5 Things I have learned in 5 years of trading!

padutrader said:
my advice after 30 years of trading is simple.......if you have any alternative source of income or profession do that.
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There you go again, giving advice. This one is a doozy. Your advice for anyone reading it is to find another source of income, and stop trying to trade. Yep, that's motivational.

It is funny reading this from a failed SIM trader, who was trying to trade micro FOREX and couldn't make it work. In SIM. Now all he does is make racist comments about how stupid Americans are, and tell everyone that trading is a lost cause and should be abandoned.
 
sebking1986 said:
1) A broker is not that important. 90% of them are fine so use whatever one you are comfortable with. I use CedarFX as I use Bitcoin to deposit and withdraw and it is very quick, also the tree planting is good. It all helps.



2) Social media “gurus” often don’t actually trade themselves and make their money conning the vast majority of people coming into trading looking for quick cash – don’t get caught out!



3) Nobody can give you a ready-made strategy and then send you off to start making money. A strategy is something personal to you in terms of time, risk tolerance, psychology, speed of the market etc. Take bits from different sources and then take the time to formulate and test your own strategy that fits your own parameters. There is no “one-size fits all” in trading.



4) Trading of any type is NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME! It takes time for the above reasons to first learn the basics and then formulate a strategy, test it thoroughly and implement it.



5) Set achievable goals – when you first start break even at the end of the month might be a great target for you and that is fine. Not losing long term is priority number one to protect your capital. Don’t compare your 1000hrs of practice to another person’s 10,000hrs. Be better than you were 6 months ago and focus on that.



What else have you all learned in your time trading?
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so yeah..yeah,yeah..

guys,how about PREDICTING / as we are all good at it/ what the OP is going to
learn IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS! :)
 
SimpleMeLike said:
all that work and effort, and can not even beat the Vanguard S&P 500 index. Save time and invest in Vanguard S&P 500 index and day trade.
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I'm just curious. How much work and effort, and time did you spend on it? Years? Sure, worthwhile automated systematic trading strategies can be hard to come by. But do you really think it's easier to just manually day trade instead?
 
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I think the broker is no longer as big an issue as it once was. There are so many out there now that are solid and reliable. Another is people being afraid of hard work and not having the commitment to ride the waves of success and failure. This is a business and needs to be treated as such. I think it's key to make sure you prepare yourself for lots of set backs like with any business but i have to say it will all be worth it when you have the time freedom to trade where you want and the money to do as you like.
One i would add is making sure you take trade management into you trading plan. So many have an entry and an exit i think you need to be absolutely sure of how you'll manage the trade when certain things happen either you let it run and let your risk to reward play out or you take partials. There can't be in between it has to one or the other. That comes down to your risk tolerance and your own personality
 
PursuitOfEdge said:
I'm just curious. How much work and effort, and time did you spend on it? Years? Sure, worthwhile automated systematic trading strategies can be hard to come by. But do you really think it's easier to just manually day trade instead?
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Hello PursuitOfEdge,

I spent about 1 - 2 years with automation trading. I waste time and it is useless, because you need alot money, +$100K, to build alot of uncorrelated trading systems in one portfolio.

You have to make sure all your systems have Edge and not curve fitted. AND most importantly, you want to the portfolio to beat the SP500 index returns. AND you have to know when to stop trading the systems when they start losing money. AND you have to keep looking for trading ideas to test. Where you going to get trading ideas from to program and test?

1 person doing all this work, just to beat the SP 500 index. I stopped and just contribute more money to the Vanguard SP 500 index each month. It takes 0 time to do this contribution. Time and Energy Saved from programming and seeking trading ideas.

Day trading Manual:
Much funnier, much relaxing, I pick my own time to trade and I one day can scale up to 50 contracts. Doing that automation bullshit, you have to run 1 contract per system.

ES margins is about $500 per contract. Automation stuff requires about +$100K just to get a bunch of systems. Business sense says day trade. Low cost.

You spend $100K doing automation stuff to make about 20% or $20K per year, if you over-curve fit, you are screwed. Waste of time and effort for little reward.

I can take that same $100k and trade up to 100-200 ES contracts and aim at average 5 points a day at $50 per point, that is $50K a day , make my money on the day and done in less time and effort.
 
SimpleMeLike said:
Hello PursuitOfEdge,

I spent about 1 - 2 years with automation trading. I waste time and it is useless, because you need alot money, +$100K, to build alot of uncorrelated trading systems in one portfolio.

You have to make sure all your systems have Edge and not curve fitted. AND most importantly, you want to the portfolio to beat the SP500 index returns. AND you have to know when to stop trading the systems when they start losing money. AND you have to keep looking for trading ideas to test. Where you going to get trading ideas from to program and test?

1 person doing all this work, just to beat the SP 500 index. I stopped and just contribute more money to the Vanguard SP 500 index each month. It takes 0 time to do this contribution. Time and Energy Saved from programming and seeking trading ideas.

Day trading Manual:
Much funnier, much relaxing, I pick my own time to trade and I one day can scale up to 50 contracts. Doing that automation bullshit, you have to run 1 contract per system.

ES margins is about $500 per contract. Automation stuff requires about +$100K just to get a bunch of systems. Business sense says day trade. Low cost.

You spend $100K doing automation stuff to make about 20% or $20K per year, if you over-curve fit, you are screwed. Waste of time and effort for little reward.

I can take that same $100k and trade up to 100-200 ES contracts and aim at average 5 points a day at $50 per point, that is $50K a day , make my money on the day and done in less time and effort.
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Thanks for your input. Wow, $50k a day with only a $100k account! I have a lot more capital than that, so thanks man, I'm gonna start day trading by hand! Big leverage for the big money, baby!

(I will also deliver Uber Eats on the side.)
 
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PursuitOfEdge said:
Thanks for your input. Wow, $50k a day with only a $100k account! I have a lot more capital than that, so thanks man, I'm gonna start day trading by hand! Big leverage for the big money, baby!

(I will also deliver Uber Eats on the side.)
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Hello PursuitofEdge,

Exactly sir.

Yes save your time and money. And do not go live by hand until you triple or quadruple your SIM account.

Day trading better than building alot algorithm trading systems portfolio to beat SP 500 index.

Easier and less time and effort to just bet on the SP 500 index long term. Those returns are good enough.

If you can't beat them, join them.

upload_2021-8-18_14-50-19.png
 
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