An excellent point and here is something that's been around I'm sure, not mine, but it's always rung true.


System

All this talk of being "true" to yourself and not following others, brings to mind the story
of the so called "Turtle Traders" from the early 80s. It was supposedly the inspiration for
the movie "Trading Places".

In 1983 commodity traders Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt conducted an experiment
to see if traders were made or born. Dennis believed they were made and could be taught to follow a
specific trading plan with no deviation and Eckhardt believe that they were born with the skills.

Dennis placed and ad in the Wall Street Journal for traders. He received over 1000 replies. He culled
the list down by asking them all a simple question: If you were presented with a trade opportunity
according to the rules of the system but you believed in your heart that it would be a losing trade, would
you execute according to the rules of the system?

VERY few answered that they would execute according to the rules. I believe it was less than 10 of the
original 1000! He hired the ones who said they would execute the system no matter what. Thus were
born the "Turtle Traders" as they became know!

My point is that a disciplined trader can execute any system he is told to execute! Whether or not he believes
in it. Don't get me wrong, believing in a system is VERY important, but I for one can execute a system
that I know makes money even if I don't believe every trade will turn out.

Hi Kyron,

With only 10 weeks in to the trading, I would say you are very new to the trading world. It will help you greatly, trust me on this fella, if you wouldn't pay too much attention to why things aren't working 100% of the times, nothing is 100% in this trading world. If your strategy works 50% of the times, this would be a good start and with more experience you yourself will be able to tweak to make it 70-90%.

What you are learning from the Australian guy seems a good approach to me, as far as you get 3-4 opportunities about everyday and at least 3 times a week, you can do the math. On MES, this strategy should be able to give you on an average profit of 100-200$ (after commissions) about everyday with only one contract. Then its all about either moving to ES or scaling MES first and then moving to ES, whatever path you go with.

I've traded penny stocks, mid-cap stocks, options on mid and large caps before finally I settled with Futures from last 7-8 months purely because of tax benefits. Otherwise, I had been good with day trading options as well, just long calls and puts. I've total experience of 4-5 years with real money trading making sometime, losing sometime and the cycle goes on and on. So you are hearing from a amateur trader but with a wide spectra of experience.

Here is what I would like to share from my little experience:

The very first thing you have to find out is what type of trader you are. This means what you will be comfortable with. Scalping, swinging within the the day, swinging over couple of days or investing. I swing within the day (which means I like trades which should last anywhere from 15-20 minutes to couple of hours within the day), I do scalp but its not my first preference and I seldom does it. I trade the trend within the day (like the Australian guy is teaching you). Like today, ES was swinging 15 points up and down, I could had sold the tops and bought the bottoms on last two touches making around $400 easily on 2-4 contracts, but I don't trade what I don't like. I've prepared for solid two years to just let price do what I predicted and not enter the trade, this was to control the impulsiveness and really train in realtime how accurate is my pre-market preparation. I wanted to trade the break above or below the flag, which didn't happen so I didn't take more than one trade. The one I took, I was expecting the break to upside after buying the base but it didn't so I exited the trade for a tiny profit. We are not going to make target money everyday.

Do a pre-market study and try to chose a direction based of daily and/or 4hrs charts. Let market shake out for first 15-20 minutes after open, sometimes 5 minutes would be enough, this will come with experience. Once you have watched market for enough time (it took me about 2 years as I've a full time job as well and it was not feasible to watch market in action everyday with a day job), I would say 4-6 months should be enough depending on person's learning capability.

Then mark the consolidation range and trade break of top or bottom after confirmation only. Generally, market break in the direction of 4hrs and daily charts as bigger time frames control what will happen during coming few days. You can use 9EMA, 8EMA along with breakout. This is the simplest and in use by most day traders. Check some youtube videos, bullishbears.com have explained it best. They use it for stocks but this can be used with any instrument in this world that can be traded.

At last I would say don't be eager to be profitable in few weeks or months. This market has its dark side and to beat the dark siders, we have to be trading with them and not against them. Trading against them can also make money, but that should be with quick in and outs, as done in scalping. There are millions of ways to trade, you just have to find one and become a master of only one.

Last, don't listen to anyone that indicators are lagging. Issue is trying to predict what price will do based of indicators. Price is the king and master price action, then use indicator like Stochastic, MACD, RSI to see what price is doing in general. Never force on what indicator is doing, this will always lead you to lose money.

In trading it is more about learning to control impulsiveness and psychology than what strategy I should use to trade.

Focus on only one instrument, after looking at all main futures I can say ES is probably the best and starting with MES is the right approach.

Last but not the least, PLEASE DON'T BUY any indicator from anyone. No indicator makes us profitable, its how we trade and what we trade makes us profitable.

Happy Trading!

And you are an expert?

$25k loss implies a $500k min. account balance. Who has that account size ?
Note: That's just standard risk management practice (5% max loss). Some traders go as low as 2% max loss per trade.

$25k loss implies a $500k min. account balance. Who has that account size ?
Note: That's just standard risk management practice (5% max loss). Some traders go as low as 2% max loss per trade.

KyronC,

Good question. Sorry I can't help you, I am a consistently break-even day trader. I am still trying to get profitable.

Almost all successful traders in history have traded on larger timeframes than a day. You can observe that in books containing interviews of successful traders such as Market Wizards.

Dude - that was years ago...before everyone had a high speed connection and fast trading platform that could be programmed.
Get with the times.
Some of the HFT firms are making a TON of money trading for ticks.