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Day 3 was very straight forward. I was patient and waited for good setups. I got my 3 wins and called it a day at about 8 am.
I played with 5 contracts today, scalping out on 4 and letting the 5th run, just for the fun of it and the experience. You can see on my first trade I got my scalp plus 12 ticks on the runner. Prices came back and stopped my runner at +1 tick on the other two trades. I made $775 total not including commissions trading 5 contracts. However, for the purposes of my $3000 simulator goal, I'm counting all of my trades as if they were just single contracts.
6/11/2015 +$139.44, 3 wins
-bbdsan
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
When you "trade" via replay mode like in MultiCharts, two things are not accurate. First, speed, you cannot replay the day in the speed based on timestamps. But more importantly, when you buy or sell this way, you are not hitting the bid or ask so to be true to yourself, you need to take two ticks per trade out of your results. Limit orders for example only fill if you trade through and many times price will not trade through. Same with entry and if you use market orders then you are always at least 1 tick worse based on the bid / ask. You should trade a live paper account. That's more realistic than trading replay mode which is not intended for how you are using it.
I agree and in fact I am trading the live market using a Multicharts demo account. My most recent post is from this morning's live market. Prices traded through my exit orders on all 3 trades today, the last one by just 1 tick lol.
To get extra practice and experience I am also trading replay data from last year, using Ninja Trader.
I had a great long weekend at camp with my family and totally overslept this morning.
By the time I logged on the market was moving up in a channel. I went long on a 2nd entry, which was aggressive considering it was so close to the highs. I gave it some extra room and it backed up right to the trend line. I got long a 2nd lot. I took my scalp at +3 ticks on the original long and +9 ticks on the 2nd long. I'm still playing with the idea of trading 5 contracts since I'm on the simulator (although for the purposes of my $3000 goal I'm treating all trades as single-contract). However, my runners were stopped out pretty quickly.
6/15/2015 +$142.96, 2 wins
I probably won't be trading much this week as I'll be out of town for business.
I traded live data yesterday (demo account) for about 45 minutes before I left my hotel, then another 30 min while waiting for my flight at the airport. I made 2 trades, both were double-ups, both winners. I'm now almost $600 in the black, working towards my $3000 goal.
I had a good morning and hit my target (3 wins) by 8:30 am.
6/22/2015 +$139.44, 3 wins
With my recent success I began entertaining thoughts of switching back to real money. But I quickly ruled that out. I need to demonstrate the patience it takes to trade successfully. The first step is to stick to my goal - make $3000 in my demo account trading 1 contract. I just have to be patient and reach that goal. Then I can allow myself to put a little more money in my account and try the real thing again.
I've been listening to an audio book, "Outliers", which explores success and achievement. One prerequisite that is covered extensively is the huge amount of practice that's necessary to truly master something. It's 10,000 hours. I've been keeping that daunting number in mind as I slowly develop as a trader. I don't think I need to be a "master" trader in order to make money. But I know I need more practice and experience than I have currently. I have no idea how long it will take me to hit $3000 in profits in my demo account. Hopefully it will be far less than 10,000 hours lol.
I set myself back significantly yesterday and today. I was more than a quarter of the way to my $3,000 goal but now I'm actually in the red $158. It's a combination of not being patient, looking for too many entries, and trading what I think will happen vs. what I'm actually seeing on the chart. Plus today I was in a double-size long position and had a chance to get out at +3 ticks, perhaps even +4 (prices never ticked through). I was long 1 contract at 2109 and a 2nd at 2108. I had my scalp target order at 2110 and prices hit 2109.50 several times. I should have just taken what I could get but instead I just let the position ride, unprotected. I left to do my morning run and a couple errands. I came back and had to exit at 2101.50. Yikes!
Clearly I still need a lot more experience and practice, as well as some psychological work. To my credit, at least I am doing all of this in a demo account and not putting any of my real money at risk.
Some interesting conversations with my girlfriend and dad today. My girlfriend understands what I'm doing and believes in me. My dad, on the other hand, has no concept of price action. He thinks price movement is random and it's impossible to predict any price movements on a consistent basis. Therefore he thinks of trading as gambling. I obviously have a completely different set of beliefs. I believe it is possible to predict very small price movements (4 ticks or more), intraday, with 80-90% accuracy. I'm not good enough to do it yet, but I'm learning and that's why I'm still in a demo account. I won't be able to change his beliefs and he won't be able to change mine. It will be nice, however, to show him the annual statement from my trading account in a few years.
There's a guy I know of, one of Mack's followers like me (priceactiontradingsystem.com) who's been doing this style of trading for a while now. I'm not sure how long it took him to get to his current skill level but he's trading 60 contracts at a time! I watched one of Mack's YouTube videos () and the guy had emailed Mack a screen shot of his chart and P&L for the day. The dude was up over $29,000 ON THE DAY! I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one but it just shows you what's possible with this. Once I get good enough at reading the PA and patiently waiting for good setups, there's no reason at all that I can't make that kind of money. All you have to do is trade more contracts and keep some runners for extra profits when a trade happens to take off.
But for now that's a ways off, obviously. I have to learn to sit up before I learn to crawl. And I have to learn to crawl before I learn to walk. And I .... you get the idea.
I continue to struggle a bit but I did a little better yesterday and today. At least I was profitable.
6/25/2015 +$90.16, 13 wins, 4 losses
I had a hard time trading the middle of the day today. On the one hand, prices were swinging above and below the EMA. The PA was rangy and I was trading it as such. On the other hand there was a downward bias. Prices were clearly making lower highs and lower lows. But I didn't pay attention to that. I didn't draw the yellow trend channel until it was too late and I had spent the entire time trading exclusively on the long side. I got 2 wins but also took 1 full size loss trying to get long in a down trend. Not only that, but I missed at least 2 nice short setups, if not more.
6/26/2015 +$89.01, 9 wins, 3 losses
As far as my $3000 goal, I am back in the black. Yes indeed, I'm up $21.13! Got a little ways to go, lol.
So, you don't use stops? If your targets are that small, it seems not having stops would really make it easy to give away all your profits with one bad moment where the market moves very quickly against you.
Trading: Oh what a tangled web I weave, When I want to take profits in trading
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Hope you take my comment as constructive but I will shut up if it's not helpful. I am also a beginner trading ES but keen to share my experience in the name of this forum's true spirit.
I see that you added 1 more to a loser. I used to do that a lot and I found that strategy unhelpful for me ( unless I have a plan BEFORE my 1st entry). Usually I end up holding on to them for too long and hoping for a turn around. I don't know your methodology but thought it's worth mentioning to help you think about entry and exit plan.
Yes, it's a good thing, in some ways, that there is no real money at risk but also be aware that it significantly INCREASES the learning period. I followed BigMike's advice and tried less risky instrument but with real money for 2 months. In my case, it's SPY ETF. Even with 100 units, 10 points ES move is worth 100 dollars without commissions. Again worth considering as the emotions I experienced are COMPLETELY different when real money was involved.
It's great to have a partner who is supportive. That's is BIG advantage for you.
I am afraid he is more closer to truth than yourself. I also think your goal of getting 80 -90% accuracy is too ambitious. But the good news is, it's not necessary to be correct more often. Infact, BigMike is correct only 50% of the times but he makes sure that winners are lot bigger than the losers. I also had a similar belief like yours few months ago but seeing more and more successful traders like Tigertrader focusing on milking their winners rather than increasing the number of wins.
Yes, it's gambling but not in the traditional sense. You calculate the odds and take a risk. It's no differenct from crossing the road, taking a new job, getting married to a girl who I think I love etc... As a Physician, when I prescribe a medication, I think about the odds of it working, not working and causing side effects. Some would call that gambling as I have no way of predicting who will benefit or not.
Yes, trading has huge potential and that attracts lot of intelligent and motivated people like you and me. However it also involves lot of risk. For instance, your long trade above at 2108.5 and exit at 2101.5 means 7 points loss for a potential 1 point (4 ticks) gain. That means, even if you have a 29k profit day, you could have 200k loss day. That's where risk management comes. I know that, that's my Achilles point. Infact I am currently battling the very same issue as I journaled recently. I went short at 2080 and sat through the whole upswing upto 2125 and still holding it. Hopefully I will also make that kind of money but not by risking 100s of thousands.
You are absolutely right. Welcome to the crawling club. We are not going to keep crawling for a long time.
