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Trading advice needed down 400 a month 4-12 trades a day
Hello all, im looking for advice to take my trading to the next level. I made a previous post but got banned for yelling obscenities. so this post im not going to do that instead iill try to give some details and thats it.
so this past month i traded the ES about 184 times and ended the month down 411.20....i traded stocks(hence the 20 cents) a tiny amount but it was mostly the es.
[strategy]:
i look for very short term momentum swings and watch the tick by tick closely....i use RSI to get a feel for the overall trend.....and notice things like doji and inverse hammer, hammer ....along with trendlines to determine entries. i have the 200 and the 50 simpe moving average on my chart....and sometimes use the 50 sma as a .....the es will come back to this spot indication.
sometimes i trade based on support/resistance the way daytradingaddict does on youtube.
[some things i notice while trading]: a lot of times the tick by tick will tell me that the es is in a state of indicision and ill sit there and wait till theres momentum on one side or the other to place an entry....usually this works in my favor for a small 100-200 gain....with 1 contract but sometimes it ends up with a big loss as either the market is trading as a doji on the 3y weekly chart or there just isn't enough volume being traded/other things.
[another thing i notice]: usually i start the day positive but within a fraction of a second im placing another trade that's a loser. as i thought i saw something in the market....an opportunity. but it turns into a loser and then i have to fight to get back to 0.
[another thing i notice]: on some days i can make 1000 dollars with just 3 -5 trades but other days i struggle to make 50 dollars with 12 trades.
[the underlying problem]: I either don't stop trading when i should or ill have 1 bad losing trade the kind that i enter and it moves really fast and i become stubborn because a lot of trades that start out losing become profitable but these are the trades that don't go profitable and end in a huge loss. i only trade with 1 contract and i dont add on.
[advice to myself]:don't trade when it's a doji on a higher timeframe as it's wild and unpredictable at the tick chart level.
I use a 7800 tick chart....i find that this is the best. i like being flat at the end of the trading session.
[questions]: Is there anything in my strategy that doesn't make sense to you?
is there something that im doing wrong?
should i quit as a trader?(down 27k) been at it about a year.
is there something more i could do to better my trading?
should i only go for the 1k in 3 or 4 trades? or is the frequent 1-200 gain a good thing too?
should i wait till i can trade with more contracts to trade again...like 5 contracts for example?
should i wait till i can employ a strategy where you add on sucessful trades?
thanks for reading and i hope you got something out of reading my post and i hope you can help me as well...thanks for your time.
-Thomas
keep in mind i just read this guys reply to my previous post he says." It's all about expectancy, not winning percentage as bobwest explained very well.
To be honest, there is one single thing that turned my trading around, and it most definitely wasn't a highly complex method...
After having wasted years doing what probably most everybody does in their pursuit of net profitable trading searching for a never losing holy grail to markets, looking at pretty much everything under the sun in the world of trading, trying to crack the secret behind markets...
I realized there is no secret, because there can't be a secret, as all markets are, is the sum of the activities of all participants with many different objectives, hedging, speculating, trend trading, mean reversion, etc etc.
Once I got that into my head and realized its just a numbers and probability game I went back to the very first thing I'd picked up, buying dips and selling rallies.
But even that didn't quite get me there yet.
What got me into the green was completely understanding that with a reward at least twice my risk I'd be net profitable with just above 33% winners.
It IS that simple.
People just start searching for complex explanations and methods when they haven't yet identified what the truly success relevant factors in any given endeavour are.
In trading its identifying a trend and doesn't matter much how you do that, wait for a pullback, and stick to at least 2:1 rr's.
And, most importantly develop the mental stamina to have the patience and discipline to do nothing else.
The rest is up to the magic of compounding.
Don't waste years of your life to seeking ever more convoluted methods with a million filters and a gazillion exceptions, and switching methods or time frames or markets etc just because you had a couple of inevitable losers that are an inherent cost of doing business as a trader.
In a nutshell what got me there was a simple method aligned with what markets do, move up, down or sideways, and fully and totally accept losses while being very grateful for the fact that all I need is winners being twice the size of my losers while staying above 33% winners to get my equity curve growing and keep it in that state.
'' post by 1BSD
i just got around to this post and i think this is really key information for me to digest. on most of my trades i was going for 1 to1 trades so maybe i should size up on those. while watching for the bigger trades to show themself.
I don't see you having any strategy at all. You have things you notice, sometimes you look at certain things, sometimes you use moving averages, etc.
You have no consistency in results because you have no consistency in what you are looking for.
On top of that, you have mental blocks. You mention being stubborn.
Add it all up, and it is really glorified gambling. How many casino gamblers thing they have a process to beat the house, when really they are just fighting randomness (and themselves)?
I would definitely stop trading if I were you, until you get fixes in place. You might have lost less than normal this past month, but you still lost. Then, when you are ready, trade the MES until you are profitable for a while.
1. Come up with a strategy that you have confidence works. Write it down, test it first, etc. (Most people never do this and guess what? Most people lose)
2. Trade only that strategy, don't deviate from your written plan.
I'd add more steps, but I don't want to overwhelm. Step 1 is tough enough by itself.
I found it very odd that you say you traded es 183 times and the trades stocks for 20 cents. The entire post has very little info on your 184 trades and your second post goes into this explanation of how you went Green? I'm not so sure about any of it really.
I would say that there is little to no info for anyone to tell you what to do and the best way to save money and stop losing is in fact to just stop trading.
Just a tip, if you want to quote someone else, use the Quote button to do it. If you're quoting from a post in another thread, use the Quote button, then copy the contents of the edit window (which will include QUOTE tags around the quoted material) into the edit window of your own post. You will get something like this:
I read your entire post twice, trying to make sense of what your were saying, before I realized you were quoting someone else. Then the light came on and it made sense.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
4 o July, laid out in bed with a bad case of food poison. Anyway maybe it’s time to give up, I agree with the guy who linked that thread. Maybe you should start over? What many don’t realize in this business is that failure is success. Questions…..
Why a 7800 tick chart? How did you come to the conclusion this was the best chart?
Support n resistance? Does it really exist? Lines here and there. Randomly throwing darts, is it not?
RSI, macd’s etc? Feel for trend? How so?
Why ma’s 200 , 50 etc.? Again, randomly throwing darts, is it not?
Doji’s, candle sticks etc? What makes you think a certain candle(s) look has significance? Dart throwing again.
I don’t wanna hear because somebody else said so. They’re all broke.
The only positive right direction I see is you lost 27k and continue to lose. You’re all over the place like many others. Can you survive this for a prolonged period of time?
Some advice without giving up the ghost…….
Do your own work.
Markets are Not random. They all move in prime numbers. Each bar whatever time frame, the high and low are of significance. Very important this is. Also highs and lows, what may be a low on a 1 hour might not be the actual low on say a 15 minute and so forth. Keep this in mind going forward.
Put in the work.
i do have a strategy though....everything i do is based on my experience as a trader. Im going to follow the post i mentioned advice' and look for 2 to 1's rrs. im actually very consistent....i make or lose 100 -200 per trade. its just that sometimes i hold for too long. usually lose money when its a reversal play....because im looking for trend plays.
i don't quite understand your strategy tbh. u look at very long term trends, then trade intra-day? it is like using your cholesterol numbers to fix a cough.
there is no need to be fearful of holding on to winning trades. it is the losing trades that you should be scared of.
YTD i've had similar number of trades (about 200), but rarely do i cut on same day. i've returns of 128% so far this year (long term sortino of 2.4 at moment) so it is a method that works for at least 1 person!
Now, i am not sure if you keep a trading journal or not but my personal take is: it is critical. If you don't have a trading journal, you are not ready to make $ from markets long term.
so far from what i can gather i should look for 2 to 1 rr's and scale up on winning trades...which so far im unable to do because of my small account size of around 30k....i can only afford 1 contract currently.
