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What exact situation am I in? Please explain. The last 5 weeks have only cost me $100 and the time I've spent in front of my computer watching charts. I don't think I've every implied that I have risked real money. I've already stated that I won't be going live in February, which was one of my original goals.
I agree that there's a lot of good information here, that's why I became an Elite member.
I'm still trying to figure this all out, including the "daily" part of the journaling. To be honest, I didn't start this journal to help anyone else, I'm hoping it helps me. If someone else gets benefit from it, then that's a bonus. I also recognize that what I've written here so far isn't good enough. I need to better describe why I entered trades.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
From ToS, here is every paper trade I made on Wednesday. The amounts I used in my previous post are before commissions. So net gains aren't really as high and losses are greater. OK, maybe this wasn't "mostly just playing around", as most of this happened during RTH. But the trades after 20:51 are definitely me playing with different instruments to verify what margin requirements are and how much each tick is worth.
This is badly formatted, but the columns are: time, sell/buy, # of contracts, instrument, price, fees, commissions, P/L, account balance.
have you traded with real money before? if not,i suggest you dont start until you feel 100% ready and with the smallest account you can start out with..
take it from someone who has just blown a huge portion of their account
No, I have not traded with real money before. I am still not 100% ready, but I think I'm close. Once I figure out the right instrument for my loss tolerance, I'll go live so that I can work on the psychological part of trading.
I think I've been called out, in another thread, by someone I consider to be a very good trader. Someone I respect. Someone I don't actually know, and who doesn't know me. I'm both honored and humbled that he's paid any attention to this thread.
But, I think there's been some miscommunication, or some misunderstanding of what I've written. So, I'd like to address these misunderstandings.
I choose the title of this thread to attract attention, and it looks like it's worked. The idea was that people would read this thread and tell me what I'm doing wrong and give me some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. And most people have. What I didn't anticipate is that the title, and my comments, would lead some to believe that I wasn't serious about learning to be a profitable trader.
Here is what was said in another thread.
While the Porsche is a real and serious goal, I do have a family I'd like to support. And my family will come first. Only after my family has been taken care of, will I buy the Porsche. I didn't put a timeline on this goal, because I don't really know how long it's going to take. I've already had this goal for several years, and I'm still pursuing it, but not at the expense of feeding my family and putting a roof over our heads.
I'll admit I made a rookie mistake by focusing on how much profit I wanted. I have since learned that I need to focus on minimizing loss and money management.
How am I not using the forum to learn from others? I became an Elite member to access more of the information on this site.
What's wrong with having faith in the way I'm doing things, my "methodology"? At this point, I think I'm still new enough that it's me that's failing, and not the "methodology". I also don't think that I have my "own methodology" yet. Is trying to follow Wycoff and using Market Profile a methodology? I'm still learning and trying to put into practice what I'm learning.
I haven't written about it here, but I AM trying to learn from "experienced, knowledgeable, and proven people". I expect people to challenge my opinions. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to blindly believe everything they tell me. In some cases, I have to experience the failure of my opinions for myself to learn. But I'll be the first to admit I was wrong, and then I'll move on. I believe there's nothing wrong with failure, if you learn from it. In my threads, there's only been ONE person's "advice" that I said I wouldn't follow. And I think it was more of an opinion than advice. I countered that "I want to be successful at this much sooner than 12 months". By "successful", I really meant "profitable".
I have stated that I want to be profitable. I didn't know that only 5% of new traders achieve that. I haven't stated the second part, but that's how I approach all my goals.
Have I stated anything to the contrary? I don't think I've ever stated that I know everything, or that I even know anything. I have been trying to express what I am thinking and what I've observed. I think if you've read all my posts in all the threads I've started, it's obvious that I'm open to suggestions. Then again, maybe it's not.
While I may have made some bold goals, I don't think I've held myself out as any sort of expert. I think I've made it abundantly clear that I'm new and have no trading experience.
Big Mike says we should come up with our own trading style, that fits our personality and risk tolerance. That's what I'm trying to do. I don't think I'm going to figure it out overnight, but I'm hoping that it doesn't take a year.
Maybe I am just being used as the latest example of "how not to be", but I'm taking offense to not being seen as taking trading seriously. While I still think I pick up concepts quicker than most, I'm not above putting in the work required to succeed.
my advice..if i were you i would definately hold of on trading oil and gold with real money add /ZB and the Dax to that..stick to the /es or the /nq which is a little cheaper to trade and price action not as crazy as the others.
Yes, I am trying to stay away from crude and gold. As you'll see in my next post, I'm trying to focus on the euro and dollar futures, as I think they'll fit my initial risk/loss tolerance best. As my account size grows and I can afford more $ risk, I'll try NQ and ES.
I'm not sure I can multi-task while paper trading to post to this thread in real time, so I kept a journal in a text file today. I wanted to try and capture what I was thinking before during and after trades. Also, I tried not to filter myself too much. Here's what I wrote. All times MST.
I saw that the euro (M6E) was rising. I waited until it had topped out and pulled away from the +2sd of daily VWAP. About 7:05 I got in short with 2 contracts at 1.1445. I watched it for a while, about 25 minutes and saw that the price was leveling off and not changing much, volume had dropped off also. I decided to get out at 7:29 at 1.1430. After fees and commissions, a gain of 27.78.
0837 - I am hoping to trade the euro (M6E) or the dollar (DX) today, but for the last half hour they've just gone sideways, with very little movement.
0838 - I'd also consider trading bonds (ZB) if I see a good trend and entry point. It's kind of stalled at the moment also.
0844 - M6E at + 2d of weekly VWAP. Is this a good signal for downward movement to VWAP (daily or weekly)? vix and adv-dec are both kind of flat at the moment.
0934 - I walked away from my computer for 45 mins, and missed a nice rise in the euro (M6E).
0955 - The dollar is at 93.990 and rising off a low of 93.730, which is close to -2sd of daily VWAP and at -2sd of weekly VWAP. The dollar hasn't been this low in a week. It doesn't look like there's any support below 93.730 until about 93.338. The dollar is in a daily down trend after a big down move around 6 am. The dollar dropped yesterday, but was even for a couple days at the end of last week. There's possibly a few s/r levels at 94.070, 94.110 and 94.160. Volume dropped off after the low of 93.730.
1007 - Volume and market profile seem to tell me lower on the dollar, but if it does drop, there's not any support for a while I think.
1014 - I don't have any confidence that I know which way the dollar is going to go.
1018 - Sold dollar short at 93.915, 1 contract. Speculating down. My mental stop is at 94. I'd like to see 93.800, if not lower.
1021 - Placed a buy stop at 94.000.
1028 - I'm still not sure I understand what moves the dollar, or the euro or yen for that matter.
1035 - Yen (6J) took a 5 tick jump in the last 5 mins, and looks to be rising. Don't know why of course.
1038 - Euro looks to be inversly related to the dollar all day today. Which it should be, of course. But the yen doesn't look correlated to the dollar today, at least not as directly as the euro.
1042 - Looks like rate of descent of the dollar is slowing down, I might just get out here aroung 93.845.
1045 - Crude (CL) is jumping up for some reason. I don't know if that has any bearing on the dollar, but the dollar dropped a bit also.
1051 - Moved my stop down to 93.870. 93.805 may have been the bottom of this little run.
1056 - Adv-dec jumping up, $tick rising also. Does this mean the dollar will start rising? Crude (CL) is still rising
1100 - Out at market of 93.785. I just felt like this was going to be a low, same level as close of bar at 0935. After fees and commisions, a gain of 122.76. daily gain of 150.54.
1116 - I increased market profile look back to 10 days and see that ~93.650 was probably a better target than 93.800.
1203 - I took a little break for lunch. Came back and the dollar rose of light volume, compared to the volume that brought it down from 93.630 between 11:15 - 11:35. My guess is that the dollar will drop from here, 93.715, and continue the down trend.
1209 - or maybe not.
1214 - In short at 93.710, 1 contract. Put a stop in at 93.790, one tick above the high of three bars ago. Target of 93.635, or lower. Possibly 93.535 or 93.450.
1231 - Very low volume on the last bar, volume picking up and it's going against me.
1235 - I think the cash close is at 1 pm, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get in so late.
1240 - Put in a limit order at 93.700. I'll be happy to get out even.
1243 - Out at 93.700. Daily gain now at 153.30.
I still need to do some homework to figure out why the euro and dollar move the way they do, and what I should be watching for confirmation of trends.
If I may paraphrase Richard Dennis, "Don't worry about what the market is going to do. Worry about what you are going to do when it gets there."
Even if you do figure out why the euro and dollar move the way they do, it is very likely that the market changes and that your reasoning no longer works. IMO, it would be better to spend your time on the process, i.e. trade selection (should I even be in this trade?), trade size, stop-loss, and profit taking. If the process is valid, you stick with it and apply it consistently, then ultimately you will make money.
I haven't posted in a while because I haven't been paper trading. I've been trying to educate myself on proper risk and money management.
When I was paper trading, I started to feel that the reasons for me entering and exiting trades was based more on feeling than solid reason. I decided that sitting in front of a computer all day trying to trade wasn't going to improve my reasons for making trades. I guess I realized that the process I was using, just didn't work.
As I read up on risk management and money management, I realized that I was being too aggressive. This was being confirmed by the drawdown in my paper account. So, I needed to stop, re-assess and come up with a better plan.
My initial beliefs about what day trading was going to be like, were wrong. I was hoping that I could just trade on technical analysis, but now I don't think that's realistic for me. I still want to make day trading my "job", but it's going to take longer that I had hoped. Since, I'll still have to keep my day job for a while longer, I'll have to be more of a swing trader than a day trader. Also, I'm not sure I can start out with as small an account as I wanted to.
Currently, I'm learning more about fundamental analysis and saving more money. I'll post again when I open a real account and start trading live.
