papa 15
thank you for advice. hard to knowwhat to do- just starting out .i know there's no guarantees just want to avoid as many pitfalls as possible. thank you.
rick

riley8842 

papa 15 thank you for advice. hard to knowwhat to do- just starting out .i know there's no guarantees just want to avoid as many pitfalls as possible. thank you. rick

Rick
Some other advice.
1. Don't go to chat rooms. I wasted a lot of money on them only to realize they really are not the answer.

2. Any thing you think you need to buy to be a successful trader (indicator, method, etc) you can find here on futures.io (formerly BMT) for free.

3. Read several threads. Find one that seems to suit you and paper trade that technique. Be realistic in expectations and in assessing the short falls.

4. If you have read my journal, you might accuse me of being a hypocrite on this one, but once you settle on a method, setup, etc, don't change anything on the chart for 2 weeks. After that, you can change only 2 things every 2 weeks. This forces you to extract everything from that chart that you can. (This is a piece of advice Big Mike really believes in).

5. Go slow. And understand you will not get rich quick by trading. For every supposed success story of someone who took a $10,000 account to a $1,000,000 you can find at least 100, if not 1,000, who blew their accounts out. You WILL blow an account. That is about the only guarantee trading offers.

papa 15
thanks again. even with paper trading the investments you're tracking,what elrctronic tracking would you recommend i use(cheap?)will check back tomorrow.
thanks, rick

riley8842 

papa 15 thanks again. even with paper trading the investments you're tracking,what elrctronic tracking would you recommend i use(cheap?)will check back tomorrow. thanks, rick

I am not sure what you mean. If you are asking me about brokers/charting services, Thinkorswim is probably the best available for the money, but the minimum to start is $3500. Has a really good papertrading capability. I saw on another thread Tradestation may be starting a Forex charting service, but don't know anything about it.

I have not traded pure FOREX but there are some brokers strictly related to it....FXCM, FOREX.COM.....I have absolutely no experience with any of these. I suggest you ask a question on the question board about which brokers folks like....on the futures.io (formerly BMT) home page on the right hand side just hit the ask a question button....give all the details you are looking for and ask for advice....folks will answer. I just am not able to give good advice on this topic...

papa 15,
thanks, i'll do that.
rick

I came into today with high hopes that I had turned a corner in my trading, but hope hit the wall of reality.

I did not trade well today. Let us just leave it at that. I know what I did wrong, I know what I must do to correct it, and I will go do it. I just don't want to lay all my faults/issues out in public today.

However, I did come to a firm conclusion. I am a scalper at heart. I have tried to change that, but if you put lipstick on a pig, you still have a pig. When I try to trade for bigger targets, I get very nervous and make trade management mistakes. I don't fully understand why. I am much more comfortable going for quick profits and getting back on the sidelines until the next setup.

So for the foreseeable future, I will not deny my true character. I will scalp. My goal is to be the best one on this forum.

papa15 

I came into today with high hopes that I had turned a corner in my trading, but hope hit the wall of reality. I did not trade well today. Let us just leave it at that. I know what I did wrong, I know what I must do to correct it, and I will go do it. I just don't want to lay all my faults/issues out in public today. However, I did come to a firm conclusion. I am a scalper at heart. I have tried to change that, but if you put lipstick on a pig, you still have a pig. When I try to trade for bigger targets, I get very nervous and make trade management mistakes. I don't fully understand why. I am much more comfortable going for quick profits and getting back on the sidelines until the next setup. So for the foreseeable future, I will not deny my true character. I will scalp. My goal is to be the best one on this forum.

Ah yes... the dilemma we all face.

The 10 tick area is my demon. I try to stay in and a lot of times I hit BE+1 ...
When trading one car. It may be better to gather all the 10 tickers you can and trade 1:1...

When I can move to two cars staying in will be much easier.

We'll figure it out my friend The key is just to survive until we can get that bank roll built up...


Forward, march !!

Today was totally different than yesterday. Market was choppy and certainly not easy to trade....by the time I would see a decent signal to trade, the market would change directions on me.....

But I ended up +43 ticks. And I have to say I had that number of ticks after 4 trades, so to say I was happy would be an understatement.

Now to the confession part. I am using a 4 BetterRenko chart and as I stated last week, I have very little experience with this style of bar and for that matter with using the 3 bar entry technique. So, I put aside the 4 trade rule for today, and I took a few, ok, quite a few, extra trades in order to accelerate my experience with this new chart. It was a deliberate decision on my part. The trading was not cash, either. I intend to use simulation through at least next week to get the chart into my head. I want to kick the tires and look under the hood. I am headed towards using just 1 chart for my trading.

I am a scalper at heart. I can't deny it. But I switched back to NinjaTrader today in order to use the ATM feature. I enter a trade with a 19 tick target and a 14 tick stop. The stop starts off trailing, adjust 2 ticks every 2 ticks of price movement. After a few ticks, the setup goes to breakeven. After a couple of more ticks, it starts trailing 1 tick every tick. For my 43 ticks today, I had 2 19 tick winners, 1 5 tick winner, and 1 breakeven trade.

My setup is not perfect, and one day proves nothing.....but I gotta say, I love 19 tick winners....

Two good days in a row. Did not start that way. The first 2 trades were in the opening chop and both were full losers. The next 2 trades were partial winners, with the ATM adjusted stop being hit for 3 and 4 ticks. The last 4 trades were good winners at 19, 13, 10, and 19 ticks. Again, I allowed myself more trades than normal.

Stopped trading just before noon since had no idea how the market would react to the new FOMC announcement time and the subsequent Fed chairman news conference. Missed the afternoon move as a result.

I continue to grow in liking the 4 BetterRenko chart and in feeling comfortable with it. I will continue to sim trade for a while. But I must say this is the first setup that I have traded that has a realistic chance for a better than 1:1 reward/risk profile. Don't misunderstand, the system can lose as the first 2 trades today showed, but the system can recover.....

papa15 

Two good days in a row. Did not start that way. The first 2 trades were in the opening chop and both were full losers. The next 2 trades were partial winners, with the ATM adjusted stop being hit for 3 and 4 ticks. The last 4 trades were good winners at 19, 13, 10, and 19 ticks. Again, I allowed myself more trades than normal. Stopped trading just before noon since had no idea how the market would react to the new FOMC announcement time and the subsequent Fed chairman news conference. Missed the afternoon move as a result. I continue to grow in liking the 4 BetterRenko chart and in feeling comfortable with it. I will continue to sim trade for a while. But I must say this is the first setup that I have traded that has a realistic chance for a better than 1:1 reward/risk profile. Don't misunderstand, the system can lose as the first 2 trades today showed, but the system can recover.....

Can we see a chart?