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I've been trading (losing) for nine months, but still committed to becoming profitable. I've never journaled my trades before. Hopefully, this will help me (and maybe someone else) going forward. I've been trying to use John Grady's scalping techniques and I'm currently reading "Mind Over Markets" by Jim Dalton to learn more about context.
My first trade on 10/8/21 was to go short in ZN after observing rejection to the downside (left side peak in below image). When price retraced to the same spot, I noticed sellers absorbed ~10K contracts. I joined the iceberg and exited for a two-tick profit. Unfortunately, I banged out too soon!
I watched the video. You are practicing on replay which is fine but then once you put the trade on you speed it up to 4x speed till you exit.
You can't do that with live data. The ZN can be slow and you need to accept that. If you regularly speed up in replay for fast results then you will have difficulty holding real trades on live data at the correct "slow" speed.
Just a thought after watching the video. Good luck with your journal though.
You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
Wondering why I haven't posted anything recently? It's because ALL I DO IS LOSE. "Hurr durr...when there's an iceberg/support, just buy and durr durr..." I've probably lost $10K in the past 10 months. I don't know the exact amount because I'm afraid to know how much damage I've caused.
If only I could go back and say "hey, see all this money you have? Make sure you don't lose it all trying to trade (after you've been reading and learning for 10 months). Make sure you accept your lot in life as a laborer...at least then you won't have any misconceptions about your potential and you'll know that you and your family will always be in debt. See those people who own their houses and cars? That will never be you. See those kids who have designer clothes? That will never be your kids. Want to retire comfortably? Nope. Try again. You will struggle for the rest of your life. You have a Master's Degree? Cute. You will scrape and strain and nothing will ever be easy. You can only earn money by donating your labor to wealthy people. Forget about your dreams. The best you can do is sleep. Hide. Hope you can temporarily forget about the pain you permanently feel and rest every now and then. Retire without dignity or money. Pray for a painless death."
Hi!! I just came across your post.
First of all don't worry, we've all been there. I have been trading since 2017 almost full time, and I am still fighting to keep profitable.
The point is that profitability is normally based on a very very small and "delicate" edge.
From the way you mentioned icebergs and resistance etc... it looks as though you have a very generic view of trading. You must become specific, you must enter into the details....not the details of the market itself but the details of risk management.
It takes time, accept it.
I am both a musician and an engineer, trading is much more similar to music than to engineering. You become an engineer in 5 years, but you learn to play an instrument in o 10+ years. You need to practice everyday, you need to work on small details.....
Small details will turn you profitable.
I think that in 3 years you will take the same trades that you are taking now, but you will notice some nuances that will make you doubt. You will thus reduce size, then you will go flat, the you will look at the trade from another point of view and trade on the opposite direction....the you will increase size, then decrease etc.... you will massage around a core position. ....until it start to work.
You will know when to stop and when to push for higher profits. This will make all the difference.
I'd be really careful about reading an iceberg as a reason for price to reverse. It does slightly increase the chances of a reversal there, but that's not enough of an edge to be worth worrying about. What I've found more useful is realizing that an Iceberg or other large trades facilitate trade so much that often everyone that wanted to trade in that area gets executed. Which can kind of make the area like a vacuum. So what I'd rather see is them smash through the iceberg for a few ticks, and then get sucked back into it.