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+ a couple of places to look that I find valuable...
Books: Market Wizards, Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, Trading With The Odds, Reminisces of a Stock Operator, The Logical Trader, Brett Steenbarger's writings, Everything by Fat Tails and Sefstrat on this site (you'll find lots of other great contributors here too)
Methods: PerryG, MACK & Welly192 PATS, The ACD Method...& ULTIMATELY YOUR OWN METHOD
If i had it to do all over again I'd set myself up with a trial data feed, a short term chart of my desired market (ES, NQ...), a depth of market (DOM) and a time and sales. There are a ton of videos on reading the order flow here, start with those...Put in the screen time, then start trading on the sim. Don't bother with any indicators for now, just learn to see the auction market for what it is, an auction.
Find out what the prop shops do for training and do that...you've got the work ethic for it.
My best advice is Joe Ross. I did read many times his books again and again till I did understand what's happent on my charts. He's books are detailed and show you how to look on market and use trending&breaking out strategy in market. On very start I was bit lost with many new conception . Joe works only with price action and with my luck I did read that price action is a best way to be profitable. Sure I did try many indicators but always with same results = doesn't work for me ☺ so u can save your time if u will eliminate indicators ☺ when I did started study trading I did always said my self : this is like in school and I am now in first class and that give me experience go to next second class. I developed my own strategy by sitting with a charts many weeks. This forum it was one of the best step in my journey ( thanks Mike). I did found here many information.
So basically u need for price action unfiltered data.
Best luck in your new life challenge ☺
I watched a few of the webinars here today and started reading Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison (I also picked up Al Brooks Trading Price Action Trends). I'm also signing up for Elite here so I can watch more webinars and videos to learn.
I really want to get a good understanding of charts and how they work. Differences between bar and candle charts and all the different ways people view charts (tick charts v time charts and what time intervals they use and why) Stuff of that nature before I get into the "trading" aspects. If I can't understand what i'm looking at no way I can be expected to trade anything!
If anyone else comes across this post and wishes to recommend a book, an article, or a video they feel helped them or they deem is worth reading/watching to help gain basic knowledge, I would be very appreciative. Even audio or mp3 of a book would be great on my hour ride to and from work
If you like Al's book you should look into his video course. It is $250 and completely refundable if you are not satisfied with the videos, I don't know any other Trader Educator who does that.
I suggest watching the videos and then reading the books in conjunction with the modules in the videos. It really helped me to Watch, Read, and the practice executing in SIM.
In my trading plan I have 3 sections. Mind, Management, and Method. Mind is my psychology and understanding how psychology affects the markets. Management is Risk management or Money Management and this refers to your risk tolerance, stop levels, and position sizing. Finally is method, and for me that is Price Action trading. I believe that Mind and Management are the most important as they determine how you lose. I believe that most methods can make money in the right market cycle. But trading is more about the money you don't loose then the money you make.
Thanks tturner86. I didn't know he had videos available, I am going to look into it after I get my Elite membership squared away and get through a bunch of the webinars. The very last thing I want to do is over stimulate my brain with too much information. Sometimes when you have too much information form various sources you can't process and it gets all jumbled and you become a hot mess not knowing what to do. I like time for things to settle, see what I've read or viewed for myself. Try it out myself and see if I can draw the trends lines or S/R lines etc.
May sound stupid bu I'm trying to approach it as systematically as I can so that I retain as much as possible.
Each of us as unique individuals has to figure out or discover what our ideal trading style is.
I personally think the easiest trading style is "swing trading" which for me means establishing a trade and holding open it for several days to a week or two in duration. With that said, I spend a good part of my day "scalping" futures, which for me means holding a trade open for about 6 to 8 minutes on average. I have one trading account for swing trades and a separate account for futures scalping.
There are some excellent traders here on futures.io (formerly BMT) who are what I call intra-day position traders, where they will hold a trade open for an hour or more during the trading session but typically will not hold the position beyond the current session close. Sometimes by using position sizing strategies one of my scalps will develop into an intra-day position trade where the trade runs with a strong intra-day trend move. I think you will find these two intra-day trading styles, scalping and intra-day position, are the two predominant trading styles here on futures.io (formerly BMT). So as you study the trading journals and methods keep those classifications in mind. At some point in your journey, you will need to choose a predominant trading style, one that hopefully is in harmony with your temperament and personality traits.
I have studied probably 100s of traders and trading methods/indicators at this point and I am pretty quick to outline a method. Like most here, I am constantly on the look out for any new idea. I am always open to exploring new ideas, but at the same time have a pretty strong filter. Here are a few of the benchmarks I use when I look at a trader or trading method:
1. Trading style ( scalping, position, swing...) - this sets my expectations for what comes next.
2. Risk Control - this to me is vital , how risk is controlled gives me a good idea of the maturity of the trader / method.
3. Consistency of approach / application - is the method stable, same thing day in and day out , or is it drifting or evolving on the fly. A consistent approach and technique leads to consistent results. I generally do not waste much if any time on anything or anyone that is meandering or drifting randomly from day to day or method to method. New traders have a very strong tendency to drift from method to method, from indicator to indicator. They get excited about a new method or indicator, run with it for a short time then become disillusioned and move on to the next thing. Successful traders generally have settled on a method that works for them. The central core of that method acts as a bedrock foundation of stability for them.
So as you go through the futures.io (formerly BMT) journals, and there are a number of excellent journals here. Keep these things in mind. It has been my experience the best traders share these traits. Their methods or techniques, chart setups , indicators or lack thereof may be totally different or worlds apart from each other. But the underlying approach to the mechanics of successful trading is surprisingly consistent.
Trendwaves, thank you for the great post! The wealth of information on futures.io (formerly BMT) alone is staggering. I got through the where to start trading webinar and moved on to reading Steve Nison book on Candlesticks. I also have been watching his DVD on it as I tend to retain more information from seeing and hearing than reading.
I have yet to even look at trading journals or anything beyond understanding candlestick charts and learning to spot and draw s/r lines (though All Brooks Price Action Trading is my next thing I will move into).
The huge thing I took away from the where to start webinar was picking a platform and then going from there. That alone has drove me crazy! The Thinkorswim platform I use for my investment account seems clunky. The charting seems unfriendly and drawing on it is a pain, I do like that data feed for everything is just there. I tried Ninjatrader but it seems very complicated to setup and import data. The charting seems great but finding data feeds and other setup has not been as easy as ToS. So yeah, finding a platform I like and having data feeds just so I can practice technicals on charts has been an obstical for me. Everyone started somewhere right??
I appreciate all the help and advice from everyone so far!!! You have all been so awesome.
Depending on your situation this is the best advice. If you don't mind/can afford taking longer path of trying to figure out how to trade from charts alone keep researching this forum.
Well - I'm not going to add to your confusion by giving any more (conflicting) advice.
What I will say is this. Trading, in my opinion, is a skill.
So whatever you try, you will be bad at it initially.
Whatever you try, you need to give it a shot and you need to be diligent in logging the results so that you can see what really works for you and what doesn't.
Whatever you go for - have the fortitude to stick with it and give it a good shot. Be aware that there will be people telling you what you are trying is nonsense.
It's either that or chop & change every month.... which is how a lot of retail traders end up old, grey and cynical.
If you have any questions about the products or services provided, please send me a Private Message or use the futures.io " Ask Me Anything" thread
