Hello xevanchan,
let me give you some hints. Sorry for my bad english.
Trading must be simple like driving a car. Intuitive and "easy".
I'm trading 2 ES contracts on my $30k AMP Futures account since 4 years now.

1. Choose only one simple setup for example support/resist. This is the only setup that will always work.
Remove every indicator from the chart. Switch to bar chart.
Check the day chart and draw a line for each support and resistence which you see.
Switch to 60 Minute and identify again support and resistance.
Switch to 15 Minute and identify again support and resistance.
Use 5 or 3 Minute chart and 5000 Volume chart to find optimal entry. You will see the entrys for sure.
In a trend buy each support, in a sidway market buy low sell high (at support/resist).
Trade only one setup for at least 66 days. Focus on only one setup. No back and forth no quick changes. Trade only one setup.

Go back one hundert days and check the win rate of your setup by manually identifying your signal by reading the chart for at least 500 trades. Only then you will trust your setup.
Trade one setup and take each identified signal (which matches your predefined rules).

2. At day end check each trade and find out what was wrong and adapt for the future but stick to your only one setup.
After a few weeks you will see.

SL must be greated then the (5) ATR on 5/3 minutes chart.
I'm mostly using 4 point stop and 8 points target (trailing).
I always trade only 2 ES contracts. Means my maximum loss per trade is always the same.
Your winners must be greater than your losers.

I would recomend VWAP Indicator and 300 EMA if you want.
I have the best Mentor (30 years of trading).

After you become a master trader in your one setup then and only then add a second setup or double the contract size.

Simplicity and focus is the key.

maxmeier 

I'm trading 2 ES contracts on my $30k AMP Futures account since 4 years now.

Does this mean you're not growing your account and adding size in relation to your capital gains? Or are you withdrawing money?

The key to trading sucess is compounded profits, IMO.

LaissezFaire 

Does this mean you're not growing your account and adding size in relation to your capital gains? Or are you withdrawing money? The key to trading sucess is compounded profits, IMO.

I'm also trading FDAX and FESX with same setup. Plus two more setups.
Each month end I withdrawing everything over $30k. It's more then I need.
Means each month I'm starting again with $30k. This is my way.

xevanchan 

My max fixed percentage is 5%- I've decided that I'm shooting for home runs and am willing to take losses and BEs on the way.

Wondering why you are you going for home run, specially only after 1 year?

IMO this is a marathon not a sprint. I personally go for smaller profits every day, and never aim for a home run, as home run means big risk -- cannot have one without the other Small profits do add up.

maxmeier 

I'm also trading FDAX and FESX with same setup. Plus two more setups. Each month end I withdrawing everything over $30k. It's more then I need. Means each month I'm starting again with $30k. This is my way.

Interesting. Are you using the exact same methodology on FDAX/FESX?

If it's not private - how much do you typically withdraw every month then?

LaissezFaire 

Is that one year on ES or one year in total? In my opinion and own experience - 1 year of studies is nothing in this business, so you should perhaps manage your expectations. I also have the belief that the most worthwhile stuff on trading will not be found in books or shared freely on forums beyond hints or clues as to which direction to look or what to look at. If it's actually only one year you've been doing this, I'd stop trading completely (probably a good idea anyway) and start building a methodology from scratch. Start with a clean slate. Expect to spend a few years on this. What you have in front of you is moving prices. They go up. They go down. How much up? How much down? How often? Start measuring the market and understand how it moves. Concentrate on the swings of the market and their sizes. Look at the daily ranges. Collect statistics and metrics of the market you trade. Know it inside out. Then, you'll trade the market with confidence and certainty because you know how it normally moves and you also know how it moves when it does not move normally. The ES and any other market have two basic structures: up days and down days where an up day is one which have the day low before the day high and vice versa. Learn these two. Nothing beats knowledge and experience. This is best learned and absorbed by yourself. If you're at any point surprised when the market does something it's a clear sign you don't know your market well enough. The market should become a familiar place where you roughly know what's going to happen or what's most likely to happen on any given day.

One year with the /ES and futures. Previously swing traded stocks for several years- not much transferred over.

xevanchan 

One year with the /ES and futures. Previously swing traded stocks for several years- not much transferred over.

In that case - you're just getting started. You have a lot of homework to do if you want to succeed in this and I think you've received good advice from me and others.

Stop trading. Start studying.

Live trading (simulator or with money) is a waste of time if you haven't done the necessary testing and homework first. You can backtest/backcheck 100 days in 5 days. Comparatively speaking.

Simulator/live trading (one lot) is for checking and testing your methodology after it's developed. And usually that means finding flaws/errrors and going back to the drawing board.

This is a long, long journey and a lonely one also. Not only that - but you have no guarantee of making it. The harsh truth is that you most likely won't. But you can at least avoid losing money if you do what I'm telling you.

xevanchan 

Well, i'm back. You may remember me "catastrophic loss days". I really hate to come on this forum just to beg for help, but I am truly at a loss and am contemplating giving up trading the /ES, something that has consumed my life for nearly a year now. I'm not usually so pessimistic or dramatic, but I am truly lost and have no faith. I'm doubting everything I know, and this may very well be my last post so i'm pouring it all out. I just cant get it. I have weeks, like last week (1/7/18), where I am immensely profitable, followed by this week, where I have lost almost every trade for 3 consecutive days and been margin called. This cycle has repeated itself many, many times. I sim trade until I am profitable for weeks, and then I switch and can't replicate the results. I took advice on my last post ( Catastrophic Loss Days I apologize in advance for all the questions and the long post. I'm sure posts like this are quite common, but despite trading being my #1 priority, I can't seem to become profitable. I have a clear edge... some days. I've been trading … I now trade on a 7500 volume heiken-ashi chart instead of 30s, and aim for 3-X point targets with a minimum 2-1 risk reward ratio. I've studied al brooks price action and his H1/H2 method, and have read Anekdoten's ET thread in which he details price action. Despite the pictures, I no longer really use indicators and trade solely off price action. I don't I suffer as much from overtrading anymore; I believe that almost every entry I take has good signals. These methods have helped me become a better trader... on some days. It seems every week I go negative, I identify problems and solve them, yet each recurring week new problems spring up; my portfolio is akin to a boat that is being continuously shot and sinking as I try to patch holes. My strategy in a bull trend is as follows; I identify trend, using price action. Next, I wait for a retrace of at least a few points depending on market conditions. Once I see the first bar with HH/HL I will set a stop by 1-2 ticks above the high of that bar. Assuming the market moves in my direction, I let my profits run as far as possible while moving my stop to BE or higher. I exit when I begin to see trend exhaustion. I'll also use basic patterns, like triangles, as well as trend lines and S/R lines. This strategy is fantastic on some days, but I've become convinced some days are just untradeable. I try to completely avoid trading in chop. One of my biggest (current) problems is not being able to find viable entries. I really still don't whether to use limit or stop buys; I've tried both and they have their pros and cons. I use a HH/HL method, similar to a 123 reversal pattern; this means on a 7500 vol chart often I am too slow to catch moves, and whole retracements can begin and end before I get an entry signal. I refuse to chase for obvious reasons; as a result, in strong trends I often miss out the the entire movement because there are no retraces for me to enter on. I end up just trading in chop, every time. My stop buy is often triggered by a fake out that immediately backs off and triggers my stop, though this may just be due to a small stop. I never seem to know when trends end, and never seem to know when the market will stop ranging. I attribute my down days to to lower trading ranges and markets more susceptible to chop and unpredictability, which is inevitable. I don't know what to do. I'm attaching images of my last three days. Many of the trades are clearly bad trades, as a result of my impatience, something i need to work on. Maybe I do still over trade. The 3 point gain today was a sim trade; I seem to do much better in sim, on a consistent basis. Last week I averaged 3 points a day sim trading. In summary; I'm lost at sea in a boat with more holes than I can patch, and have lost hope that the boat will ever sail again. I genuinely appreciate everything this forum has given me and apologize for the long rambling and whining. All advice is greatly appreciated, as I may just give the /ES one last shot. I will take any help I can get, so feel free to PM me.

My experience and many other traders that I know is that markets have changed a lot in the past couple years and have become more difficult to trade. My self I have stopped trading for a little while and have started investing for the longer term to ride out the bumps. I can see you are using hekin ashi and day trading. Day trading is hard enough but you have severely handicapped yourself by using heikin ashi candles. You need to lookup the math behind them. They hide a lot of chart price patterns and induce a bit of lag. Maybe step back a bit a paper trade for a little bit it will remove emotion from the trade and let you test out how your strategy is working.

LaissezFaire 

Interesting. Are you using the exact same methodology on FDAX/FESX? If it's not private - how much do you typically withdraw every month then?

Yes using the same setup for FDAX/FESX. And two other setups.
Well its private but its much more then I need and this is the only important thing. More money doesn't mean more freedom for me :-)

Anagami 

As a day trader, you are missing a major piece of the puzzle, order flow. You are severely handicapping yourself by trading merely off the charts.

I entirely agree with the above statement - Order Flow is the essential part of a day trader and must be incorporated into your routine. However, the MOST important thing in getting consistent is to simplify your process by stripping down all unnecessary strategies and indicators you using until you find 1-2 REALIABLE setups that you can easily recognize on the chart and trade these setups ONLY. Making this process simple will allow you to gain the most important commodity - confidence.

Trading is combination of many factors, you must see the "big picture" (larger time frames) before you even consider making a trade. This is called "Reading Market Context". Understanding what market have done, what is it trying to do and how good of job it is doing in getting where you think it trying to go is essential. This will help you to pick the path of least resistance and trade in that direction ONLY. Once you understand how to read the context of the market you will need to learn how to identify the zones of potential trades (volume areas, pivot high / lows and prior day high / lows. This will help you to narrow the areas where the trades should be CONSIDERED. Only THEN you will need to start looking for the trades (i.e. setups that you are comfortable with) and pull the trigger by using the Order Flow as confirmation. Another words, you DO NOT want to "play in traffic" by taking a long trade when you see bunch of sellers entering the real-time tape which is clearly shown by Order Flow.

All I have described above is just a road path that will help you get a system in place (the FRAMEWORK). Make your process RULE BASED. By implementing this approach you will stop guessing where the trend starts and stops, you will simple trade WHAT YOU SEE. There are many tools available to accomplish this and every trader has his favorite. The concept is the same.

The important technical part of this technical process is to find the proper chart format (Hiken Ashi, Candles, Bar Reversals, Range Bars, etc. etc.) and adjusting the chart to proper time frame according to market volatility so you can read your signals clearly. You may need to adjust these parameters as market volatility changes. This will help you to avoid being whipsaw and taken out on your stops too much. Usually, these tweaks are quite simple but the results are amazing. Once you will find the right chart format to trade from you will feel like the blindfold was taken out from your eyes.

Hope this helps.

Meklon.