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)
I'm gonna quit my job tomorrow...one of these days
After a few months of studying and practice trading, I've decided to take things up a notch in preparation for going live. I fee like I'm almost there (to trade with real money) but I want to create some accountability for my work by making it public and subject to peer review.
I've been practice trading this system (which I'll explain shortly) for about three months. The first month I pretty much lost money every day as I learned to read the price action. Some days were ok, some days I was like wuuuuut???!!! But I got better. I learned from mistakes and spent hours each night studying charts and the trades I took. I started to understand the rules and to anticipate price movement, in particular reversals. The last month has been encouraging. I've made money every day for about the last month, trading in real time, and I've also done some trading on the weekends using Ninja Trader's replay system. For that I'll pick a day a few months back that I never traded, and set it up as if I'm actually trading that day. It's great for getting in some extra practice.
My system is Mack's price action trading system (PATS). Mack is kind of a low-key, mysterious guy, but he has tons of good stuff out there on the internet. I first bought his trading manual and daily chart reviews, which you can get on his website for about 99 bucks, but what's really helped me is actual trading combined with watching his Youtube vids every day. When you watch him explain it, it really makes sense. I don't know this guy but I can tell he really enjoys trading and helping others. He genuinely believes, as do I, that you can fundamentally change your life for the better through trading. And that all of his stuff is out there for free or very low cost says a lot about him I think. He's not trying to get rich by teaching trading; he makes his money from TRADING and helps others on the side. Anyway, Mack is awesome, check him out.
So here is the cliff notes version of PATS: I trade the ES because it's the biggest and has predictable moves. I use a 2,000-tick chart with a 21 EMA. That's the only indicator. All I do on top of that is draw trend or support/resistance lines. I trade two contracts with a two-point stop, so that's $200 risked per trade. At four ticks profit I take out one contract them move the stop to break even on the other in the hope of getting a runner. How far the runner goes just depends, and is something I'm still learning. As I work through this I'll probably talk about measured moves and going for the highs and lows of the channel, as those can be a good indicator of where to take your profit.
Like I said at the beginning I'm doing this for accountability. Some days I'll look at my chart at the end and say what the hell is all that? It's an absolute mess with all the trades I took. Simply put, some days I'm overtrading because I know I'm not using real money. Hopefully, knowing that I'll be submitting my charts for public review will curb that. Because I can't do that when it's for real.
Anyway no chart for today because frankly I'm embarrassed at all the trades I took, even though it was a profitable day. But I was all over the place. I think in the real world I would've gotten smoked, so no more of that. But I'll see you tomorrow!
Set limits and goals for yourself. Keep it simple and easy to follow. Write your entire trading plan out that way it is something that you can refer to. Don't think you have to do it all in one day, you can write it piece by piece in the beginning as you figure it out.
With trading price action I suggest selecting a handful of setups and only looking for those. This may help you focus and stop over trading. Remember that in the end your last trade is the most important as this is a game of what you don't lose not what you make. As with Game of Thrones you either play to win, or die.
I agree about looking only for certain setups. Good hitters in baseball will swing only at certain pitches in certain counts. They look for a pitch to be in a particular part of the strike zone, and if it's not there they don't swing. Same here I think. The key is discipline and patience to wait for the right one.
similar basic idea. Here is my chart. Three indications. I had the noonish long but like a DOPE I scratched the trade thinking that time of day was against me in a lower volume holiday shortened week.
