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My sorry life story to date……… any suggestions……?


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My sorry life story to date……… any suggestions……?

  #1 (permalink)
 ShaunG 
Cape Town/South Africa
 
Experience: None
Posts: 39 since Jul 2014
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Hi All!

Here my life story to date! (Or rather my trading life story, to date)
Just bear in mind I live in Cape Town, South Africa, where the exchange rate is ten” ZAR” for every one USD. So whatever it costs you guys/girls it costs me ten times that in SA Rands! (Our currency)

Here goes:

I started with an eight week mentorship course with John Paul of “DayTradeToWin”. The course went well, however on the implementation side; the strategies did not give me the desired results I was hoping for. Not sure if it’s the system itself, or the way I was using it!

Followed that by joining Stephen W Bigalow of “The Candlestick Forum” using the Japanese method of reading candles together with the “T-Line” crunch methodology taught by Stephen! That worked fairly well I must say. I just battled to read the same set-ups “The left/right combo” etc.

Followed that by a subscription with Philip Thygesen of “Stock Market Strategy.co” where I purchased the “Core Strategy Seminar” to try help me better understand certain indicators and how best to use them.

I followed that by joining Steve Nison of “Candlecharts.com” where I continued on my quest of reading candles together with the purchasing of a “Candle Scanner” software package, which to date has not given me the desired results.

Once none of the above gave me the desired results, I went ahead and purchased the “DTS” system from Indicator Warehouse. I started with the three bird suite, and continued adding all the “bells and whistles” to try and improve my success rate. That would include the purchasing of the “Trade Manager” which is a worthwhile investment I must add. My latest purchase was the “Profit Finder” which works on the “NinjaTrade7” platform. It helps you to back test your strategies to see if they are giving you the desired results.

So, where I am at this stage in my life……….!? Still on a “Sim” account as I have not been able to build up the required consistency or confidence to go live!
In South African Rands “ZAR” I have probably spent close to 100K which is around about 10,000 USD.

So, I am hoping by joining “Big Mike “forum and sharing my story, I will meet fellow traders who can share their experiences and help me to become a successful trader!

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

“Thinking of upgrade to an “Elite Member” to gain a better insight……?”

Thanks
Regards
Shaun

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  #3 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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Step 1 - stop buying shit.

Step 2 - hold yourself accountable.

Read my signature.

Read every post in this thread:


Next step should be incredibly clear.

Mike

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  #4 (permalink)
 
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 Daytrader999 
Ilsede, Germany
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ShaunG View Post
“Thinking of upgrade to an “Elite Member” to gain a better insight……?”

Thanks
Regards
Shaun

Hi Shaun,

IMHO, becoming an Elite Member on futures.io (formerly BMT) Forum would definitely your best, and probably your last invest you'll have to make...

However, good luck on your ongoing (trading) journey!

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
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  #5 (permalink)
 londonkid 
London, UK
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: TT, CQG, esignal, TWS
Trading: Futures, spot FX, Energy Spreads Prop Firm
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ShaunG View Post
Hi All!

Here my life story to date! (Or rather my trading life story, to date)
Just bear in mind I live in Cape Town, South Africa, where the exchange rate is ten” ZAR” for every one USD. So whatever it costs you guys/girls it costs me ten times that in SA Rands! (Our currency)

Here goes:

I started with an eight week mentorship course with John Paul of “DayTradeToWin”. The course went well, however on the implementation side; the strategies did not give me the desired results I was hoping for. Not sure if it’s the system itself, or the way I was using it!

Followed that by joining Stephen W Bigalow of “The Candlestick Forum” using the Japanese method of reading candles together with the “T-Line” crunch methodology taught by Stephen! That worked fairly well I must say. I just battled to read the same set-ups “The left/right combo” etc.

Followed that by a subscription with Philip Thygesen of “Stock Market Strategy.co” where I purchased the “Core Strategy Seminar” to try help me better understand certain indicators and how best to use them.

I followed that by joining Steve Nison of “Candlecharts.com” where I continued on my quest of reading candles together with the purchasing of a “Candle Scanner” software package, which to date has not given me the desired results.

Once none of the above gave me the desired results, I went ahead and purchased the “DTS” system from Indicator Warehouse. I started with the three bird suite, and continued adding all the “bells and whistles” to try and improve my success rate. That would include the purchasing of the “Trade Manager” which is a worthwhile investment I must add. My latest purchase was the “Profit Finder” which works on the “NinjaTrade7” platform. It helps you to back test your strategies to see if they are giving you the desired results.

So, where I am at this stage in my life……….!? Still on a “Sim” account as I have not been able to build up the required consistency or confidence to go live!
In South African Rands “ZAR” I have probably spent close to 100K which is around about 10,000 USD.

So, I am hoping by joining “Big Mike “forum and sharing my story, I will meet fellow traders who can share their experiences and help me to become a successful trader!

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

“Thinking of upgrade to an “Elite Member” to gain a better insight……?”

Thanks
Regards
Shaun

How long have you been trading? Definitely stop buying things and just focus on price and time. It will likely take several years before you become anywhere approaching profitable, just trying to manage expectations here.

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  #6 (permalink)
 Cloudy 
desert CA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NT7, various
Broker: various, TDA
Trading: NQ,ES
Posts: 2,124 since Jul 2011
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Thanks for sharing your story. So how many years has it been? how many hundreds of hours or thousands of hours?
Yes, we realize some countries have a 10:1 or even 30:1 ratio to the American dollar, but the dollar is so screwed up these days, dependent on military protected oil, and Fed invervention etc. so many "zars" to pay rent may be like cheaper bliss for Americans to pay rent and costs of living.

to comment on your post, I'm surprised to hear that Steve Nison's "software package" was useless to you. Had you read his original popular book on candlesticks? This is just my very own opinion, for what it's worth, I enjoy/enjoyed looking at candlesticks also, but I've felt in the last five to ten years HFT has ruined most candlestick patterns as a lot of candlesticks are just spikes and wicks due to algos/HFT's doing fakeouts and stopouts on anything less than the 20minute timeframe with the SEC turning a blind eye, or even in cahoots in some behind the news aspects. Of course it didn't use to be so, so maybe ten to fifteen years ago Nison's candle patterns held some water. Sometimes vendors sell something that >used< to work. That's another piece of advice. Whether it works again remains to be seen.

edit: Also check out some of the fine journals here on futures.io (formerly BMT). There are a bunch of good ones these days. If one can make consistent 2pts per day on the ES for example, that's pretty much doing well enough to make a living on trading imo.

Last piece of my advice for what it's worth. Maybe look to some recommend books/materials on overall price action, not just the bars themselves , but overall patterns, such as two legged moves, channels, etc. Which requires more of your interaction looking at charts rather than just relying on a outdated/and probably un-updated(except to conform to new versions of your platform software) piece of semi-auto software. Some examples of educational material out there are Mac's Price action, Brooks Price action, perhaps even Gartley patterns. also have a good take profit & stop loss plan. Both are important.

I heard it said/written somewhere that the number of "successful" retail traders are less than then number of successful professional athletes. It's extremely competitive. But today, I believe the big winners are still the big money movers and the new HFT firms. But successful retailers can still get some bit of waves passing by. however they are making it harder for retailers all the time. (like this new cme $15/monthy "fee") . good luck.

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  #7 (permalink)
 artemiso 
New York, NY
 
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Cloudy View Post
I've felt in the last five to ten years HFT has ruined most candlestick patterns as a lot of candlesticks are just spikes and wicks due to algos/HFT's doing fakeouts and stopouts on anything less than the 20minute timeframe with the SEC turning a blind eye, or even in cahoots in some behind the news aspects. Of course it didn't use to be so, so maybe ten to fifteen years ago Nison's candle patterns held some water. Sometimes vendors sell something that >used< to work. That's another piece of advice. Whether it works again remains to be seen.

Why would a firm that trades billions in volume daily spend time building predatory strategies to ruin the candlestick patterns and lives of a handful of retail traders who only trade <10 contracts per day?

Someone has to be on the losing side of the billion dollar investment profits of Warren Buffett. Why doesn't anyone blame Warren Buffett for their candlestick charts breaking instead?


Cloudy View Post
But today, I believe the big winners are still the big money movers and the new HFT firms. But successful retailers can still get some bit of waves passing by. however they are making it harder for retailers all the time. (like this new cme $15/monthy "fee") . good luck.

More high-speed trading firms have blown up in the last 2 years than new ones have spawned up. It's not a profitable business. "HFT" is a nice phrase because it means the same thing semantically as the word "ghost" - no one who uses the term really knows how to define it, and people would rather blame the supernatural than themselves.

An average Android app developer in Silicon Valley earns a base salary of $130,000 per year, risk-free. The fastest trading firm in Chicago pays a base salary of $80,000 to $90,000 per year for software developers, with plenty of risk.

How unprofitable/risky is it to run a high-speed trading business"? A proxy measure of unprofitability/risk of a business is the revenue multiple used in calculating its valuation: A technology startup with last-twelve-month (LTM) revenues of $150 million is usually valued at around 15x to 50x of its LTM revenue, i.e. at $2.25 billion to $7.5 billion. The last HFT firm that was sold privately had a LTM revenue of $150 million but was only sold at a LTM revenue multiple of about 2.3x.

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  #8 (permalink)
 Cloudy 
desert CA
 
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artemiso View Post
Why would a firm that trades billions in volume daily spend time building predatory strategies to ruin the candlestick patterns and lives of a handful of retail traders who only trade <10 contracts per day?

Yes, I would agree it's sensible to realize that the HFT industry has it's own competition. I realize there are a lot of server, and manpower fixed and variable costs in an HFT firm. It may be approaching the status of oligopic competition where there are just a set of major winning firms making it harder for startups. It may not be HFT is targeting retailers; maybe it's just side effects from some volume unnamed but I feel candlestick patterns have somehow been less effective over a period of recent years. It's just harder for retailers due to some side effects. Just seemed to be alarming news recently about how much volume is mostly automated these days back on the HFT thread and other news. I have no idea what the SEC or the trading community will react to this or what will be done in the future about this.

For the sake of the OP question, you may place less emphasis on HFT. Since it's just my opinion. And my information is limited. It's a different market these days. there is a lot more noise. Maybe I am "blaming" too much on HFT and algos based on my personal training and needed to curb my words. So I'll just finish saying it may be it's just more competitive for everyone involved, retailers and HFT. Maybe try longer time frame price action trading on the 4 hour or daily time frame with the value traders-investors. Possibly the candlestick patterns look better than than the small minute ones. Everyone else and OP included can see for themselves manually trading the smaller time frame minute charts and see how clean the candles look or not.

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  #9 (permalink)
 
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 paps 
SF Bay Area + CA/US
 
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Hey @ShaunG I am not a trading expert by any means. Will just put down my experience rather than any suggestions.

But many have blown way past a 10k or more before being profitable. Also there may be some who have got the hang of trading without much losses. But in either case the amount of work/reading/charts/Analysis/Psyc put by these traders is unimaginable.

There is nothing which hard work cannot get is what i believe...but that is just my thought. Again my humble opinion is that Trading is the most toughest vocation out there. The playing field is totally against the trader as the brightest / biggest /fastest in terms of resources(money/information/experience) are playing against a retail trader.

I also believe it is only me and only me figuring out what works for me which can/will make it happen. Also it is my analysis which can keep me ahead as things are constantly changing. No trading system in the world can/will give me something on a plater. Yes they could be a guide but the decision at the point of heat and acceptance of profit/loss is entirely mine.

Anyways you seem to be having many instruments. Fx, Index and CL. Personally i started with indices "ES" which have internals & volume and tons of metrics being reported. Nothing is a guarantee....but building a method based on past observable facts is what i try and look for. For me even till date I try to understand what the major indices did by way of EOD data (NYSE/Amex/Russell/Nasdaq) most of it from a breadth/volume perspective. I also do look at charts with breadth info to see what was market reaction to price/internals and data I watch for did at a certain time/price. I do this as it gives my some info though currently for last few months I am into equities rather than ES.

I think there is ton of data being printed for US instruments. I dont think there is as much of info in any other market in the world. I may be wrong.

I wish you only goodluck and success.

cheers
s

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  #10 (permalink)
 ShaunG 
Cape Town/South Africa
 
Experience: None
Posts: 39 since Jul 2014
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londonkid View Post
How long have you been trading? Definitely stop buying things and just focus on price and time. It will likely take several years before you become anywhere approaching profitable, just trying to manage expectations here.

How long have you been trading? Definitely stop buying things and just focus on price and time. It will likely take several years before you become anywhere approaching profitable, just trying to manage expectations here.


It has been about two years of seriously trying to get a grip on things. Prior to that I have always been interested and have spent many year reading and finding out as much as possible. Thing is when I come up with a strategy that works, it's only a matter of time when things start going wrong, and I start incurring larger losses than I would want to.
I have heard that one needs to continually revise and adapt your strategies to current market conditions. There is no one size fits all or one strategy that works every time!?

Thanks for your insight.

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