My biggest challenge is my reluctance to trade Undoubtedly this has to do with the potential losses being too large relative to my account value. This makes it difficult to stomach the thought of 3 or 4 losing trades in row, which any edge is susceptible to. It has helped that I have proxy instruments like M6E and QM, along with NQ (1 contract), and ZN to effectively reduce my initial risk by half. This puts my initial risk at around $75-$90 per trade on a $3000 account. It is still high (2.5% per trade) for my taste, but better. Surely when my risk per trade is a lot lower, more like 1% or even 0.5%, it will be easier to open up.

I hope you don't mind me commenting again and I hope your weekend is going well.

I still think you would fare far better..by picking your two favorite instruments and focus on those. If you want low risk, you need to time your entries carefully and that is extremely difficult to do when you are watching several at once. The only way you'd have a chance would be to have something that generates an audible and visual signal when a particular setup is involved. You are going up against not only professional traders..but complex algorithms. That's why most retail traders are totally delusional if they they think they have any chance of succeeding under those circumstances. Without knowing your instruments nuances, and particular way of moving (Cl doesn't move like NQ..etc..) , it becomes extremely challenging. When momentum suddenly comes into the picture or a setup shows up, you have to be ready to push that button without hesitation.

The bottom line is, if you don't have specific signal or entry point..you are going to have to have a very large stop loss..because chances are..you will have missed a good entry point and the price will retrace and go back and forth. And if you watch 5 or 6 things at once, it's almost impossible to time those entries..unless you are a machine.

Not at all. I enjoy the dialog.



You may very well be right. However, I have spent a considerable amount of time doing both, watching only one instrument and now watching many instruments. Truth be told, I don’t miss noticing many trade opportunities. This is not a boast. It is just that the criteria I use to qualify a trade opportunity, and the time spent in front of the screen makes it very easy to spot a potential set-up at a glance. Therefore, following multiple instruments is really not that hard the way I do it. I get 1 to 7 signals per day on each instrument depending on the volatility, and these signals are distributed throughout the day so that they don’t often overlap (due to the varied markets of the 6 instruments). This is not to say I would take each of these set-ups. The price action around the set-up is the final arbiter of whether to take a trade or not. This is the decision point where I often lose nerve and comfortably retreat so as not to put anything at risk. Yes, there are times when I am distracted and miss a good set-ups. However, for every missed opportunity, there are three others that appear, due to the nature of having more markets.

In addition, every day there are 1-3 instruments that are doing absolutely nothing, so they can be effectively ignored until they wake up. As I am not a fan anymore of trying to catch the first breakout of a snoozing market (been chopped up too many times), I am fine with letting these dogs lie until it’s feeding time. In short, I really enjoy trading multiple markets and feel this is the direction I would like to continue pursuing.

Now, it may very well be that I have not done an adequate job of honing my criteria for entry to increase my odds of success on any given set-up. Maybe I need to come up with a more refined way of determining which set-ups to take and which to pass. This is where the hesitation comes in. You use 2 range charts for entry and obviously have an even finer grained criteria for entry. Maybe that’s a direction I need to look to.

I have two questions:
1) Do you record your whole day or just the time around a trade?
2) Do you have any recordings in your thread of a live trade and what you are looking at in terms of price action in the moments before you click in?

I think I have a very good way of identifying a viable trade opportunity. I would be open to suggestions on how to better refine my decision making process around those opportunities.

Thanks!

Did you consider ETFs like SPY as a proxy for future? It's true that your commission is going to be higher but the educational value is priceless. Much better than trading sim or taking lot less fearful trades in the futures. I was skeptical when Mike suggested Microforex (similar logic) with much less potential for loss/profit but now I see the point.

I did trade ES with a 10k account last year and I know how you feel. Though my account size is 50k now, I am no longer trading ES and instead SPY ETF. I buy 100 shares, all in and then scale out at 25 x 4. Average ES move is 15 points. Even if I end with the worst trade, say 10 points move against me, that's 100 dollars a day. You can easily reduce the size to suit your risk tolerance. I genuinely have 'I don't care' attitude whilst trading now!

Obviously it's only for the beginning period. I have been trading SPY 100 lot for 2 weeks now. Next month, my goal is to increase the size to 200 and then 500 before I move to ES. I think long term success depends on scaling in/out multiple contracts and not 1 or 2 lots as I can clearly see with experienced traders like Mike, Tigertrader here.

I also agree with lancelottrader's view that beginners should focus on just one instrument.

Thank you for taking the time to write that. I think I understand now, far better why you look at multiple instruments. We all have our own styles and systems and there is no one "right" way. I was watching a while back three instruments at once..which were Gold, NQ, and CL. I liked these three because when they take off, they can make some big moves. I also have an indicator called tick strike that ticks loudly when order flow is extreme..so it is a great alert. But for me personally, I did better when watching primarily CL.. and then during the 9:30 equity open, also paying attention to NQ. The first hour of a market open is often when some of the best moves occur. So at 9am, that's when Cl is very active.. So between 9 and 9:30, I just watch CL. Then after 9:30 Cl and NQ.

To answer your questions, I do record the whole sessions, but when I review it, I just watch the parts right before and during the trade. One of my rules is I must verbally announce the type of setup I am seeing and I also do a quick verbal checklist of why the trade might be a bad idea. For example, I might say, "I see a double fail pullback setup occurring..if I enter my price will be this..and my stop will be at this. The reason I might not take the trade is too much resistance in the way of a target..market has been choppy and no momentum..etc." So depending on how many adverse conditions are in the way, I decide whether to enter or not. I like to say it out loud because this eliminates spontaneous, impulse trades..and I don't have to guess what I was thinking when I review my recording.

Here is a link to page 21 of my thread . The video from Oct 31st, at the very top of the page, shows the live recordings and explanations of entries.

The Beast Slayer, Lance's NQ Trading Journal Hi everyone. I'm new on here, but I thought I would make a post about my Trading style, since I feel it's fairly different than what I usually see out there. I have been trading about 6 years, mostly Forex, but have transitioned to Futures a few …

The following are the areas of focus for the week of 4/20/15 to 4/24/15:

-Write out goals and affirmations before the market open.
-Identify strong trends early and make an attempt to hop on board.
-Watch NQ at the open for the fake out move and look for a trade in the opposite direction.
-Watch for TL Breakout Failures (TL BO fail) for good trade opportunities.
-Watch for retests of the Opening Swing for trade opportunities.
-Exercise patience. There are plenty of opportunities each week to reach goals.

So that’s it, I’m stuck with trading futures intraday and being ultra-discerning in my trade selection. I am comfortable with this at this time.

It sounds like you thoroughly evaluated several options including ETF, microForex & bigger time frame trading in the past. I agree with you that the key to consistency and eventual success is being comfortable with our own methodology and I am glad that you feel that way now. I wish you good luck.

Please have a look at my journal too and I appreciate any feedback you may have. I am still trying to find my comfort zone and leaning towards Market Profile and Auction Market theory.