mike for a great forum that is worldwide. I really enjoy this site, here is the knowledge and tools, lots of positive people. Here you can post thoughts and hopefully get good answers.
I have been on the Swedish stock market since 1978, where I acted in stocks and indices. It has worked well. Because I have a full time job so have not time enough to trade in the daytime. It has worked so well, so I will more than able to support myself on my trade if I would like it, but it has not always been so. From the beginning I did not understand that one must have a trading plan. When I follow my stringy plane I do good business, but when I leave my trading plan, it was lousy. If I feel bad, or there has been something of an accident or something that I think about. Then you can be sure that the trade goes bad. Psyche is the only thing that works against a trader, but it goes by different methods to work off.
Sit alone all day in front of the computer without colleagues to have fun with, I would not. For me trading is a hobby and a way to be financially independent.
Since the difference between the U.S. and Sweden is six hours, so I started following some of them Amerkanska indices. That makes it possible for me to follow from Sweden. Now I try to teach myself as much as I can about the ES, and CL by simply come along and try to find the character in the market. Try to act on signals that worked well in Sweden, they appear to work in the U.S. as well.
I bought a lifetime license for Ninja Trader, I have never seen such a fantastickt program before, with so many possibilities. The Swedish the programs I have used are not comparable with Ninja Trader. With Ninja Trader and Big Mike, it has opened a whole new world for me.
