To be honest, it's sad to read that. Need that people have coped with their problems and got out of this shit.

you say don’t over trade then the last thing you mention is overtrading. maybe your issue is that you do not have a mental out for the day.


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After losing money (on balance) for 6 years, I finally feel like I have turned things around. I have now day traded futures profitably for over 1 year.
So while that doesn't make me a pro. I can tell you what has helped me with my struggles.

1. I trade 1 instrument only
2. I look at longer time frames. I started trading CL on a 24/5 300 tick chart, and now trade 1 60Min RTH chart.
3. I take very few trades. I now only take 1 trade per day and some day I don't even trade (if not entry per method).
4. I came up with a systematic method. Discretionary trading didn't work for me as emotions always interfered.
4. I use wide a stop and a target. This reduces the number of decisions you have to make while under stress.
5. Instead of trading SIM, I used topsteptrader. This costs a little money but it was good to outsource the record keeping to make sure I would not interfere with the results. As soon as I got funded with a 150k account, I was confident enough to bail on them and go live. Some of their rules are pretty annoying, but overall they will teach you good money management principles.

great advice.
Thank you

I presume that you're not analyzing your trades and performance correctly because you express it in terms of P/L, and not expectancy/setup and %ROC/time. I would guess that its because you're not a diligent record-keeper.

I've been working part-time for years. I've taken several extended draw downs and seen several periods of lean opportunity for my method. I'm fortunate to be able to control my time at the square job, so I can trade for a month or more and find that I get burned out. So I would reiterate what others have said about the psychological burden of the full-time commitment. I'm not so eager to make the transition.

GoldLinx 

...iceburg...

Really? I thought that was chunks of dark pool volume, so I filed it away with the other bogeymen. If its a tangible feature to be seen in tape reading, I wanna know how.

reno57540 

After losing money (on balance) for 6 years, I finally feel like I have turned things around. I have now day traded futures profitably for over 1 year. So while that doesn't make me a pro. I can tell you what has helped me with my struggles. 1. I trade 1 instrument only 2. I look at longer time frames. I started trading CL on a 24/5 300 tick chart, and now trade 1 60Min RTH chart. 3. I take very few trades. I now only take 1 trade per day and some day I don't even trade (if not entry per method). 4. I came up with a systematic method. Discretionary trading didn't work for me as emotions always interfered. 4. I use wide a stop and a target. This reduces the number of decisions you have to make while under stress. 5. Instead of trading SIM, I used topsteptrader. This costs a little money but it was good to outsource the record keeping to make sure I would not interfere with the results. As soon as I got funded with a 150k account, I was confident enough to bail on them and go live. Some of their rules are pretty annoying, but overall they will teach you good money management principles.

A lot of people around the internet have criticized the Topstep Trader program, but I would say that if you want to become a professional trader, going through their program is one way to do it. I believe they have a great thing going and its getting better. Like you mentioned, they teach you risk management first, profit later. If you follow their metrics guide, you're going to end up profitable, as long as you work hard to improve those metrics. Winning trade % above 40, average winning trade > average losing trade and RRR 1.5:1 or greater. The math doesn't lie, but then the emotional game comes into play which is not for everyone. You have to have a competitive spirit. So, I agree with you