Haven't posted updates due to high emotional stress and embarrassment at such poor performance. In the past 3 days, i've lost another 2K or so in my real account, and made about 5K in fake account...TAKING THE SAME INITIAL TRADES! arggh... in my real account, i keep hopping in and out of the trades. in my fake account, i just keep it until it hits target, with about a 10 point (not tick) stop loss.

today was a beautiful "fat-tail" trend day, that followed the second pattern for a slow grind day: initial dip, finishes at the high...that I completely screwed up, again!! I told myself it was that after it crossed back over 16s and STILL shook myself out of trades. Instead of one nice clean trade, i had 10 ugly trades that killed me. i don't know why i do this to myself repeatedly, over and over, day after day.

I'm entertaining just quitting live trading, and trying to pass a combine instead. the price of a combine is about 20% of what my average daily loss is. so far on my free trial combine, i'm positive 4/4 days.

No way should you feel embarrasment at poor performance. Trading is tough business. I advise you to keep up with your journal no matter what.

I, like many on futures.io (formerly BMT) have been there, losing thousands of dollars each day/week/month. I was so desperate at one point as nearly all my trades lost, I started doing the reverse. When I would have normally bought the market (thinking I had a great setup) I sold it instead and vice versa!

You will get there. Keep learning.

Thanks for the encouragement man. I've started to get moments of clarity where I can see what the good trade is. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between, and are totally killed by all the other sucky moments. I've gone down to trading micro-euros, which seem easier to handle than the minis, but still losing money due to overtrading. My modus operandi is two great trades followed by 10-15 terrible trades which completely erase all winnings and add more losses. It's fascinating, though, so I doubt I'll give it up, maybe just scale down until I'm consistent.

Thanks for the encouragement man. I've started to get moments of clarity where I can see what the good trade is. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between, and are totally killed by all the other sucky moments. I've gone down to trading micro-euros, which seem easier to handle than the minis, but still losing money due to overtrading. My modus operandi is two great trades followed by 10-15 terrible trades which completely erase all winnings and add more losses. It's fascinating, though, so I doubt I'll give it up, maybe just scale down until I'm consistent.

First thing slow down. Don't execute a trade until you see that trade unfolding clearly. Set yourself a list of Rules and post it on you wall. RULE#1. DONT OVERTRADE. RULE#2. DONT TRADE BETWEEN (such and such) a time. Rule #3. Stop trading when I meet my daily goal, ect.

Watch more videos. Dont be so trigger happy to jump in trades or your account will keep being drained. Set yourself a small daily loss limit. if you make 150.00 or lose 150.00 you quit for the day. RULE#4. Do Not Trade to get out of a deficit.

I think 10-15 trades per day is excessive. I don't know your method, but you should be looking to concentrate on one or two types of trade and get to know them inside and out before you move on.

It sounds like you are taking pot shots at the market and perhaps don't have a real reason to enter other than thinking you have to.

I find it very hard to translate SIM trading into live trading.

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Definitely. My first couple of trades are usually reasonable. My method involves watching correlated markets, then trading the price action in a certain direction. By many times, the markets become uncorrelated or switch themes, and I'm not nimble enough or know enough to switch as quickly. This gets reflected in the price action as a lot of noise, which I end up trading right in the middle of. Here is a pictorial of what I typically do:..

Rather it was my extensive study of market behavior, of the "tells" it gives that help me identify the market's trend. I had to learn to embrace the inherent ambiguity of all market behavior - to learn that there are no certainties, only probabilities. I had to create my own interpretation of everything, even though I used the knowledge I found in books about the market and trading as a starting point.

I am now able to trade without a system, without a detailed plan but with money management. All the guru's say YOU NEED a specific entry and exit plan but I don't use one.

Is the problem in the simple set-ups themselves? No, it's how they're being used. The bottom line is that every trader needs to learn to READ the markets. This means that simple rules will not do. There has to be a synthesis of different elements (whether they be price action, indicators, inter-market themes or whatever), and real-time interpretation must take place. It has to be all about CONTEXT. Once you can read the markets in an unbiased way you can then choose to employ "simple" set-ups to enter and exit. But the real work will be in learning to READ THE MARKET to see when you should use which kind of set-up. CONTEXT! It's all about context. Stop trying to trade on signals and setups that pretend that the market context is always the same. Embrace uncertainty! Embrace ambiguity! Embrace change!

Have you ever played a shooting game like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3? The players who are very good at these games haven't got a system, they don't spend up at night thinking about the best place to camp with a shotgun. They practice playing the game. They master it. The difference between a winner and loser isn't that the winner knows a secret, or paid someone to teach them the secrets, or have a system of using power-ups to beat people. The winners win because they are more skillful, they have learned how to play, they have mastered the game. They have a better aim than other player, but this isn't through a combination of indicators like 'Press UP + B'. It's through skill,skill, skill, skill.

The same is true of good athletes in any competitive sport. They don't plan their moves against their opponents in advance. Instead they play by following general principles they know work time after time, and they rely on their game experience to make the right play in response to their opponent's action in the context of the specific game situation.

Thanks for your comments. My system is vague, and I do tend to trade in the middle. Part of that reason though is that I've gotten caught too many times trying to pick out the top or bottom, when really it was just the middle. I'm trying to find the fine line between picking out tops and bottoms and entering a trade too much after it has started. But really, the most difficult part is the exit. While I'm struggling to fine tune my entries, my exits are still grossly abysmal and not even close to the fine tuning part....that's where I really need to work, in addition to battling whatever masochistic tendencies that take pleasure from making myself lose. All in all, I found the following post that puts into words what I believe but haven't been able to communicate:



That's my goal of trading: reading the market, being able to manage my uncertainty, entering a trade in a reasonable (not necessarily ideal) location, exiting in an ideal location. I'd like to use indicators to help define structure to the market, within a given context, rather than using them as signal generators. I'm just not sure how to accomplish these goals expediently without spending years gaining the necessary experience. Currently, I'd say I have about 1000 hours of active market engagement in the last 6 months (with an average loss of $15/hr--grrrrr!). At this rate, I feel like I need at least 2000-3000 more hours of live markets before I can really start to become profitable, yet don't have the funds to sustain that unless I can become a scratch trader rather quickly.