I've been trying to trade since 2012, by "trying" I mean losing money or trading sim to no avail for that long. I started with Options, and right now my capital is split between options, forex, and futures -- with futures containing the majority of it.

After scouring the Internet for years, watching tons of video and doing tons of reading, I came across Wyckoff. I read his stuff multiple times, saw videos explaining it all, and it seemed to make sense. The major players buy on dips and sell on bulges, whereas the retail public does the opposite. With Wyckoff's method you're supposed to use price movement and volume to look at when a stock is accumulating and distributing. It all made sense to me as I learned it, but when I looked at stocks I couldn't read volume for the life of me. It was just a bunch of bars that made little sense to me. Sure, price made sense, but I couldn't tell if price was accumulating or distributing because I couldn't tell what volume was doing.

Doing more research I came across Alan Andrews and his median lines. This was something I liked because all it required was price -- no volume, no indicators, just price. I read his original material and I didn't really get it, but I came across Tim Morge. I watched and read A TON of Morge's stuff. He really knew how to explain things. I admit I didn't get all of it, but I felt like I got enough of it to apply it. Following price and plotting out a median line seemed simple enough. I'd find the three major pivots and saw price act how Andrews said it should.

But putting it all into practice is where the difficulty and frustration came. I'd plot a median line out and watch price. It would touch the center and that would be a signal to plan a trade. Then I'd wait for price to get to the parallel, look for a test with good separation, then execute my trade on the retest. Sometimes price would do what I expected it to do, sometimes price would blow through my stop, sometimes price wouldn't reach the parallel, and sometimes price wouldn't get a proper test/rest. Of course you're not going to get every trade right, but consecutive losing trades made me question myself. Did I really understand these methods?

So I studied some more and tried narrowing down my scope, focusing on something simple instead of being all over the place. My plan is to daytrade QM (while charting CL), ES, YM, and NQ. And I'm debating about whether I should trade currency futures or not, but when I do try to trade them I get burned for some reason. I'm also planning on trading options for longer term plays (holding for a few days or weeks) because I can't afford the stop for holding a currency future -- meaning I can't risk the same amount in a longer term move or else I'll get easily stopped out.

The thing is that every day there won't be a trade, I understand that, but I'm still questioning and second-guessing myself. One thing I do every night is look back at the chart, replot median lines, and see what I missed -- this definitely infuriates me. Maybe I shouldn't do this, maybe I should accept that I can't stare at the charts 24/7 (and I can't because I work nights and have other things to do in life). Still, it makes me wonder if I'm doing this right or not.

This is why I say I desperately need a mentor, someone to show me whether I'm doing this correctly or not. Right now I'm only trading sim and I will continue to trade sim until I feel like I've grasped this. However, it still feels like I'm in sink/swim mode and I'm not doing anything. It's like learning a martial art by reading books and watching movies. Maybe you'll get it, maybe not, but you won't know until you're in a real fight. However, when you're taught that martial art by an instructor you'll truly learn. You'll see what works for you and what doesn't. And you'll know what to apply in a real fight thanks to the instructor.

Some people are gifted enough to read and watch the material to pick trading up, and I accept the possibility that I'm not one of those people. Tim Morge was lucky enough to be taught by Alan Andrews, and I think Alan Andrews was taught as well before he came up with median lines. I'll never be as great of a trader as those men, and if they needed mentors I most likely do as well.