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You have asked a ton of questions in this post and I will cut right to the chase... Most of what I say here is based on my own experience...
Most new traders have no business whatsoever starting out with a scalping plan.. Can you trade with a 60-70% win rate? I doubt you can and I cannot and only the most efficient scalpers can. So why would you start with a plan that requires a very high degree of execution and discipline? You are setting yourself up for failure right from the start. Drop scalping before you lose all of your money.
Second, until you can trade in SIM and double accounts on a reasonable frequency with reasonable risk, there is no need to trade live money.. You will just transfer it into an experienced traders account.. THere is no guarantee you can translate what you know from SIM to live, but at least you have demonstrated you have a trading plan that works if followed. YOU may stay in SIM for a long time, but that is the way it has to be to save your accounts.
Third, I do not think it is an accident that you started making money when you went for 2:1 reward to risk. Most new traders and rookies shy away from this because the win rates are much lower and you must get used to losing... But most beginners deal with losing by moving to a scalping plan where they lose less(have a higher win rate) but never make any money(or even lose a bunch)..
Bottom line.. go after a plan that allows you to win 40% or less of the time and still make money... That plan may be higher time frames, it may be selective trades and setups.. you will have to figure that out... But get comfortable with losing on individual trades and get your reward above 2 and I think you will see things turn around.
I will take your advice and go Sim for now. I am going to set a goal of tripling my account before going live again.
Regarding Volman, did Volman himself tell you that some of his setups were not working anymore? Interesting. I will have to finish it, but beyond the setups there seems to be some good information about trading in general that I hope to learn from.
The reason I switched from scalping to swinging in the beginning of the year was because I knew that I am not that accurate. If I'm honest with myself I know that I still am not that accurate. I will continue my plan and explore higher time frames and try and reevaluate my trading.
I think you are right about going for bigger targets and losing more. When I read the first 5 chapters of Volmans book today it had me intrigued by scalping again. I think that I have to continue down the road I've been going down since the beginning of the year. My management needs help but I will figure it out.
I can get excited sometime after a new idea. Thanks for the reality check Wolf!
With all due respect, this does not make sense at all.
A simple math can show this is a loosing (or a maximum break even ) method. With 2:1 Reward:Risk and 40% or less as you mentioned, it's not worth trading.
Here's the math:
1 point on ES $50, for every trade you risk $50 to make $100.
With 40% win or less, for every 10 trade you make $100*4 (or less) = $400, and you loose 6*50=$300.
Commission for the ES $5*10 trades=$50.
So what you end with for 10 trades: $400-$300-$50.
That's $50 for 10 trades, $500 for 100 trades, and $5000 for 1000 trades. That's max if win ration is 40%.
That's probably the single best decision you will ever make in trading. The previous posters gave you the best advice. Do everything you can to follow their advice. It will save you a lot of heartache and pain.
Saiga have you tried using Ninja Trader? If your going in the direction of scalping,I believe the ATM function on Ninja Trader will give you an advantage.AMP Futures out of Chicago has some really good commissions and low margin requirements.The only problem is they don't offer Spot Forex.I beleive there are some Spot Forex brokers who offer Ninja Trader.
I have not tried Ninja. Seems like a solid platform. I am going to be sim trading for a while so I can improve my swing trading. I don't think I would be a good scalper so I have decided to continue looking for swings. So far I have had no problems with tradestation. I like the chart trading feature for my entries.
I turned off my futures data but noticed that I still have the data for futures indexes. I'd prefer trading index futures to forex if it was not for the larger size of futures. But I have been thinking since I am going to be trading sim for a while, maybe I should just trade the ES or NQ instead. That way when I decide to go live I can deposit some more money to abide by my money management rule. Decisions....Decisions....
I have not posted a video in a while but will continue. I will continue with my video journal and start updating it more often. I have been very busy but have been doing a lot of research about my trading. I am going to start over, I will still be trading forex looking for swings going all in and all out. I will not interfere with the trade until at least 2R. My targets will be between 2-5R depending on measured moves and legs.
I am going to do a 30 trade trial run to see exactly where I am before I make further adjustments. I make adjustments to much so my trading is very difficult to measure. I need to follow a trade management method and stick to it vigorously in order to calculate weather or not I have an edge. I will be trading sim and post my results in videos.
Great job on the video and I like where you are headed, taking FT71's advice about not micromanaging trades has been a big help for me as well. Especially the coin toss experiment! I see you are going with the 1:2 risk reward and an all in all out strategy at the moment. I know FT71 is big on scaling. I'm sure you are familiar but have you put much thought into perhaps exiting 1R with two thirds position and running the last 1/3 as a simple scaling method instead of all in all out?
I assume that you have thought about it already and are choosing a simpler strategy right now so you can correctly evaluate your methods and I completely understand, but I was curious. For me, scaling is the only way, from a psychological standpoint that my brain can handle the trade and I am always amazed at people who can deal with an all in all out method. Not to mention, I feel it has a statistical edge due to the runner's ability to catch larger moves.
