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I have'nt posted in a while and that's because I find that it much more convenient for me to write down notes on paper as I trade.
I went through an initial blow out period where I lost big for about 8 sessions. Have since focused on capitol preservation and am making good progress.
Bought Al Brooks price action course--well worth the money and I'm still no where near finishing it.
Started reading that Brett Steenbarger book "Enhancing Trader Performance"--excellant reading.
Its been about 12 weeks now since I started this quest and I have a learned a lot. I've watched tons of videos and webinars, spent time in chat trade rooms, read books and tried to get all the best advice that I could. Have made hundreds of trades-both Live and Sim.
What have I learned??
All that stuff is good but there is no substitute for sitting there and watching charts -and trading--hour after hour, day after day, for as long as it takes.
Indicators are interesting. I still don't know how to use them properly. I install them and then promptly forget that they are there. But I believe that the right set of indicators set up over the right time frames, and undersood and used in the right context etc..can add to the traders edge. I havn't found that yet for me but I am slowly paying more attention to my indicators. They are useful.
Current status--I trade mostly in SIM these days-- -but when I see a setup that I am really comfortable with I take a live trade ( maybe 2 or 3 per day) --and I'm fairly successful with that to the point where I can just about breakeven( thats tough scalping 1 contract YM). actually before commissions I have had 2 profitable weeks,
SIM VS Live? I find SIM very useful to hone my risk management skills--For fear of the big stopout I am pulling in my stops too soon. For me SIM is srictly a practice, testing exercise- it is not a test--"like don't trade live until reaching profitability in SIM"----I get crushed in SIM, I dont take it seriously, but I think its great tool to hone skills... and kill time waiting for a good live trade setup. Impulse trading has hurt me--I can be as impulsive as I want in SIM but when I see a $ trade that I like I switch to live for that trade.
psychology? They say psychology is 70% of it- I agree completely. Sometimes I finish a bad session and say "WTF did I just do, I went back to all my bad habits--WHY??? I put so much into this and and then now in one session act like I have never traded before. " You gotta deal with your demons man or else there is no hope.
Many people say don't scalp.. My natural tendancy is to scalp but slowly I am expanding my trading range--Its a natural progression--not because people say don't scalp.
In fact I think tight trading ranges provide a good % of high probability scalp trades.
So for now I keep doing doing what I am doing--I'm making slow progress an all fronts-MM, RR, TM and physch.
I am also considering some formal training/education. Looking at Jaguar's stuff--not ready to take the plunge as I still work.
Been testing out indicators and have found that the MACD Indicator can provide some very nice signals. I am using 4 fast, 12 slow, 8 smooth settings on a 3 range chart. Results are promising. When the MACD line crosses the MACD avg line at a steep angle there is a nice probability of substantial follow through. A more aggressive trader would get in when the MACD line makes a sudden reversal at an overbought or oversold level.
You play badminton AND softball in the Bangkok heat? Where did you find enough people to play softball or better yet, where did you find a baseball field to play on? Soccer I can see but softball?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
The bangkok softball league has been going on for about 20 years--each year we have 6-8 teams. We play at the polo club --soi polo or at one of the international schools--ISB or RISM. Ive been involved in bkk softball for years and did a 2 year stint as league commission a few years ago.. Its mostly americans and canadians but there are several thais who play... check out our website if interested---We do need sponsors
Got battered quite badly the last few weeks--- and was forced into a rethink. My methods of sort of blindly following indicators and chart patterns have failed-in a large part due to my psychology.
My rethink involves the study of order flow and I have been testing the Ninja/OFA software. So far I'm impressed.
After just a few days of study have been able to break even in live and sim trading the ES. Using the order flow have been scalping 2-5 ES ticks with good consistency .
While I am certainly an advocate of ditching indicators, don't replace one bad habit with another. I think learning order flow and using volume analysis is smart, but make sure you've really got a solid plan on how to be profitable.
Scalping 2-5 ticks on the ES has got to be the hardest way I can think of to make money trading. Just my opinion...
Lets say my plan is under development--as I suppose everyone's plan is. As long as I am trading 1 contract my focus is on good entries and getting those first few ticks.
and if you recall Mike, I have modest goals, $100 extra pocket money per day here in Thailand goes a long long way.
6 months into this journey and I have learned a lot--mostly about WHAT NOT TO DO. The WHAT TO DO is what should make up my plan and I am getting closer to having a solid one.
Please make sure you focus on risk, more than focusing on how much you can make. So make sure your plan carefully considers what you need to risk in order to make that $100 a day.
Don't forget to include slippage (bid/ask premium) and commissions, very important factors for scalpers.
Also, you are at a bit of a disadvantage being so far from Chicago, the latency is going to be working against you. This will depend on your specific strategy, but in general it would apply to any scalper.
Good luck asiaexpat...if i were to start all over again with the knoweldeg of hindsight i would:
1.) Pick a market that suited my time available
2.) Put in the screen time with a basic chart set, a DOM, and the T&S
3.) put together a book of plays, ORB, GAPS etc...that i see repeat over and over
4.) Practice these until you double a SIM account and then
5.) Start over and triple a sim account
6.) Journal and work on an improvement plan to eliminate mistakes and errors, bad trades.
Apply real money to an account and start trading live, try to break even the first month.
