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Stop live trading immediately! It's obvious you are doing terrible in the NQ. It's not the sp500. It moves rapidly against you after giving you numerous chances to cutloss.
When u dont cutloss it knows and will devastate you then when you sell it will run much higher. Like all markets the second you get in it will almost freeze or slow..and maybe go against you...typically it does for a bit of time.
Trade nq on demo for a while with a 1 lot only.
1 lot is all u should need to learn better skills.
It is the total fluctuation that's is nailing you the range. Lately they spike up nq to grab stops for entry and stops for short exits..buy stops obviously just to run it much lower and you are in that range..and sometimes its 40 seconds and your toast in the nq.
Most losing traders which is what you are right now based on your recent trades will never just stop. Stopping means taking time to adjust to watch the mkt with no pressure to trade. Get in sync with it and try entering on a longer time frame even if a short term trade and be ready to exit should it go against you by some amount of time or dollar value.
Insanity is doing the same thing over n over n expecting different results.
From what I see you might be over trading also n a 3 lot micro nqs big btw when it moves 80 pts in 3 mins
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Stop live trading immediately! It's obvious you are doing terrible in the NQ. It's not the sp500. It moves rapidly against you after giving you numerous chances to cutloss.
When u dont cutloss it knows and will devastate you then when you sell it will run much higher. Like all markets the second you get in it will almost freeze or slow..and maybe go against you...typically it does for a bit of time.
Trade nq on demo for a while with a 1 lot only.
1 lot is all u should need to learn better skills.
It is the total fluctuation that's is nailing you the range. Lately they spike up nq to grab stops for entry and stops for short exits..buy stops obviously just to run it much lower and you are in that range..and sometimes its 40 seconds and your toast in the nq.
Most losing traders which is what you are right now based on your recent trades will never just stop. Stopping means taking time to adjust to watch the mkt with no pressure to trade. Get in sync with it and try entering on a longer time frame even if a short term trade and be ready to exit should it go against you by some amount of time or dollar value.
Insanity is doing the same thing over n over n expecting different results.
From what I see you might be over trading also n a 3 lot micro nqs big btw when it moves 80 pts in 3 mins
This gave me the kick in the balls I needed as my overconfidence in successful disciplined trading for weeks prior clouded my judgment and I absolutely start trading DIFFERENTLY.
Profit and loss are NOT my metrics for successful trading yet. Doing the RIGHT thing is and I'm clearly light years away from that right now.
I DID practice on the sim till I was comfortable. No it was not long. A little over a week but its NEVER the same as live anyway I thought.
I really gave some SERIOUS reflection last night.
I was going to make a separate post but this is a good example and I'm going to hijack your post if ya don't mind.
Your name implies you look for asymmetric Risk/Reward ratio trades.
This also implies you look for entries where you believe your stop/risk has a low probability of being hit and your reward is a larger or has a larger probably of being hit.
I haven't subscribed to that line of thought in a long time although I've tried many times unsuccessfully.
I think because my first teacher was Larry Williams and secondly I researched trend following with incredible effort at the time, not realizing it had imbeded a believe (which I still believe today) that you can absolutely NOT predict the market! Ever!
Absolutely incredible. I CANNOT for the life of me trade like that because he tries to LIMIT EXPOSURE.
This is the crutial CRUX that I came up with after some serious thought.
I LOOK TO EXPOSE MYSELF TO AS MUCH RISK AS I CAN!!!
This is DIRECT OPPOSITION to the way almost everyone trades.
I repeat... I AM LOOKING FOR AS MUCH EXPOSURE AS MY RISK TOLERANCE WILL ALOW.
What are the implications of this?
My ultimate goal is to be in the LARGEST SIZE possible giving me my MAX exposure tolerance at the time of MAXIMUM EXCURSION.
Basically I want to be at the largest size position at the point it GOES AGAINST ME the MOST... Giving me the greatest leverage as it starts to head in my direction.
I really need to work this out mathematically as it becomes more clear to me what I'm trying to do.
Another way to say this is I'm trying to build a position AS IT GOES AGAINST ME so if it turns I have a smaller size... but if it keeps going I'm build more so again as it starts in my direction again I have a larger position meaning it'll take less to get back to even and if it continues to go in my direction I have FULL position potential.
NOW THIS DOESN'T MEAN I ADD TO INFINITUM. There are rules and a design that I'm SUPPOSED to follow.
On day one of trading the MNQ I did just that. Day two I did what you advise. I took small losses. But as you ALSO pointed out that was my demise. Death by a thousand papercuts.
The next day, day three I did do what I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO and the market grinded against me FAR AFTER I HAD MY FULL POSITION ON... trapping me.
I am still super PROUD of myself I had the discipline to hold as that grinded against me for HUNDREDS OF POINTS.
Why? Because that was the RIGHT thing to do. So what if it grinded against me? THATS ONE HISTORY! That'll never repeat exactly the same way. So to change because of that seems counterproductive to me.
But that's exactly what I did the next day... Friday. As you can see in my charts all those crazy clusters are STOP entries and stop EXITS. NOT my strategy.
That's not how I trade and I have to be consistent for my # to work out.
That was NOT being consistent.
The other thing I gave some consideration is TIME.
Time seems to be a variable NOBODY and I mean NOBODY talks about!
It's ridiculous. Everyone talks about RISK and REWARD. Less also talk about PROBABLY which is just as important and NO ONE talks about time and exposure!
I think this is the social reinforcement but it doesn't make it any less important.
TIME and EXPOSURE are what I use in my trading strategy.
Just because I'm not successful at applying it to the MNQ... yet... does not mean it won't work. But my human decision making definitely needs tweaking.
Any comments are welcome.
Thank you so much for your response @Cutloss. (Man I love that name!)
Thanks and your welcome. It took me a long time to get good at trading and consistently profitable and that doesnt mean I am rich or wealthy it means I can sit down at the market and pretty much know that by the end of the day I wont blow out today and a majority of my trades by the end of the day will allow me to pull money out of the market.
TIME IS EVERYTHING IN TRADING. Every day is an at the money option that expires at the end of that day. I can control my time in or out of the market. Letting profits run is a matter of time! Look at a stock chart for a year. Imagine that's 1 day! Would you have bought the absolute low or sold the high would you have been shook out? It takes time for a market to move higher or lower. Now while saying that understand that when looking at a chart most of the big intraday moves against you or down are built up into a fast vacuum to sell into causing mass panic however on the half hour chart it took a half hour to build that range. But it really was formed maybe in 5 minutes higher and 5 minutes lower.
It took people to tell me..cutloss you are losing everyday. How can you tell me over the phone or to my face that you are getting better that you are learning a lot while losing money. Real hard earned money. Demo demo demo then 1 lots 1 lots 1 lots then understanding your own weaknesses. Then recognizing risky areas and avoiding those areas then grind grind grind until you see the perfect set up for that day. Sometimes take a day and try a 5 minute chart another day the 30 and another the 1 minute. You dont always and shouldn't always just trade trade trade. Demo demo demo. What's fun is making money or earning points or just knowing and seeing what's going on in the markets and the unexpected will always happen no matter what there is randomness in it.
When I buy stocks for the long haul I dont even look at a chart usually. If I start buying baba at 242 and I see it's at 213 on a quote somewhere i just step in and buy. I dont care what the chart is doing. I do use charts but my point is that's a mkt buy 97 baba small of course but totally random to the chart.
I am still adding to buy pressure though so that should show up on the chart. Anyway back to losing. You gotta be real honest with yourself and immediately just stop trading and assess. If you were in a plane flying and a storm blew in fast and you didnt know how to fly well with just instruments then I guarantee u wouldn't fly until u were better with instruments. Be real with yourself. Demo should be real to you. Tell yourself I wont trade live until I can make money or not lose in demo for 2 weeks straigh..randomly trade with a dice roll...long only if u roll even today. Short only of u roll odd. Then trade accordingly. You must hone your skillset and find your weaknesses because that's the mkts edge over you. It's only job is to prove you wrong. Catch u asleep not following basic rules of trading. Machines are better because they dont think they just do.
If I'm in a trade for x amount of time then I'm out
The last thing I am writing for is to tell you what you should do...you've been doing this a while and have your own path and way. I am just dropping a little that I see that can work with the NQ...a lot of this came from seeing Lancelottrader on FIO. That's where I started seeing the micro moves on NQ that catch my eye now and then. He has a great webinar called Nasdaq Futures...Taming the Beast. He trades these little moves off a 5 range chart that don't even show up on the bigger time frames. And he has a few patterns that he finds are reliable.
I don't see those patterns but I do see some out of the corner of my eye that I often take...sometimes for a little and sometimes a good run like the other day. Imma post a couple charts that show common moves that I believe look exactly like something is gonna happen...and then it does.
Number 1 shows a move thru Vwap with a couple back and forth and then a quick move out the top with a little tiny PB..get in with small stop right back in the balance..it goes or it doesn't.
Number 2 has another consolidation around the Weekly Open and the last few micro swings are dropping off like it's falling off a cliff...because it is...
Number 3 has a support level that held twice with DB and then price poked thru, gained Mojo and then ripped thru...this is more kinds Lancelot's style...he talks about these little levels that become clear on small TF and often provide trades.
Number 4...same thing...little balance and rip thru with PB ...then the area is retested and drops into area 5 which, again, is exactly what it looks like...price is falling off a cliff.
Anyway, if you are gonna trade MNQ... find your patterns and trade those... about 80% of it is just mayhem, but then out of that these opportunities can emerge.
Craig
Until you make the Unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it Fate...
Lancelottrader has a definitive edge. I could only dream of trading like that. He is using 15 years or whatever of trading fast markets. His intuition will be unrivaled.
He is the complete system as well. It's not just the signals it's the ability to execute. To cut when necessary. To let winners ride and to know when to stand aside.
These skills are beyond me most of the time. That's why I scale and try to take swings trades.
Doesn't always work out but I'm trying.
I have immense respect for anyone who can trade like that. They are rare indeed.
Back at it after taking the long weekend off. Took it easy and am ready to start this week a afresh.
I do not like getting trapped so I'm going to try balancing limit/stop entries and stop exit orders as well as using a price action trailing stop to limit exposure to downside potential risk.
The idea is to exit and re-enter if trade is still valid. But not ride the pullback too deep. Instead get off and wait till it starts to reverse in my favor again.
If it doesn't your not trapped and can reverse on pullback of that trend.
Sounds obvious but it gives me a writen, public goal this week to focus on.
So last night I got two FULL 100 tick trades and two scratches (under $10 profit). A loss is instantly a loss not a scratch in my mind.
This morning scaled into one with two contracts and took partial stop on both. Then a full 100 ticks WIN putting me a into a nice profit cushion for today.
I have posted BOTH points and $ in the past. I prefer points BUT that is NOT how professionals trade.
Professionals take a position based on risk and some kinda of position sizing. So dollars make more sense but ticks are more accurate to trade to trade comparison but NOT for accurate account balance.
So... Not sure yet.
Also I'm still scaling in but 50 ticks from my INITIAL entry is where my stop goes. Period. So if I want go ahead and add as it's 45 ticks against me... fine... but... the stop is 5 ticks away in that case and NEVER FARTHER.
