secondchance4now 

Why am interested in trading? Because of the money, and because of the freedom. I work my own schedule, don't answer to anyone else, etc. Let's say I make a trade at the opening bell and it hits my price target within an hour, then the rest of my day is free -- that's pretty damn awesome. Why a mentor? I've made every mistake you can trading in the past (years ago), so having some guidance would be nice. However, I do get what everyone else is saying with mentors. I've started a paper trading journal. I see some people are telling me to paper trade for a few weeks just to get a feel for things, then start trading with real money (a small amount like $1,000 to $2,000) to get some skin in the game and see how things really are. Well, I'll see about that. Right now my strategy is swing-trading the Micro futures, so I might only make or 2 trades a week. I do understand what everyone says about you having to learn this on your own since it's a personal thing for everyone, and I hope that's something I can accomplish. I also appreciate everyone's input. People have been pretty respectful to me here, but also realistic, which is awesome. On some other futures trading forum I've basically been told to eff off until I've become profitable trading stocks.

Your comments above regarding trading for an hour a day are way off the truth. It will take 1000's of hours of screen time years and years of 12 hour days before you might have the odd day or 2 where you can hit targets in the morning and have the rest of the day off, but you need to put in the groundwork first and it seems like your looking for a shortcut.

You need to Love trading and have a passion with a near on obsession to reading the charts and studying the mental game.
You need to understand that there are NO shortcuts available to you. 99.9% of the replies are telling you the same thing but you still won't listen.

You don't need to sim trade for a few weeks. You need to sim trade for as long as it takes to become to be consitansly profitable, then start with a micro or mini account.

I traded with a sim for 2 years and thought I may be more strict with a live account but I was wrong. I blew my account then took another 3 years on the sim and blowing small accounts.
All in all it took near on 6-7 years just to be a break even Trader. now 11 years Im doing ok, but never stop learning.

Its is the most difficult thing to learn. You can go to university to study to be a lawyer or a doctor' if you have the brain' and it may take 7-10 years?
You can't go to university to become a constantly profitable Trader, It all comes down to you.

secondchance4now 

Well then I suppose I am completely retarded. Too bad there isn't any medication I can take to fix that.

There is no need to be passive agressive just because you don't like the reply.

secondchance4now 

Well then I suppose I am completely retarded. Too bad there isn't any medication I can take to fix that.

FIO is a very supportive community. Let us be your medication.

If I were mentoring someone, I think it would start like this---

Trading is one of the hardest things to do in the world, because you constantly have to fight the very emotions that have been bred into us for generations and generations. Fear and Greed.

Fear is essential for survival in this crazy world of ours. For example, today I got an alert that my email was compromised. And we all need to have a healthy fear of the IRS. And of getting rear ended on the freeway when the traffic comes to halt.

I am not sure how greed took hold except maybe as a way to better prepare for the lean times, or just because it might mean less work in the future if we can take something that someone else has.

The market has two main states: trending and consolidation. Run/pause. Go/Stop. Sprint/Breathe. You need to be able to recognize these quickly. Anyone can go with the trend, but it takes hours and hours and hours of screen time to recognize when both fear and greed are present in the market and fade those. When is it trending? When is it consolidating? Figure that out. Then buy the dips in the uptrends, sell the pops in the downtrends, and scalp toward the midline of the ranges. That's it. You are looking for the high-probability entries.

Don't go crazy with indicators. Keep it simple. Try two timeframes and when the 50 sma lines up on both then go that direction.

If you see a strong support area, don't short if you are right above it. If you see a strong resistance area don't go long right below it.

If you are wrong in a trade, then get out right away. It's like the moment you realize you missed seeing a car coming down the road when you are about to turn right. YOU SLAM THE BRAKES ON, because the alternative is too unthinkable. Likewise, get out of bad trades right away.

Practice on a sim account until you can make $100 on the E-minis for 1 full month. Then do the same with one live Micro but make your goal $10 per day.

Success to you.

To be very honest, it's attitude like OP's where I know the guy is not gonna make it without a personality overhaul.

Nobody owes you anything, nevertheless people put in effort to help you out or at least get your facts straight and prevent you from chasing a pipe dream.

Usually you can see some improvements after 6 months break even or small win after a year and a good life after 3 years IF you put in the hours. Practise doesn't make perfect, perfect practise does.

So if you are still running with the sheep you must have done something wrong. And my educated guess is that you tried to copy a method that either did not work or you did not understand.

So my proposal is as follows:

Get yourself a journal, tradervue.com works best for this. Also get yourself a notepad, I'd suggest a simple google drive folder you can share.
Every day you write down were Gold trades and the $ difference to yesterdays close, do the same for the ZN and the ZB, Copper, Oil, the EURUSD as well as AAPL, FB, C and XOM

Next you write a commentary about todays headlines (if there are any), important prices (like 1400$ in Gold right now).

Next, you outline the trades you want to do for the day. Don't put in too much detail, things change quickly anyways. Just a basic plan and a reason for the trade. E.g. "Looking to buy the bounce in the ES when Gold drops below y and ZN doesnt go above x"

This should take about an hour.

Then you trade.

After your trading day, put all your executions into tradervue.com and add a commentary what you did and why below every trade you made. Next, you write a review of your trading day, what happened during the day, if any important prices have formed, relevant news and sentiment changes. This will be the basis for tomorrow.

It does not matter weither you have 50 trades per day or 2 trades a week. You need to do your daily prep every single day.

Do this for an entire month, then come back and share relevant trades and stats you have collected via tradervue, share your notes in your drive folder and then we can talk.



If you are willing to do the work, you will see improvements even after one month. If you are not, there is no point for you to look after a mentor since you either will fail again or get kicked anyways.

Good luck.


P.S.: A guideline about real life trading can be found in the book "An end to the Bull" by Gary Norden. He discusses how to create watchlists and organize yourself.

It helps if you're on the Spectrum.

And btw, I do agree that screen time is important, it's just that I have a full-time job so I can't look at the screen during market hours.

Would I need to quit my job to trade?

ZCars 

It helps if you're on the Spectrum.

The Autism Spectrum?

secondchance4now 

And btw, I do agree that screen time is important, it's just that I have a full-time job so I can't look at the screen during market hours. Would I need to quit my job to trade?

Lots of people find ways to combine trading and normal work hours. You just have to find a way that works for you.

For instance:

- Trading a contract that actually has good volume earlier or later in the day, such as currency futures -- for instance the Euro, which is more on a European schedule, or the Aussie dollar, which is more on an Asian schedule. I see from your journal that you are focusing on M6A, the Australian dollar, which obviously is a good choice if you need something that is active after your work hours.

- Trading something like the US equities before or after "normal" market hours. Volume may be thin then and the pace may be slow, but markets are open and you can get experience.

- Trading on a longer than day-trading time frame, such as multi-day swing trading (I believe you have mentioned swing trading before.)

- Something else, depending on your job, your job schedule and responsibilities, and the markets that interest you.

Almost no one just starts trading by leaving their job and trading full-time, for obvious reasons, and you don't have to. Ingenuity will always find a way.

Bob.

secondchance4now 

And btw, I do agree that screen time is important, it's just that I have a full-time job so I can't look at the screen during market hours. Would I need to quit my job to trade? The Autism Spectrum?

Yes, there is some validity to the idea of being obsessive and antisocial as advantages. After all, you'll be spending hundreds of hours stuck in front of screens on your own. And not quitting will require obsessive determination.

If you can do that for 5-10 years (it took me over 10 years) then you can probably reduce your trading day down to 3 hours or so.

Your health may suffer. I now have a heart condition. I guess all the adrenaline and cortisol etc flooding my body for years. But now I rarely have any emotional attachment to a trade. This is mainly due to trading relatively small size.

Money. Well, I've lost approximately $20,000, I reckon. Spread this over 14 years and it sounds better. But 20k is 20k (although the way fiat currency is heading...). So, you'll lose plenty I'm afraid. I never really had a career, you can't if you want to win in the markets because it's a distraction from the obsession. I was a substitute teacher and this part time work paid my bills. All I thought about was trading successfully.

Relationships. If you're lucky enough to have a good woman (or man) then you may lose her. Not only because you'll be percieved as a reclusive loser but also because when you quit your job you won't be able to take her fpr a meal or away on a nice trip somewhere. She'll find a man who gets the bacon. I rarely tell people what I do. They just don't get it. And why should they, it looks irrational on the surface.

This set of circumstances outlined above may lead to depression. This game will find all your emotional and psychological vulnerabilities. How stable are you? Drinking and trading is a disaster.

I have been through all of the above. My beard is gray. I have a running machine in my office and leave the screens in June to go motorcycling around europe. Health, freedom and some disposable income, a happy relationship. What we need in life. Trading can provide this, but you're far more likely to find it through a fulfilling career and the approval of your peers.

Hope this helps you make the right choice.

David

bobwest 

Lots of people find ways to combine trading and normal work hours. You just have to find a way that works for you. For instance: - Trading a contract that actually has good volume earlier or later in the day, such as currency futures -- for instance the Euro, which is more on a European schedule, or the Aussie dollar, which is more on an Asian schedule. I see from your journal that you are focusing on M6A, the Australian dollar, which obviously is a good choice if you need something that is active after your work hours. - Trading something like the US equities before or after "normal" market hours. Volume may be thin then and the pace may be slow, but markets are open and you can get experience. - Trading on a longer than day-trading time frame, such as multi-day swing trading (I believe you have mentioned swing trading before.) - Something else, depending on your job, your job schedule and responsibilities, and the markets that interest you. Almost no one just starts trading by leaving their job and trading full-time, for obvious reasons, and you don't have to. Ingenuity will always find a way. Bob.

Hmmm, alright, this is something I should definitely take into consideration. So in the US, we're on EST, the NYC time (9:30 - 16:00 EST).

For Europe, are their active hours on London time (9:30 - 16:00 GMT)?
And Asia on Tokyo hours? (9:30 - 16:00...not sure what that timezone is called)?

secondchance4now 

Hmmm, alright, this is something I should definitely take into consideration. So in the US, we're on EST, the NYC time (9:30 - 16:00 EST). For Europe, are their active hours on London time (9:30 - 16:00 GMT)? And Asia on Tokyo hours? (9:30 - 16:00...not sure what that timezone is called)?

Generally traders talk about the "European session," the "US (or NY) session" and the "Asian session."

Times are approximately (in US EST terms):

- European: about 3:00 AM to 11:00 AM EST. This overlaps the US session obviously. Europeans are very active in the US markets, and you will see an increase is ES volume as they come in at 3:00-ish and a drop as they leave at 11:00-ish. (Some of the drop is also due to US East-coast lunchtime starting to kick in .)

- US session: regular NYSE or ES hours: 9:30 - 4:00 PM (ES goes on until 5:00, with a pause at 4:15 - 4:30, but volume dies after 4:00.)

- Asian session: by default, kind of starts after the US, but realistically will be later in the evening. It includes markets such as Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Hong Kong. A little bit of Googling will get you the regular trading hours for their stock exchanges, and that will help to nail the busy times for traders there.

Or, the simplest way to check for sure is to put up something like 15-minute charts with whatever you want to trade (6E for Euro, 6A for AUD, FDAX for the German DAX stock index, whatever) with volume at the bottom, and look at when those particular contracts are most active in volume terms. Those are the times you would want to focus on. Then see if you like the movement that price typically makes for each contract during its active hours, and see if you would be willing to trade them during those times, considering what they would be in your time zone.

Bob.