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After a few losses I switched to SPXL and SPXS which are leveraged ETF's. I hold my positions without even looking at a chart. My folks came to visit me last week I have not seen a chart in a week. When you trade with money management, (right size for your account) there is a lot less drama.
It has probably been the trade with more points I have ever made, not as profitable though because of position size... Still holding my long since 9/30.
Again, profits are lower but I don't get lured so easily now as before when everything seemed like an "opportunity".
Once I have the right number in my account I will switch back to ES.
It also gives your trade more time to work, de-emphasizing the need to be exactly at the top or bottom of a move. The smaller your time frame and smaller your stop, the more pressure is on to time the market perfectly. By increasing your time frame and reducing the leverage (ETF vs futures), you can widen the stop while risking less $$ overall, and increase your probability of success.
Since you only have 7k left, you should trade SIM only. Even if you have a great strategy and you can automate it successfully, you may still enter at the wrong time and 7k is not enough to get you back up. For your simulation, I would advise reversing your target and stop, probably a tight target and a wide stop.
Thank you very much again to everyone, and also specifically for these examples which I am now looking into. I should have probably chosen the words of my first post wiser (i.e. not give the impression that I am REALLY totally hooked - I can certainly sit back and look with a distance). I also did not mention that after the first three months I had managed to totally stop the further decline but of course it did not last.
I think I need to find a good in between the crazy action and something which is a bit faster than your average shares. in biotech, I was already specifically trading the volatile shares, while still in clinical development (so no financial numbers to review - which is not my thing - only the science). My banker /investor friend thought this was totally nuts. So I am still looking for something faster than this BUT no, I do not want to be reckless. We are financially stable, so this is at the crazy end of our personal finances .
I agree with a lot which of was said here, also that one would need to have rules which one could teach a computer. I already think a lot in terms of "if then" so I'll look for further resources here on the website. I guess there are solutions out there were you don't need to code from scratch but can configure presets, or something. It's of course much easier to validate an automated system than something discretionary. At least it will give you hints what works better within your discretionary environment.
A lot of the advice here seems to be telling you that "not all hope is lost" and suggesting you try various ways to improve your trading methodology. Bad idea.
Stop. You shouldn't even have traded your first dollar.
People make a profit from this ONLY EITHER through extreme luck OR through full-time devotion of effort. You don't seem like the type who would gamble (count on extreme luck), and you've already said that you have a career in another field and this is not your full-time devotion.
You should not expect to do better than the market with what you're armed with. Professional biotech investors have access to private, market-moving information sooner than even scientists themselves; they pay the inventors of market-moving drugs enormous sums for 'consultation' to 'know more about the field'. For example, there's a huge ASCO conference that takes place in Chicago every year and a substantial number of participants are just representing the financial industry and trying to get privileged information.
Now, in the unfortunate chance that you don't take heed to my advice, the least I recommend you do is to print out this post that I wrote to you and pin it up on your wall to remind yourself that you were warned. And if you somehow miraculously overcame these odds, good for you, the day that happens you should spit on what I wrote, shred it to pieces, tell everyone on this forum that @artemiso is a skeptical retard, and use it as a reminder that you should celebrate that day.
When I started trading I was also under the impression that in order to master the psychological aspect I would need to trade a live account.
Well thankfully I chose to trade forex with a micro account. I still burned 40% before I realized I was just wasting money. I wanted to always be in the market, scalping and on bad days I would sometimes take multiple loses in "chop" just because I was adamant that when the market finally made up its mind I want to be on the right side. Lol
I had one year to focus full-time on trading. I thought I'd be making money within a few weeks. well 3 months later - I started demo trading as much as I hated to "regress" I had to achieve consistency before going live and if one can't have discipline to trade demo then.. we'll then we addicted and we are no different to a gambler, and our odds are even worse!
Everyone is different but from what I noticed about myself is that its not about the money (demo or live) I wanted to succeed desperately. When I failed I would get into a "death spiral" and burn all my hard earned profits (demo or live) which may be what you doing?
I traded more than 1000 demo trades, studied price action and charts
Now I'm back to trading live but I'm still using whats left of my small account. Maybe I'll add to it but I'd rather keep growing it because as it grows hopefully so will my confidence and skill so when I have a big account I'll be ready.
Seriously try demo its not that bad There is only one thing that should be a concern - learn to trade and learn to trade consistently
Since you are living in Luxembourg, you have to be aware that capital gains on shares held for more than 6 months are tax-free. Therefore, holding a portfolio of biotech stocks with an average duration of 6 months could lead to quite a big performance differential between the gains on a futures account. Assuming you are in the top tax-bracket, short-term gains on futures should be taxed at 40%.
For instance to normalise returns, assuming 20% p.a. on stocks, you would need to earn 33% on the futures account before taxes. You would need to judge between the two approaches, the more you made on your stocks, the higher your returns need to be on the futures account to account for the different tax treatments.
I did the math and chose to stick with a portfolio comprising mostly stocks.
I agree 100% with Big Mikes advice. No sim. Just trade small. It doesn't take a (rocket) scientist to understand that if a strategy (or trader) is a loser at small stakes, it will only be exaggerated at higher stakes. But fortunately, it also works the other way around. Why bet anymore than the minimum until you have a legitimate reason to believe you're going to win?
IMO, since it's advent, sim is probably responsible for the loss of more actual money in the markets than any other factor.
"sim is probably responsible for the loss of more actual money in the markets than any other factor"
That sounds like an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Its like the theory that because trading cost are cheaper now days, people over trade and are even less successful. Ok maybe its true but is it the system that's at fault or ourselves as traders?
It's amazing how many different opinions there are. The above is likely the one post which makes me seriously doubt if what I am doing is of any use. Holding biotech over 6 months is also not always an option since I am specifically targeting those in clinical development which are very volatile. Probably worth considering a total change of strategy, and going into investing into larger companies. But then you need to read and understand financial statements, yawn.
As another poster said, it's not even so much about the money, but the mental challenge . I have learned to trust that there is not much in life one can't achieve with motivation, persistance and going a little bit off the beaten path. Financial success is an inevitable consequence.
I was rather seeing this money as tuition fee. When you go to university this also costs money, just living costs, not mentioning no income. If you think to stop trading is the right thing to do you would actually need to say this to each and every trader newly out there, who is loosing money, in the beginning. I do think it makes a difference if you already have an established income, or this idea of becoming rich, instead of doing a degree.
There is only one thing that should be a concern - learn to trade and learn to trade consistently