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Superlite's Journal

  #11 (permalink)
 
Rrrracer's Avatar
 Rrrracer 
On the road
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Trading Nomad
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TradingView
Broker: Oanda
Trading: FX
Posts: 2,512 since Feb 2017
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Sounds like you had a good week, and I wish you the best of luck. I hate to be "that guy" but a couple of observations:

- $1K is not nearly enough capitalization to be trading the full size ES; the general rule of thumb is you want $5k in the account for every contract traded. Why not chart the full size so you have that accuracy and continue to trade the mini (I believe NT is capable of this) where you have much more fine-grained control over your risk, as well as the advantage of being able to trade multiple contracts, take some profits and leave runners on?

- A good week is not nearly long enough to consider oneself consistently profitable or to prove one's edge, especially in sim where most people are apt to just fling stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Not saying this is you, but as you well know from your prior losses, trading live is a different animal altogether.

It would only take a couple of losses to quickly put a very large dent in such a small account and I'd hate to see you get bounced out. A 2 tick stop is more than 2% of your account, which is the general guideline for risk on any single trade. A single 10 tick loss will have you down more than 12% on your account.

That's a lot of stress which will have an effect on your decision making process trading with real money. Trading is, first and foremost, all about managing your risk and staying alive to trade another day. Do that right and the profits will follow providing that you do, indeed, have an edge. Otherwise it is a recipe for disaster.

You have a lot of enthusiasm man, and it is appreciated. Just some food for thought from a guy who has blown out multiple small accounts and learned the hard way

Edit: Oh yeah, the screen shots are much better now!

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  #12 (permalink)
Superlite
Boston, MA
 
Posts: 9 since Jan 2020
Thanks Given: 4
Thanks Received: 18


Rrrracer View Post
Sounds like you had a good week, and I wish you the best of luck. I hate to be "that guy" but a couple of observations:

- $1K is not nearly enough capitalization to be trading the full size ES; the general rule of thumb is you want $5k in the account for every contract traded. Why not chart the full size so you have that accuracy and continue to trade the mini (I believe NT is capable of this) where you have much more fine-grained control over your risk, as well as the advantage of being able to trade multiple contracts, take some profits and leave runners on?

- A good week is not nearly long enough to consider oneself consistently profitable or to prove one's edge, especially in sim where most people are apt to just fling stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Not saying this is you, but as you well know from your prior losses, trading live is a different animal altogether.

It would only take a couple of losses to quickly put a very large dent in such a small account and I'd hate to see you get bounced out. A 2 tick stop is more than 2% of your account, which is the general guideline for risk on any single trade. A single 10 tick loss will have you down more than 12% on your account.

That's a lot of stress which will have an effect on your decision making process trading with real money. Trading is, first and foremost, all about managing your risk and staying alive to trade another day. Do that right and the profits will follow providing that you do, indeed, have an edge. Otherwise it is a recipe for disaster.

You have a lot of enthusiasm man, and it is appreciated. Just some food for thought from a guy who has blown out multiple small accounts and learned the hard way

Edit: Oh yeah, the screen shots are much better now!

Glad the screenshots are a lot easier to see now! I'll be sure to embed everything else i post from here on out! I am pretty happy with the visibility myself!

I appreciate your observations and criticism Rrrracer!

It's kind of a weird thought process I have, but since I have been learning to trade and have already gone through 2 $1,000 accounts, my fear of loss is greatly reduced. When I deposit money into my trading account, I have already considered it lost in a way. I can't go spend that money on groceries or what-not unless I wire the money out, so to me it's like I already threw the money away. I would much rather "go broke" investing in myself and trying to make it, than "go broke" because I nickel and dime my self on things I don't need. I am willing to take the risks necessary to succeed, and I won't stop until I get there. I'm here for future freedom, and for future generational wealth. I'm here to change the course of my entire families history, and to make it so that I give my entire family the life they deserve, starting with my daughter. I have indeed realized that trading live is a completely different animal. It's definitely not easy, but it will never get easier unless I try. I will never be able to manage the emotions of trading a full size contract if I don't subject myself to the pressures of trading the full size contracts. I would much rather only give myself the opportunity to lose $1,000, than to blow a $5,000 account because I went absolutely bananas, fell off my rocker, lost my marbles, AND decided to go completely bonkers and decide to seriously over-trade and "make back my losses". $12.50 per tick is not a lot of money. In fact, $1,000,000 isn't even a lot of money and i'll die broke if I retire with that much. If I do lose this $1,000, I will consider it more tuition fees as I learn first hand what it is like to trade in $12.50 per tick increments. I'll never get over the fear of loss until I try and keep trying. I've always gone headfirst into things, and am usually pretty good at what I do. I've almost been trading for 4-5 months now and I've taken huge strides towards being a successful trader. I'm not really basing the positive "successful" feelings that I have on this past week alone, but rather based on where I started to where I am today and the progress that I made. I look back on my past 2 $1000 losses and realized how much I sucked, and how disorganized I was without any kind of strategy or plan; I have noticed myself becoming more and more consistent as the weeks roll on, and that is where a lot of my motivation and determination is coming from.

I have never been more motivated or determined in my life and the steps I'm taking are going to change the course of my life forever. Most traders aren't successful because quite simply, they are too scared to trade, and scared to do what is necessary to succeed. They are too scared to lose such meager amounts of money. They don't put in the effort to succeed, or the effort that is required to learn how to be successful in the markets. Elon Musk spoke some words... a quote that I live by now and have been living by for about a year now. "Work every waking hour." I have taken this to heart. I don't usually allow myself more than 5 hours of sleep a night, because I have work to do. Nearly all of my free time since November has been spent learning more and more about the markets and trading. Vacations, my Christmas and New Years holiday, before work after I wake up, after work until I go to bed, my lunch breaks at work... My poor wife lol... I promise I am spending at least a little bit of time with her .... All of this potential rest / relaxation time is spent constantly learning and my progress and hard work is starting to blossom into something great. $12.50 - $100.00 of loss is next to nothing in comparison to the earnings potential. I definitely don't believe I am in the unsuccessful category for long. It's not "If" I will be successful. Now it's just a matter of "When." There are no "ifs" about it, simply because I know for a fact I am putting in the work to get there.

I'll step off my box of soap (soap box)? and enter the realm of reality and common sense I do apologize. I am really passionate about my future success.... Anywaysssss... I have thought about the $1000 account more than a few times, and have considered practicing and remaining on sim until I've built up anywhere between $2000-$5,000 in the account simply because trading is all probabilistic. With my trend-line bounce strategy and trading in a channel around support and resistance levels it is highly unlikely but all too possible to lose multiple trades in a row which would once again blow my account. With that in mind though, I'm not really afraid to lose that $1,000.

I have built an ATM strategy in NT8 for a 4 tick profit target and an 8 tick stop. The 8 tick stop is a 100% hard stop for max loss, and i am not allowed to increase that amount. However, I have never needed to use the full 8 tick stop, and have been almost always been able to keep it at 6 ticks or less. My average stop is between 3-5 ticks. That's where my practiced patience will (hopefully) come in. It seems the more patient I am, the better my risk / reward. I will only be cautiously taking trades right on trend-line bounces after confirmation of reversal when I start trading live and will attempt to keep my stop between 2-4 ticks. If price bounces through my trend-line, then i'll have to re-consider the strength of the trend and wait until a new channel forms. Whenever I go live, i'll be focusing on anywhere from 2-5 winning scalps a day to start, and call it quits until the next day. If I manage to win three in a row, i'll keep going until I lose a trade. When I lose a trade, I'll be calling it quits until the next day. If I manage to win 5 in a row, I'll either decide to keep going until I lose a trade, or stop for the day due to the market of that specific day. If the market is moving with decent volume, chances are i'll just keep going. But losing 1 trade is where i'll probably call it quits after a string of winners. I do look more at percentages of growth instead of dollar amounts, so i'll also have an overall account percentage gain range that I will stop at. I gotta live to trade another day. I learned that one the hard way. Hopefully the third time really is the charm!

I've still got a week and a half or more of practice left until I can transfer more funds, so we'll see how well this strategy holds up! Until then I look forward to sharing my progress! Thank you for sharing your observations! I'm sure you'll find that after awhile, I am pretty long-winded and am an over-sharer at times. If i lose the $1,000 then you can say "I told you so!"

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  #13 (permalink)
 Grantx 
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@Superlite thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Your motivation is truly inspirational. I hope you keep the positive attitude as your trading develops. Good luck to you champ.

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Last Updated on February 22, 2020


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