Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
First of all, you made $1100 last for one year. That's pretty spectacular. You should feel good about that.
However, trading is not about making money - trading is about trading well. Does a construction worker think about how much $$ he's making while he's paving a road? No, he thinks about paving the road properly. And a surgeon is not concentrating on his paycheck while he's operating, he's focused on performing the operation without endangering his patient. In the same way, the objective of trading should be to do the job of trading well, not to make money. If you're trading money or your p&l, you're doing it wrong.
That being said, I don't think you're being logical with your expectations. You've intimated that you don't have enough time and are not adequately capitalized to continue and that your sense of self is suffering because you haven't been able to succeed... these are pretty obvious red flags. Disconnect emotionally and refocus. Order flow is fast and exciting but it's very evocative and the learning curve is steep. Perhaps slowing things down to a longer time frame would help to reduce the emotional impact and enable a more rational approach to what you're doing and what you hope to accomplish.
How? Curious, what is your method or routine?
Here is mine (ask yourself H.A.L.T. throughout the day):
1. H.A.L.T = Hungry? Angry? Lonely (emotional)? Tired?
2. Mentally rehearse = Be prepared for when your emotions strike. Anticipate, plan for it.
3. Positive imagery = Trading to win. Visualise it.
4. Induce relaxation = HRV. Biofeedback (heart monitor, pressure monitor). Breathing exercises.
I use this routine and yes I have a HRM and blood pressure monitor which I use once a day to keep track of my health over time. I got this from Andrew Menaker. Trader/Psychologist. Hes got some good stuff, check out his youtube vids.
Hi Trambo,
Instead of trying to trade the US oriented markets, have you looked at what you can trade in the European/London markets that has action similar to ES and ZN? The instruments won't be the same because they may not have the same Volumes and Price Actions as ES and ZN. But, they would be way more active during the times when you could be trading them (early morning and late evenings in UK time zone).
My preferred markets are what I've traded in the past on spot Forex, EUR/USD and GBP/USD. I would absolutely love to be in your shoes and be trading those two markets. If I want to trade EU and GU now, I have to get up at 2:00 AM to watch the German Open and stay online for a few hours through the London open up to about 5:00 AM my time. Then I can start getting ready for my day job.
Instead of trading EU and GU, I sought out watching markets that I could trade in later US evening hours on the Sydney Open/Tokyo Open on up through 10:00 PM, when I can start getting ready to go to sleep. Maybe you should look at other markets that are active in your time zone.
And stay on the simulator until you can trade winners consistently. I'm amazed that you made 1,100 of anything (USD or Pounds) last a whole year trading LIVE futures. There is a steep price to pay for wanting this trading lifestyle. And it's not all money...it can be in lost time connecting with Family and Friends as you're on the PC for all of your free time. My Daughter hates it when I'm on the PC instead of being with the Family.
It could be that Trading LIVE Futures isn't what you need to be doing. One of the other traders in Chicago said he makes way more from the free cash flow each month, on the one very small apartment building he has...than in his trading account. Trading looks cheap and easy when you first look at it, but it turns out to be very hard and kinda expensive when you really look at it. You don't have to spend several thousand dollars on tools just to fix toilets. But, I'm pretty sure everyone in Glasgow has a toilet. Now, fixing toilets isn't the point here...but doing something to make extra money that isn't trading futures is the point. You need to pay down your debts, and pursue your dream.
If you're in the UK, you should consider the M6E when you get back into the markets.
The fees are ridiculous and you won't make money....but you will have the opportunity to interact with the market ALOT with a small account and really hone your trading. You just have to detach from the actual P&L because it'll be skewed from the tick value vs. fees.....but if you can focus on improving your actual meaningful stats, Ave. win, ave. loss, %'s, expectancy.....then you will truly be learning and getting valueable market experience....and doing it with a fraction of the account you'd need in other markets.
There seem to be tradable moves during UK open almost every day in M6E. Best of luck.
My suggestion. Continue to paper trade even if you can't trade live. Because trading is a perishable skill. You made $1100 last a year means you have or had the skill. If you just focus on the skill, the money will take care of itself. In any case, if you remain focused on the money all the time, you won't have the resources left to hone the skill.
Could always try and boost your profits by using a funded account from TopStepTrader or something similar. Allows you to trade much larger capital without risk your own.
I'm come down on that side of the fence too. I think that trading is gambling. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but I do think that the future is generally speaking not predictable. That said, I think that with a regimented risk and management model based on the recognition of past, similar events, a discernible edge is (as proven by successful traders) possible.
In actual fact - I guess I made $600 last the year as I stopped trading at $500 as that was the day trading capital requirements for my broker. I'm pleased it lasted that long to be honest and the sentiment of the original post wasn't really about feeling blue about that loss, more about the clarity of the bigger situation.
I understand what you mean with regard to timeframe. For me though, having tried the longer timeframe game I don't do too well with it. Order Flow as you say can be exciting, but it can also be boring, it's entirely dependent on the market of choice and time of day, volatility profile etc. I don't like Order Flow because it's exciting, I like it because it feels like i'm trading based on reading what's actually happening. I found that when I was trying to trade off of longer timeframes it was always in tandem with some technical analysis model that I didn't ultimately have faith in. This is of course, entirely just my perspective and not intended to cast dispersions on any other trading method.
This discussion has already helped disconnect emotionally as you say, it's good advice. In fact I think this offshoot of the discussion is interesting. With so much being said about trading psychology I've bought into and since sold out of the idea we should be mechanical automatons that trade independent of any human emotion. In fact, I think our emotional state can tell us a lot about how we are behaving.
Many times my emotions have helped me get out of a trade quickly because it highlighted something amiss, I actually find being aware of my emotional state much more helpful than just detaching from it now. Granted, this is after much learning and falling foul of a variety of human faux pas!
This is really interesting. I've not thought about monitors before but they probably could add quite a lot to awareness. I totally agree awareness and understanding is probably preferential to outright emotional disconnection, which dare I say it is neither practical or desirable. A part of me thinks it's something that the retail trading psychology market has made cool for self promotion. I hate to be cynical but I find that argument hard to buy into now.
My reason for this is that if I look at my own profession, it's very hard to disconnect entirely from the emotional side of things and I also don't think I'd want to. I think if we were to ask a number of professional traders they would agree that they have to go to work with a variety of emotional stressors. I think they just find ways to be aware of them and manage them rather than "disconnect" so to speak.
