This is my first post and first journal. This really isn't meant for anyone to follow. I plan to post my losses...well, profits to IF they come, and not trade info, because at this point nobody should be following me. I'm still working on what doesn't (or does) work.
A bit about me: I've been trading about 3 to 4 years. Never in profit for more than an hour or day, well, once I think it was a week, but basically, I haven't found something that is working, yet. But I keep searching, reading and working at it and maybe soon I'll have something. I've blown my account about 5 time just this year, usually a day or two after I deposit funds. And no, I don't have extra money just lying around, it really hurt to lose it. So, this is my journal of figuring out how to stop this cycle.
Today I deposited $520 adding to the $32 that was already there.
That will give me a total of 3 trades at $45 stop loss and fees each.
Plan:
1. I will trade using Sierra Charts simulated trading until I have a 60% win rate, using an equal SL to TP. Eventually, I'll be changing this so that as I identify where to enter with a small risk and can get to break even plus 1 for fees, I'll work on managing risk free trades for intraday trading. But first things first.
2. If my first trade of the day ends in the positive, I might consider taking a second trade for the day. However, I only have 3 trades, if they are all losers, before I'll need to deposit more money, so I'm going to limit how many trades I take per day. I've been positive before, only to give it all back and completely blow up my account same day. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES will I take a second trade for the day if my first trade is a losing trade. I will eventually adjust this, if I get rich trading and know I have good statistics. :becky:
Limiting my trades to 3 losers before needed to add more money is my way of enforcing myself to be disciplined with my trading. Oh, and how did I let my account get down to $32? Well, after taking several losses in a row in one day, I thought I'd be brilliant and let my last trade have a really big stop loss....and if it went into profit at all, then I'd close it. Well, I picked the wrong direction of the market (again) and lost a lot more than the expense of a wire transfer to add more funds. It wasn't worth it. I hate that the fees and commissions come out at the end of the day with my broker. Being a scalper those really add up, and I was trading with funds that weren't really there because they hadn't taken out the fees and commissions yet. Actually, that's happened each time I've blown my account and I still haven't learned to stop trading when my last trade puts my account in the negative. Thus, the beginning of this journal.
Also, I'm only a scalper and will only pursue strategies that involve scalping or small stop losses. I'm not open to all the reasons against scalping. I've studied them and been warned and it's falling on deaf ears at this point. If I don't make it as a scalper, I'm done with trading. Please don't try to change me on this. It's a personality thing, I think. Well, I might consider options trading, but each time I've looked into it, it never seems like I can make it work for me.
So, over the weekend I plan to sim trade and if I can manage a 60% win rate, then I may take a live trade as early as Monday.