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This is popular misbelief that money to winners comes from losers in the same instruments. In fact losing traders constitute negligible amount of total volume. Profits come from the entire economy with financial markets acting as proxies. It's not as simple zero sum game as it seems. "Losing"...

Ultimately, the economy pays you in exchange for the risk you take. For example in CL you may open a position with someone who loses on that leg of the position when you win, but wins on the contango trade. There are many ways financial markets are ultimately connected to the "real" economy.

Don't focus on short-term result. That's a big mistake day traders often make. Focus on the long-term goal, doesn't matter if you trade 5 times a year or 5 times a day. This is career, not day by day competition.

Performance within one journal and performance through the entire career are two different matters. You only have one piece of information, which I intentionally wished to share. :) This is at first. And at second, suggest Baron to ban anyone from answering questions in whatever threads...

Both depending on conditions and instrument. In a wild instrument with good momentum, breakouts work like a charm. In something generally choppy like ES, fading pullbacks is much more effective (while not excluding some breakout signals completely).

Flat is good. Means just a little step forward and you're ahead. Most never achieve flat.

As long as you trade yourself it's rather a craft and not a business. Becomes a true business (in the sense of using others labor to generate profit) once you hire someone to trade for you. :)

Whichever is easier much depends on personality traits. So I'd recommend trying both ways and see which is more comfortable for you.

Yea, plus there must be a reason for a stop run. In other words, investing the money to move the market by 5-10 ticks in order to trigger a stop order only able to move it 1 more tick makes no sense in my view. I know many transform their losses into rationalization of some form like market...

Not planning to share what I do there for now. Not because it's something secret, just because I'm in the phase of my own personal research currently and got pretty busy with "real" family business last couple of months. :)

Probably. Not sure though if that is the case and if stop orders are actually sold. Also if there's say 10 cars order alone in some place, it will take more than that to move the price there even one tick most of the time during RTH. Not worth it IMO. So there's a danger mostly in obvious...

Lately in CL I enter with SLs (2 ticks room) and surprisingly get pretty good fills. While stop-losses are usually not where it's likely to attract too many people and thus never led to serious slippage as well. Trade less than 10 contracts though, much less. Don't know if HFT can "see" stop...

The best practical books I read on trading psychology were "Trading in The Zone" and Disciplined Trader" by Mark Douglas. As for letting or not letting profits run, know statistical metrics of your method so that you are sure which way is optimal.

Exactly. If you try to fight the market you will be very disappointed. It's much stronger than ANYONE, including top investment banks. Trading is about getting in before something likely happens, following the move and bailing before or just when it ends.

I trade afternoon and evening only due to time zone. Would love to trade in the morning. :)

Yep. Odds are most just die. :D Of course, most of those who start think it won't be them. Survivorship bias at work. My point is: there probably are smarter ways to succeed in just about any field without putting yourself in severely stressful "do or die" condition.

Thanks, RR! My personal experience is: we need recurring patterns/rules to put odds in our favor, but it's not as mechanical a list of say 5-10 parameters and go for it every time. Simply there are more nuances to every setup, which have to be considered.

Maybe not directly related to the topic, but I strongly believe that it's much harder for one to become a good trader when success in trading is "a must" condition to make a living. Extra stress like that almost never is helpful and usually the opposite.

I see. Well, probably being banned will be better for Surf himself. Taking time to re-think things away from continuous online communication can be a good thing too. Obviously Surf lost control in some cases, when could harm his professional reputation as well as emotional condition.

Anyone still believes Rodney is not Surf? :D I can't wait for some battle, missed ET actually, just was too busy for it. :)