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I didn't want to post this but I guess it is time for me to reach out for help. I am going down hill in my trading and can't stop. Meaning on my way to going broke and getting a job again.... I have enought to live for another few …
I want to thank you all that help me stay positive and gave me good advice.
I want to come back and share my experiences with you all.
So let me start off by saying, No I don' think I am out of the woods yet. I am not the best trader and I am not making the greatest money. BUT I have completed the topstep funded account program and have been making money consistently (around 65k a year taking data from the avg of the last six months). It took me a lot more than one try to get to funded account, I maybe have done rest on topstep about six times. Why? Cause I did not take a step back and learn.
When I first started trading I took every win and lose to heart. Was happy during highs and sad during lows. I woke up an hour before the market got breakfast and coffee and came out swinging during market open. Buying, stopped out. shorting, stopped out, over and over. I never recorded any wins or loss. Never look back and truly studied. I was watching the market 24/7 watching how swing high and swing lows happened and just trading truly bad trades cause did not study I just WATCHED didnt learn anything, was not understanding it.
Now a days I wake up 4 hours before the market, go workout and go for a nice jog/walk to clear the mind. Then I dont drink coffee to about mid trading session as coffee gave me the trigger finger during the opens. I STUDY the market for about 30 minutes before the open looking at what happened overnight and checking news for the day and upcoming days. I only use yesterday OHLC and Floor trader pivots on ES and NQ using 5,15,30, daily charts. There are days I dont take a trade at all and I am okay with that unlike before I had to get in a trade to make money, but instead I ended up with a loss. Some days I only trade the open and done for the day. After the market close or even before when I am done trading I have picked up activities like riding a bike, walking again, swimming, pretty much any activities that does not involve me looking or thinking about the market. This was key as I knew I had a "job". My "job" was very strict with topstep I had strict rules I had to follow and my plan had to be around that. I needed to know exactly what I did wrong and right about everything. Days that I had a headache run away and dont trade. Days where I was on the walk but was thinking about money problems or bills. Dont trade. Everything in my life was a effect of my trading and I had to narrow done what worked and what didn't. Even as simple thing like I entered a trade and when to use the washroom and came back to being stopped out effected my mind to start to over trade. I have figured out that eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle has helped me clear my mind. I have also went vegan.... dont get me wrong I love meat and still eat it time to time on special days like birthdays or holidays but I try to stay vegan as much as possible. This healthy lifestyle has made me feel better and THINK CLEARLY.
My life style changes have helped me figure out that all indicators are indicators they are there to help you indicate if the market is going the way you want it too. Like i said before I use Floor trader Pivots and yesterday OHLC and then I study the market for support and resistances. I have looked and tried everything bookmap. jigsaw, ninja trader indicators and bots, market profile, motive wave Elliot wave, you name it i have probably looked at it or tried it. That was the mistake. I was trying to find the holy grain, the golden ticket. There is no shortcuts. Every one fits into a group of traders swing traders, scalpers, DOM traders, fib traders, order flow, market profile, what ever you like there is a group like you and there are key things that work and dont work in your type of trading. You just need to do the homework and study and figure it out on your own.
I hope this helps some of you out. I will try to be more active on here and post a upcoming journal for my fellow floor trader pivots traders and learn from each other.
Also if anyone has a discord that I can join would be more fun to chat than watch youtube videos during the slow times.
Glad to see you’re bouncing back. I see you mentioned thinking more clearly after changing your diet. I have experienced this as well recently, I don’t even think about brain-fog anymore, it just left after about a week or two of my dietary change, lots of fresh veggies, fruit, whole grains etc.
I can’t be certain but I think one food that seems to make me feel more alert are berries; fresh blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. might just be the combination of the diet as a whole but they certainly don’t hurt!
Trade well and thank you for sharing your experience!
Thanks for the post. Would you care to share how you decide which of the floor trader pivots are likely to be important for the particular day you are trading? I find there are lots of possible pivots, and sometimes the market will reverse only for a bar or three, but then penetrate. Other pivots can lead to a significant reversal. And it changes day to day.
I use the standard Pivot. There are a few others out there but my thought of it this way. Something that has been around for a while must work in some way as a foundation to a bigger building block or it doesn't. So I use pivot points like this:
1. Is it above or below the PP point, uptrend or downtrend.
2. 15 min chart is the market holding the closest line above or below. indicator that there are stronger bulls or bears. You can spot tops or bottom forming.
3. Chart patterns like channels, higher low, higher highs, trend lines, wedge, etc will be stronger as long as you have practice drawing the lines correctly.
4. Floor trader pivots still a indicator so dont expect it to be the best and only thing you need. I still draw my own support and resistance, supply and demand lines. that are stronger than pivots.
